lobsternoob
08-07-2009, 12:05 AM
Ok, so as kind of a side thing I help an owner of a pet store and some of his customers set up, and maintain their aquariums. One woman who was a customer of mine (until today) just will not listen to me and is frustrating as all heck. I'm just posting this to vent frustration so feel free to skip reading it, here's the story.
She has a 40 gallon tank, and insists on using sharp, broken coke bottles as decorations, no clue why, they look terrible. I offered to sand the rough edges down a bit, and apparently that's unnaceptable. So in her tank she had a bunch, probably 30 or more painted glassfish. These have been dying at a rate of 2-5 a week or so the last month or more. I nicely explained to her the problems with these fish, and whats done to them, and told her to please not buy them because the dyeing process, and because they're not gonna live long. So she shined me on said ok, and so on. Today she calls me, tells me that her tank smells bad and she needs my help.
So I head over there and first thing i notice is there's a lot more glassfish, of course, she ordered 40 more of them off the internet. Theres like 4 dead ones stuck to the filter intake and a couple more floating and on the gravel in various states of decomposition, HMMM wonder why the tank smells?!?! She had also ordered 2 beautiful gold nugget plecos to take care of her algae problem, a tiny bit of algae on the glass that would take maybe 1 minute a week to clean off. I had also already told her not to put plecos in the tank, lack of food for them, bioload, and size... So I cleaned out the dead fish, did a water test, holy moley there's less ammonia in most hospital janitorial closets than her tank. Then i started on a waterchange, which every time i do she stands and watches me to make sure i dont spill a drop, even though I throw down a painters dropcloth when i do WC's for my customers. At this point I was pretty frustrated, and not really too happy with her take on fishkeeping.
THEN, she starts telling me how much her grandson wants a jack dempsey, and shes going to take him this week to go pick one out at the store, so my response is ok, well lets go to the store and get you a tank, and get it set up. I run a few extra filters for "instant" cycling, and have also talked the LFS owner into keeping extra filter medium running in a few filters for that reason. So getting a tank set up pretty quick wouldn't be impossible, and it couldn't possibly have higher ammonia than her tank of glass death. Her response, "Oh no dear, I wouldn't want all the work of having another tank." I'm like ok, well you might as well write those glassfish off right now, cause they're dead meat once you put a JD in there. Well no, apparently it'll be fine since they're very fast and brightly colored and that will throw the JD off. Plus since the JD wont be any bigger than 6 inches it couldn't possibly eat a fish that's almost 2 inches. Ya, maybe it wont eat them, but it'll pick the poor things to pieces. Talked to her for a while trying to convince her, wasted almost another hour of my time, and got nowhere.
So it finally came to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I told her I won't do any more maintenance for her unless she was willing to listen to my advice, was very clear that I'd help her stock with any type of fish she wanted as long as they weren't dyed and were suitable to mix. I even offered to get her my discount on fish she wanted (I get my fish at the LFS cost from the supplier). All unsuccesfully, its her tank, so shes going to do what she wants. She then refused to pay me, and told me to go somewhere very hot... She called me back this afternoon and lectured me saying it had to be my fault another of her glassfish died because of the waterchange I did, I wished her good luck with the JD and asked her nicely not to call me again and hung up.
End of huge rant, if your still reading this I'm very surprised. sometimes when i take care of tanks for people I just want to scream.
She has a 40 gallon tank, and insists on using sharp, broken coke bottles as decorations, no clue why, they look terrible. I offered to sand the rough edges down a bit, and apparently that's unnaceptable. So in her tank she had a bunch, probably 30 or more painted glassfish. These have been dying at a rate of 2-5 a week or so the last month or more. I nicely explained to her the problems with these fish, and whats done to them, and told her to please not buy them because the dyeing process, and because they're not gonna live long. So she shined me on said ok, and so on. Today she calls me, tells me that her tank smells bad and she needs my help.
So I head over there and first thing i notice is there's a lot more glassfish, of course, she ordered 40 more of them off the internet. Theres like 4 dead ones stuck to the filter intake and a couple more floating and on the gravel in various states of decomposition, HMMM wonder why the tank smells?!?! She had also ordered 2 beautiful gold nugget plecos to take care of her algae problem, a tiny bit of algae on the glass that would take maybe 1 minute a week to clean off. I had also already told her not to put plecos in the tank, lack of food for them, bioload, and size... So I cleaned out the dead fish, did a water test, holy moley there's less ammonia in most hospital janitorial closets than her tank. Then i started on a waterchange, which every time i do she stands and watches me to make sure i dont spill a drop, even though I throw down a painters dropcloth when i do WC's for my customers. At this point I was pretty frustrated, and not really too happy with her take on fishkeeping.
THEN, she starts telling me how much her grandson wants a jack dempsey, and shes going to take him this week to go pick one out at the store, so my response is ok, well lets go to the store and get you a tank, and get it set up. I run a few extra filters for "instant" cycling, and have also talked the LFS owner into keeping extra filter medium running in a few filters for that reason. So getting a tank set up pretty quick wouldn't be impossible, and it couldn't possibly have higher ammonia than her tank of glass death. Her response, "Oh no dear, I wouldn't want all the work of having another tank." I'm like ok, well you might as well write those glassfish off right now, cause they're dead meat once you put a JD in there. Well no, apparently it'll be fine since they're very fast and brightly colored and that will throw the JD off. Plus since the JD wont be any bigger than 6 inches it couldn't possibly eat a fish that's almost 2 inches. Ya, maybe it wont eat them, but it'll pick the poor things to pieces. Talked to her for a while trying to convince her, wasted almost another hour of my time, and got nowhere.
So it finally came to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I told her I won't do any more maintenance for her unless she was willing to listen to my advice, was very clear that I'd help her stock with any type of fish she wanted as long as they weren't dyed and were suitable to mix. I even offered to get her my discount on fish she wanted (I get my fish at the LFS cost from the supplier). All unsuccesfully, its her tank, so shes going to do what she wants. She then refused to pay me, and told me to go somewhere very hot... She called me back this afternoon and lectured me saying it had to be my fault another of her glassfish died because of the waterchange I did, I wished her good luck with the JD and asked her nicely not to call me again and hung up.
End of huge rant, if your still reading this I'm very surprised. sometimes when i take care of tanks for people I just want to scream.