Oh Donna, I'm sure this is likely very real. I remember those kinds of calls every day and it is truly scary...
I will still never forget the minister's tank that I went to take a look at for the caretaker because she was worried the fish would die while he & his family were away and she didn't know anything about fish. She said all he told her to do was feed it and leave it alone, but she got worried when she couldn't see the fish in the tank anymore.
When I got there it was a 10 gallon tank with a 5 inch comet in there. It was only 1/2 full of water which was so green and "thick" you couldn't see anything. When I took the cover off of the HOB filter to see if the cartridge was in there or needed changing I found a silver pouch... He had put the cartridge in there but never took the carbon out of the silver foil pouch and poured it into the cartridge.. just dropped the whole foil pouch into the filter. It turned out he also had never done a real water change, only top off's, combined with gross amounts of over feeding. I still don't know how that fish was even alive.
A call my hubby took not long ago was someone complaining about a light fixture, just a basic fluorescent fixture for a 20 gallon tank. The guy's complaint was that he couldn't change the bulb because he couldn't get to it. Turns out he never removed the tape that holds light fixture to the cover during shipping and couldn't figure out how it all came apart.
Some day maybe I'll write a book of stories like that... anyone who works at a pet store has a running list of this kind of thing. This is why I try to educate when I hear people complaining about pet stores... while not all pet stores are good, neither are all customers. The worst part is that these kinds of customers tend to believe they know everything about keeping fish and it's the person they called for help who is stupid. They yell and scream and threaten and etc.
But you would be surprised at some of the stuff people call and complain about... some of them are really out there. Answering the phone was the one part of the job everyone hated most where I worked... we used to fight about who had to answer it.
Dawn
Dawn Moneyhan
Aquatics Specialist/Nutritionist
To learn more about me go to
http://www.helium.com/users/449334
--- On Mon, 8/6/12, DonnaK <donnalynneking@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: DonnaK <donnalynneking@yahoo.com>
Subject: [tropical fish club] Re: Oops.
To: tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com
Date: Monday, August 6, 2012, 11:47 AM
I assume this is some sort of joke? Donna
--- In tropicalfishclub@yahoogroups.com, "dan_mcmonigle" <Mcdaphnia@...> wrote:
>
> A kid said his platy has all the signs of being pregnant but has not had any fry. When asked if he was sure he had a female, he said he was sure and had checked a million times to see that she had the long tube like thing to deliver the babies with.
>
> A guy called the pet shop because when he tried to pour water in the tank,it all splashed out. He had the tank up side down.
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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