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I live in a small town and I just started a tank. Walmart has been highly disappointing *as expected* so I searched out the only pet store in the area. It is half pet store/ half smoke shop. There was a wall between the 2 parts, but you get the idea of quality here. I went to find something (anything!) to add calcium to my tank, and the lady there tried to tell me I didn't actually need it. She said she's been doing fish and whatnot for 35 years, but I know more about the snails than she does, and I've only been at this for 2 weeks.

Welcome to the forum

My LFS also know very little about aquatic snails (apart from breeding them as food ). They also have had the business for 30 - 40 years and think they know it all because of this....but i've had chats with them where they were so incorrect I was .

Perhaps the LFS sells coral gravel/sand/fingers? You can buy liquid calcium online on eBay or aquabid. There's also a sticky in the care section listing calcium rich foods like kale.

Have a good read around this site....there's some great ideas and helpful advice.

Janet

I have come to the conclusion that you can count on about 3 fingers how many LFS employees you will meet that REALLY know what they are talking about...

I have come to the conclusion that you can count on about 3 fingers how many LFS employees you will meet that REALLY know what they are talking about...

I totally AGREE!!!! They just sell the stuff... don't know much about it... and my favorite part is when the owner/mgr is not a people person. I don't know why they are in People business when they are really rude and nasty .... but people go there because they are only one in town. ... I can't figure this out for the life of me!!!!! Get outa da business!!!

Nancy

thats hilarious. but sad for the animals. I'm always informing people who come into the LFS where I live on how to take care of w/e because the owner just says, "we sell books on fish". The old fart wont hire me though. ugh

Sadly the majority of fish books are wrong or missing key points, too. I caught the person that supplies our pet books and handed him a list of the authors we want for aquarium books. Luckily, he knows I know what I'm talking about, so he's going to tell his bosses that we need to get them because any book I recommend will sell a lot more...the ones we have, I tell the customers not to waste their money on.

We had to find homes for a lot of our snails and my hubby-rayanders-works right near a PetSmart and asked if they'd take some. The manager told him that they can only buy from their own suppliers and he could donate some if he wanted. Today I picked out 14 snails-2 of every color we had-and also included a snail care paper and the address of this site. The manager took one look at the snails and said she wouldn't sell them there, they were so pretty and healthy she was taking them home to her own tank! For free! I'm glad that they have a good home and won't have to spend time in the store tanks but she could have at least asked if we would trade for fish food or something. . People are funny--the older I get, the more I realize it. I wish we had a nice Mom & Pop type fish store around here where the people knew what they were talking about. When I bought my first snails, I asked why all the snails were in a bare tank and inside their shells and the salesperson told me that they don't come out unless there's food and all they eat is algae . I'm glad I found this forum pretty soon after that. I lost 2 snails before I found it .

Its a shame how people can be so adament but so very wrong. And when they are it costs lives.