Anyone have funny pet store/beginner stories?

[Dr. Dendrostein]

That's because some of the old aquarium had stainless steel frames, especially at pet shops, and the shock was stray voltage.
My opinion

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Anyone remember Woolworth or Montgomery Wards for fishes and diner/cafeteria to eat.

 

[fish farmer]

I raised pirahnas as my first fish when I was young. I had a one eyed one that I had gotten as a baby for free from the LFS. I brough it back in for store credit when it outgrew the tank. I handed the bag to an employee and he proceeded to write me up $15 store credit. He handed me the credit and was taking the fish over to a tank. He looked at it and said, "You never told me it had one eye." I told him, " You never asked."

About a month later my fish had been getting picked on by the larger pirahnas. I felt sorry for it and was going to buy him back. When I got to the store someone had beat me to it and bought it that day. I cashed in my credit and bought a pirahna with two eyes.

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

Back in the day they had stainless steel bands on the tanks, ie the 60's. I am not an electrician but I think it is static (stored energy) or maybe they were leaking power and by touching two you make the circuit, and POW just like Bateman.

 

[Blue Spot Octopus]

Jomama you mean Monkey Wards.

 

[MSB123]

Bump

 

[40B Knasty]

I can't tell you how many fish I have saved, but I have a few stories that I had to step in.

Once I was talking to a woman and her kid about their two clown fish. Then she says the big one's name is Jake and the smaller one is Princess. I laughed and said you might want to switch their names around. The big one is the female and the male is the smaller one.

Was browsing around Petco. Looked at the saltwater tanks. I went over to the guy working. Umm come here I want you to see something and tell if you notice anything wrong. He says "yeah that fish is not looking to good. We have to wait for it to die before we can take it out." I said "well it is going to since it is a freshwater fish!" It was one of the freshwater silver sharks.

Same Petco on another day. Guy was all gangsta. Had a lot of money to spend since he had $10,000 arapaima. He flashing his money and gold rings saying "yo I want that fish. What is it like $200. I want that fish yo." The guy was about to sell it to him. I stepped in being an owner of a Figure 8 Puffer and said, "you might not want to put that fish in your tank." He says"yo what do you know!" I said," I know his flesh is 10,000x more poisonous than a drop of cyanide and if you want to drop him in your tank and your arapaima that your friend was just bragging about makes a snack of the puffer. Your friend isn't going to have anything to brag about when you go to the pet store." Worker looked at me and ohh.. I didn't know that.

At another LFS. Guy sent his tank in to get drilled. I was checking out the fish. All of a sudden you hear pop! Smash! Back glass completely shattered everywhere. Then the rest came crashing down.

 

[Jose Berry]

My puffers (GSP) love to not only play tag but play fallow the laser beam. I found this out when my nephew was playing with our dog having it chase the laser beam. I guess not seeing any harm he flashed it at the sandy bottom of my tank and my puffers immediately went after it. I later got one of my puffers to do donuts trying to get it. Made him spin around so fast he stopped swimming and just sat there for a bit.

LFS story, my local fish store tried selling my friends a few things that weren’t compatible. I stepped in and gave guidance boy weren’t they happy. It’s also happened to me where they try to sell me things I don’t need and when I turn around and tell them what I know they keep there distance.

The pic was taken today he was just chilling.

Also my fire arms include a ruger .40 and ruger 9m. Love home safety lol.

 

[Billdogg]

Pardon my ignorance, but why did they have steel bands that would shock you?

To keep the kids away!!!







Old tanks were made with a steel frame and sealed with tar. I still have one someplace in the basement - it's well over 40 years old and holds water just fine. Because grounding plugs and/or GFCI didn't come to be until years later, some stray voltage was not entirely unexpected. They often sate on wrought iron stands as well, providing a wonderful path to ground.

 

[Eastlake]

I worked at a local fish store for something on the order of 8 years or more and there are far too many stories to ramble off on one forum but I'll list a few. One of the most frustrating incidents is when I had to explain to a woman why she couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she couldn't put clown fish in with her angelfish and, wait for it, tetras. I nicely explained to her over course of TEN STINKING MINUTES that saltwater fish cannot live in a freshwater tank to which her reply was a consistent "why not? they're all tropical aren't they?" Well after explaining the best that I could in laymen terms I finally dropped some science on her with osmotic pressure and what have you and she told the manager on me. He came back and said, "Osmotic pressure huh? She must've really peeved you off." The gentleman who was patiently waiting his turn to have his fish bagged up asked me why he couldn't put clowns with his tetras, I thought I was going to blow up when he laughed and said, "I'm an EMT, I can't believe you explained thing son the cellular level to that woman."
This ones more of a tip, when working at a LFS that has both fresh and saltwater and someone asks you to bag up damsels always ask what they're going to put them in with. Turns out at least 50% they want to put them with their freshwater fish as they don't realize they've wandered into the saltwater section and saw a pretty blue fish for $4.99.
I don't know how anyone could ever fall for this old line: I was at a pet shop with my friend and her boyfriend and overheard one of the workers telling them that the American alligator that they were eyeballing would only grow to the size of the 20 gallon tank that he was going to tack onto the sale. She promptly came and got me so I could hear what the fellow was saying and immediately interjected and told her that the alligator would grow to be 10-16 feet long. Makes me wonder how many alligators were sent to homes, where, after the gators outgrew the tanks were released into local water ways where they then died because I'm in northeast Ohio. Lets not even overlook the fact that that shop and the one I worked at as well would sell alligators in the first place. To cover my own hide here I never sold a gator and got in trouble for talking people out of buying them and talked them into a far more sensible leopard gecko. Oh, the store I worked at even once had an anaconda........ Who the heck needs an anaconda!?

 

[MSB123]

My wrasse loves the pet laser!

 

[Daniel@R2R]

gotta love it! But I did see a blue ring in a store about a hour from my house and I was asking questions and the 20 something guy said some along the lines of "Of yeah, they are totally cool! I have one and it lets me pick it up! Want me to grab it for you so you can hold it? what the heck! The manager saw him going for it and had to pull his had out of the water because he was going to kill himself!

 

[Eastlake]

I heard the only way you can actually tell if it's a blue ring octopus or not is to put it in your mouth and sing sweet Caroline

 

[Greybeard]

<snip>To cover my own hide here I never sold a gator and got in trouble for talking people out of buying them and talked them into a far more sensible leopard gecko. Oh, the store I worked at even once had an anaconda........ Who the heck needs an anaconda!?

Good for you, on not selling American Alligators to unsuspecting pet owners... Most folks really aren't prepared for something like that. If you _are_ prepared, and capable of meeting the needs of an adult Alligator... fine. Not like they're endangered. They're not my idea of a good pet, but to each their own. I've known people with adult black caimans that were quite successful with them, and enjoyed keeping them.

I will say, however, that Anaconda don't really fit into the same category. You can successfully keep an Anaconda in a cage no bigger than the likely 'average' sized aquarium for folks on this site. They're not hard to feed, unlikely to injure an adult keeper... beautiful, interesting... I've kept large pythons, and enjoyed having them as a pet. I've also kept (and bred) large Varanids (Nile and Water monitors). Much more of a challenge. I quit keeping large reptiles when my first daughter arrived... having a creature in the house that would be happy to eat our newborn, given the opportunity, was somehow upsetting to my ex-wife. Go figure

Need? None of us here, excepting perhaps a few of the scientific types doing research, have any demonstrable 'need' for keeping marine aquaria. It's a hobby. Keeping large reptiles is also a hobby. In a free society, you don't have to show 'need' in order to pursue your dreams.

 

[Eastlake]

Good for you, on not selling American Alligators to unsuspecting pet owners... Most folks really aren't prepared for something like that. If you _are_ prepared, and capable of meeting the needs of an adult Alligator... fine. Not like they're endangered. They're not my idea of a good pet, but to each their own. I've known people with adult black caimans that were quite successful with them, and enjoyed keeping them.

I will say, however, that Anaconda don't really fit into the same category. You can successfully keep an Anaconda in a cage no bigger than the likely 'average' sized aquarium for folks on this site. They're not hard to feed, unlikely to injure an adult keeper... beautiful, interesting... I've kept large pythons, and enjoyed having them as a pet. I've also kept (and bred) large Varanids (Nile and Water monitors). Much more of a challenge. I quit keeping large reptiles when my first daughter arrived... having a creature in the house that would be happy to eat our newborn, given the opportunity, was somehow upsetting to my ex-wife. Go figure

Need? None of us here, excepting perhaps a few of the scientific types doing research, have any demonstrable 'need' for keeping marine aquaria. It's a hobby. Keeping large reptiles is also a hobby. In a free society, you don't have to show 'need' in order to pursue your dreams.

That critter had a mean streak in it a mile long by that I mean it was striking the front of its enclosure every time someone walked by, but I agree with your take on the anaconda, and it definitely doesn't need the foot plan that a gator does and you're 100% right, none of us need to have reef tanks but darn it it sure is fun. The anaconda was shocking to me when we got it in because I had never even considered the possibility of one ever being available from whoever supplied us with the snake. I'd seen dozens of large monitors and other large reptilia, insanely huge reticulated pythons included, but for some reason the anaconda was the one thing that made me scratch my head, like you said to each their own. Only two people that ever came into the store had built an enclosure prepared to house an adult gator. One fellow had turned his basement into a vivarium and another person turned his garage into a green house.

 

[mta_morrow]

I was in the Navy in the early 80,s on an aircraft carrier. We were ready to deploy to the Mediterranean for 6-8 months.

Some sailors would bring a little mascot along, like mouse, gerbil, lizard or whatever.

I decided I wanted to get a tarantula (de-fanged of course)

So I went to the pet store to check them out.

I saw one I liked and the girl who worked there got it out for me. She wasn’t scared and neither was I.

She had me hold out my hand, palm up, and placed the hairy guy on my palm.

I then realized how huge it was! It was almost the size of my hand.

Then, in the blink of an eye, or maybe faster, that tarantula ran up my arm and was on my neck like a vampire!

I freaked out and I’m pretty sure I screamed like a girl for someone to get it off of me!

The clerk removed it, I left the store, and I have been scared of spiders ever since. Especially big hairy ones.

I enjoyed my tour of the Mediterranean pet free.

 

[Greybeard]

That critter had a mean streak in it a mile long <snip>

Yup. Common attitude, for Anaconda. Especially green anaconda. That's why Pythons are so much more popular

Back in my reptile days, I was wandering through a shopping mall pet store, they had a full grown adult male Iguana. Gorgeous. Bright green, in tact tail, spines and frills... every bit of 6 feet long. Just a really, really nice example. Cheap. Asked the lady if I could get him out, she said sure, but I was going to have to do it myself. Cage was one of those in-wall kinds, you gotta walk through a little hallway behind the cages to get to it. She's explaining to me that the iguana came from a college frat house. They'd bought it as a juvenile, put it in a cage, and never handled it. It was mean.

So, I grab the thing, it gets a claw up behind it's head far enough to slash my wrist open. I take it to the 'puppy room'... like 4x4 room, half door, and sit him on the floor. While I'm trying to staunch the blood flow with a paper towel, he lines up and bullwhips me across the thighs with 6 feet of tail. Repeatedly. Left welts across my legs, through a pair of jeans.

Wonder what they ever did with that thing

 

[Eastlake]

I've been on the receiving end of those tailwhips and they're not fun, and those were from juveniles, I can't imagine what getting one from an adult would feel like. The only experience I have with an iguana that large was when someone traded one in, the only time I had ever seen one that was primarily orange, and it was one of the sweetest animals I've ever met. You could hold it to your chest the same way you would a child and it would jusr rest its head on your shoulder and it enjoyed getting its nose rubbed. I wonder whatever happened to that critter?

 

[Eastlake]

As for the mean one you mentioned, I hear they grill up good. But in all seriousness I hope they didn't just let it go somewhere or neglect it behinds closed doors

 

[Greybeard]

As for the mean one you mentioned, I hear they grill up good.

Gallinas de Palo

Chicken of the tree