big al's(innes) list of dead fish for october!

[Shouganai]

It is not easy to be a retail pet store employee. My hat is off to those who try to do the best they can in a very tough and emotionally demanding business.

I found I got very jaded in my time in the industry. It wasn't such a big deal with fish for me, but seeing the conditions other animals had to deal with made me very angry sometimes. And I worked at a store that I'd consider was one of the better ones for knowledge of proper husbandry!

I love all animals, and I have quite a myriad of different pets. But knowing what I know now about how the pet industry works.. I don't see how anyone that truly loves animals can work in that environment without it weighing on their conscience greatly. Again though, I'm talking more about non-fish animals than anything.

[Mettle]

I don't see how anyone that truly loves animals can work in that environment without it weighing on their conscience greatly.

I would even wager to say that about people who support the industry. Or at least don't try to curb buying into it as much as possible... It is tough some days.

What I hate is seeing a perfectly amazing animal at a store fore ever and ever and no one buying it because it's "not a baby" and everyone "wants a baby".

There's two cases of this at my store right now. One involving a ferret and one involving a bearded dragon. I'd take them both home if I had the time/space/money. But then again, you can't save them all.

[Shouganai]

I would even wager to say that about people who support the industry. Or at least don't try to curb buying into it as much as possible... It is tough some days.

Agreed. I will never buy herp from a pet store again, and aside from feeder mice, I'd never buy a mammal, either. Its probably the case with fish too, but the stock you can get from reptutable breeders is so much better quality in the case of herps and small animals/cats/dogs. There is no such thing as a responsible breeder selling their stock to pet stores.

I'd have been fired from my job very quickly if mgmt had overhead me telling people where to go to get the same products cheaper, just not pet-branded (ie pool sand, fixtures for herp tanks, etc). For me, it was just about making sure people went home with the knowledge of how to provide the best for their pets.. not about how much comission I could make. I think customers appreciate that.

[mseguin]

Wow this thread got alot of posts before I even saw it. Anyway, as an employee I thought I would weigh in.
#1 The list is not "posted", it's a list we keep tom keep track of fish losses, what supplier they are from, etc. It must have been out on the counter by accident
#2 It's probably for a longer period than that. We've been keeping that list for a long time.
#3 This list includes DOA's, fish that arrive dead from the supllier. THe shipments usually come in right before closing, and some of the fish will look iffy, we'll put them in anyway in teh hopes they'll recover, and sometimes we come in the next mroning and they ahve, and sometimes they haven't. Unfortunately we don't ahve room for quarantine tanks like some places do.
#4 BTW, I completely understand your concern about fish's health. I would never argue we are doing a perfect job of taking care of the fish, but we are trying our best but are limited by several factors, such as staffing, health of fish from supllier. As for the "general perception" of how we take care of the fish, well I think that has been mainly propogated by a website I will not name, many of who's members seem to ahve a unnatural hatred for BA, especailly the Innes location. Let me assure yuo their pereception of our devotion and expertise is much much lower than the truth.

[93GTCANADA]

r u small with curly hair and glasses. and my other question is did the blue tang die ?

[mseguin]

Nope not me :-) Actually I can't think of who that might be. As for the tang, don't know. I'm only in once a week right now so I can't really keep track of where the fish go.

[aidensmomma2000]

its a known fact for some time now that big al's innes dont take care of their live stock that much, even take whole lot of time to throw away the dead ones!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Im pretty sure this is slander, no?

[Julie]

93 - fish die all the time in the store and in our tanks.
I've had many discus die, I think though if they come from a proper environment their chances of living are much higher.

Julie

[aidensmomma2000]

Adding to Julie's point, my discus from Lloyed have always done much better than those from stores.

[BigDaddy]

its a known fact for some time now that big al's innes dont take care of their live stock that much, even take whole lot of time to throw away the dead ones!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Im pretty sure this is slander, no?

Actually, in print, its libel   :lol:

[Aiglos]

its a known fact for some time now that big al's innes dont take care of their live stock that much, even take whole lot of time to throw away the dead ones!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Im pretty sure this is slander, no?

Actually, in print, its libel   :lol:

Only if its not true.      

( I've never been to Big Als innes;  I just like to joke )

[darkdep]

Actually, in print, its libel   :lol:

I don't know why, but I've heard that line in so many movies, and every time I hear it it's still as funny. :lol:

[az]

93gt - yes the blue tang died.

rest of all: 'i repeat' i am not here to bash big al's, if i need something, thats the first place i would goto!

maybe the thread heading was a wrong choice, my bad.

[Sailfin]

In all, I think all the petstores (head office of course) need to look at their sales strategy.  It's not only Big Als with poor fish care......it's all stores with prices!    I've noticed that the same group of Blue JD's have been sitting at the SuperPet Merivale location for some time now.....Nobody will be buying them at the price that they want!   I also been watching the T. Duboisi there.....One them actually matured in the tank there!  I first started watching them when I noticed one losing it's spots and the yellow stripe started to appear.....over the months, it's still there...still for sale.....still nobody will buy it at the asking price.

Alot of my fish.....Cichlids, various community fish, plants.....I got them right here on this site, or at the auctions.   I'm happy with the prices, if there is any at times, quality of the fish.

[repeej]

And what's with Big Al's having sales that run from Friday to Monday?  Why not run them the entire week?  A little frustrating walking in there on a Wednesday and not being able to get the sale price.

It's too bad there are no "independant" LFS' here in Ottawa worth shopping at.  I find there's always a lack of good ol' customer service in these larger chain stores.  

Just glad there are classy people on here to buy fish from and share a couple stories.

[Nerine]

I agree sailfin...we had two massive red albino oscars sitting in our store for months...they developed hole in the head, other disease from the water not being to their specs...it's just general fish water low ph, etc but they were there for ages until one killed hte other and we finally gave the other away.

[az]

And what's with Big Al's having sales that run from Friday to Monday?  .....

you can chk weekly big al's special(ontario) here:

http://www.bigalscanada.com/fish_specials/fishspecmain.html

[repeej]

Those are only "weekend" specials az.  I was told so last night.

[Mettle]

In all, I think all the petstores (head office of course) need to look at their sales strategy.  It's not only Big Als with poor fish care......it's all stores with prices!    I've noticed that the same group of Blue JD's have been sitting at the SuperPet Merivale location for some time now.....Nobody will be buying them at the price that they want!   I also been watching the T. Duboisi there.....One them actually matured in the tank there!  I first started watching them when I noticed one losing it's spots and the yellow stripe started to appear.....over the months, it's still there...still for sale.....still nobody will buy it at the asking price.

It's a little thing called retail mark-up. Any price you see on anything in any store is obviously not what the store paid for it. In the case of Super Pet Merivale, I do believe when they first opened the fish room manager there did not do all of her own ordering and thus some items (although incredibly interesting) were ordered in without regard to the price or what they would have to be sold for. It's part of working in a retail, sales environment.

And believe it or not there's a lot of people out there willing to pay a lot of money for fish. They may not be incredibly knowledgeable, and you could argue that they're being 'taken advantage of', but in the end they pay it.

For some people it's not about getting stuff as cheap as you can. It's about getting what you want when you want it.

[mseguin]

The Toronto area stores now have week long sales. Ours are still weekend sales, which doiesn't usually cause problems since the majority of custoemrs come in on Saturday or Sunday.
I don't mean to be harsh or anything az but if the point wasn't to bash, them I'm unsure why you posted this. BTW not accusing you of slander, all you posted is that we have list, which is true, but alot of what's posted on that other site is demonstrably false, therfore slander.
As for the prices, I agree, on some of the more pricey items the prices could stand to be a bit less. (but not a ton) I can't discuss the actual markups, but IMO, they are quite fair. The prices are governed by the price from the supplier, as well as shipping costs. Obviously the prices on here are gonna be lower, BA can't compete wit that, it is after all in the business of making money.
As for lack of customer service, I strongly disagree that the service at BA is lacking. I have seen every staff member there spend 10-15 minutes or longer on many occasions helping a custoemr setup their tank, or pinpoint the source of a porblem, treat a disease, or select appropriate fish. Sometimes we are a bit understaffed, but on the other hand, patience is a virtue that seems to ahve vanished from the world.
As for fish dying in the store (assume you're talking about Saturdays mainly since that's when I see you), we do our best to keep the fish healthy, but alot of fish are just in bad shape from the suppliers. For example, since livebearers are so hardy, they are packed in bags so tightly teh fish can barely swim. I've seen goldfish packed so tightly they're some more slime than water in the bag. And the cichlids that come from some of suppliers are clearly overbred and kept in rotten conditions. I agree completely that Loyed's discus are better than the oens you see in a LFS (unless the ones at the LFS came from another reputable bredder perhaps) but that is the fault of the breeder, not the store. Also, on Saturdays we are udnerstaffed so we pretty much don't ahve any time between serving customers to remove any dead fish, that's why it seems like there are a lot.
Sorry about the long post. I welcome constructive criticism of the store and what the staff do. What I don't welcome is accusations such as "The staff doesn't take care of the fish" or "Their staff is not very knowledgeable", or accusations that th poster would have no way of knowing and are demostrably false.