Abarnswell said:
I am so amazed at what some LFSs will sell folks. I have seen a number of non-reef safe inverts in the reef tanks. Starfish are particularly bad examples. Most, if not all, are either NOT reef safe or can't survive long in a small reef tank because they will deplete their food supply quickly, then starve.
The worst thing I've seen was at the largest most expensive LFS in town.
I watched a family load their new 180g oceanic tank/stand/canopy/sump/several boxes of LR/etc.... into a suburban. They only had one bag of salt. So far it isn't a big deal.
Then I watched them load up 4 BOXES of coral and fish. They had angels, tangs, butterflies, clowns, gobies, a bunch of different LPS and softies, and even a clam.
At this particular store all of this easily came to over ten grand.
No one that I saw tried to mention to them that there's such a thing as a cycle, or that even if your tank was cycled, that dumping that much livestock into it at once isn't a good idea, or that a lot of the fish weren't compatible together, or reef-safe.
I actually went out in the parking lot and tried to explain to them, but they didn't speak very good english, only portugese, and my spanish is so weak that it wasn't any help, and on top of it they were very arrogant.
I was really hoping that they already had a tank, and were just setting up another one. Nope.
The salt they had wouldn't have been enough to get the salinity up to the level to properly cycle the LR. Every living thing they bought had to have died.
We have 13 stores in Houston that have decent saltwater departments. There are several other smaller ones that have a tank or two. This isn't counting PETCO, (cause they suck), and we had 3 others that went out of business over the last couple years. When I say that you can't trust your LFS, it's because I've seen LOTS of other examples of stores lying to people, making up info that's just wrong, selling people stuff that they don't need, etc... Of course we do have some really good stores, with some very honest, knowledgeable, responsible people. But the only way to be able to get to where you can judge that is by doing a lot of research on your own, so that you can figure out who you can trust for advice and who you can't.
B
