bad advice thread

[Rjmul]

Curious about this. I wanna get a thread going talking about some of the worst advice you've gotten from an LFS

I have roughly 4 stores within an hour drive.
some are better than others but they all offer something different. The one closest to me is also the oldest standing. Great for quarantined fish, dry goods, and moderately sized aqueon and marine land tanks. The owner is an old head stuck in his ways. He doesn't say much but you can tell he's seen some sh**. his employees are goofy

I went in this week for some salt. As most of us do, I try pick the employees brains.

I bought some Red Sea blue bucket.
once I got to the register I said to the employee, "yeah I'm switching to this from instant ocean. Instant ocean mixes too high for where my alk likes to holds. Right now I'm running it at 9. And worst case scenario if I get a spike I can water change it out with this."

he goes "yeah Red Sea has two salts. The pro is made to be used with RO water cause it has all the extra stuff. This one is for tap"

I just said ok and walked out.

 

[justinfreeburg]

My lfs once tried to sell me a coral beauty angel for a 20 gallon long. I knew they needed a lot more room and I told them I already had 2 clowns and they insisted it would be okay long term so I said I'm fine and left. I have not gone back since and now drive an hour to a different store where they don't try to be salesmen.

 

[CanuckReefer]

Curious about this. I wanna get a thread going talking about some of the worst advice you've gotten from an LFS

I have roughly 4 stores within an hour drive.
some are better than others but they all offer something different. The one closest to me is also the oldest standing. Great for quarantined fish, dry goods, and moderately sized aqueon and marine land tanks. The owner is an old head stuck in his ways. He doesn't say much but you can tell he's seen some sh**. his employees are goofy

I went in this week for some salt. As most of us do, I try pick the employees brains.

I bought some Red Sea blue bucket.
once I got to the register I said to the employee, "yeah I'm switching to this from instant ocean. Instant ocean mixes too high for where my alk likes to holds. Right now I'm running it at 9. And worst case scenario if I get a spike I can water change it out with this."

he goes "yeah Red Sea has two salts. The pro is made to be used with RO water cause it has all the extra stuff. This one is for tap"

I just said ok and walked out.

Lol! This one is awesome. Not sure I can beat it, so I'll just hang up and listen....

 

[blasterman]

One local reef store has a crazy psycho manager that hates LEDs. Sets all his tanks up with halides and calls people morons who do otherwise.

So, he buys a few high powered LED fixtures like radions , cranks them to full, and kills all his SPS in the top half of the tank. Proves his argument.

 

[Juniorh2r]

When I first got into the hobby I didn't know much my LFS actually sold me a Doser with all the red seas abcd and alk,cal,mag huge dosing system which wasn't needed for a tank I was just starting never told me anything about testing myself so you already know what was the result of that. Sadly some are just out to make you spend unnecessary money and some just give you the craziest advice. Best way is to do your own research and forums like this.

 

[polyppal]

he goes "yeah Red Sea has two salts. The pro is made to be used with RO water cause it has all the extra stuff. This one is for tap"

I just said ok and walked out.

Man, I need to get some of this TDS/chloramine removing magic salt! Will make my life so much easier!

 

[PeterB113]

Had my LFS tell me " all euphyllias are ok to group together"...........

 

[polyppal]

I had a discussion with a LFS employee once about RODI water. She said it was unnecessary because the corals 'filter out' the toxins...

Needless to say that shop didn't have any corals

 

[Melanie D]

When I first got into the hobby a LFS Sold me a coral beauty for a 29gal. My mistake in not researching first. Sadly it got stressed out and died. Then they told me that it was OK to have a mandarin in a 4mo tank that didn't have a good pod population and said "you can buy them". After lots of money on pods and a skinny mandrin later I wised up and stared doing research on my own. When they suggested it was OK for a start fish at 6mo I decided they wanted to just sell and didn't care about the fish. Luckily I found a better store that discouraged me from getting a starfish until my tank was at least 12mo. I donated my very skinny mandarin to them so he wouldn't die.

 

[FishTruck]

"We can't get this fish to eat... but... I'll bet it will turn around in a nice reef tank like yours!"

"We don't worry about Ich anymore... there are lots of reef safe medications that work fine".

 

[Mike konesky]

"yes, you absolutely need to use rodi and we sell it for 50 cents a gallon." Tested before I took it home (brought tds meter) tested 300+ tds. "Oh that's totally fine". Walked out after pouring it down his sink. Concord aquarium, Concord CA.

 

[polyppal]

I remember buying like 2 dozen tetras from a Petsmart for one of my planted tanks, and the girl gave me a dozen extra for free.

She said she gave me a bunch of free ones 'because half will probably die in a day or two'

(note: all but like 6 died)

 

[DE FISH]

Haha you know the one the LFS water can be worse than my tap. I learnt a ro filter at home is a must very quickly.