hello all I wanted to vent for a second. My disclaimer is I have not visited every LFS on the island.
So as I complete the build phase of my 50 gal cube I started to scope some of the LFS. When I was in the hobby about 5-6 years ago I had a few go to places mostly because of my location in Holbrook at the time. This is a great hobby and it kills me that it's not more widespread so I like to support the LFS as much as I can.
Fast forward to day, I had a day off and decided to check out aqua hut, country critters, and magic isle. It was disheartening to see what was going on and it was at this point I realized that there in my opinion aren't any good LFS in my area. Here was my experience today.
Aqua hut: this place is number one on my do not go to list. I used them years ago when I was in the hobby last time and let me say what a decline in the store from then and now. I've been to aqua hut a few times in the last few months. Today I went in and there might have been 1 other customer in the store. There was about 4 teenagers maybe 17-20? Who I assumed where working there one girl behind the counter on the phone , 2 guys doing what I assumed was tank maintenance, and the 4 th horsing around the store. I was there for a total of maybe 15 mins and in that time it was like I was invisible, no one asked if I needed help or if I had any questions. Now generally that's the way I like it I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable and prefer to be left alone while I observe the live stock. One of the boys where working in the isle where they keep a lot of there invertebrates, I was walking down the isle looking at the tanks and realized I was getting dirty looks from the employee like I was in his way. But enough about the employees let touch on the reason I will deff not be going back and that's the live stock. All the tanks where dirty and there was a dead fish in almost every tank. The coral was almost all covered in algae and discolored. Nems where in tanks that had no lighting and all the live rock they had for sale was covered in detritus. As I walked through I was thinking to myself " my god how can anyone who has decent knowledge about this hobby come in here and buy from them". This wasn't just one time this is what I have witnessed over and over again from this place and today was the straw that Broke the camels back
So as I complete the build phase of my 50 gal cube I started to scope some of the LFS. When I was in the hobby about 5-6 years ago I had a few go to places mostly because of my location in Holbrook at the time. This is a great hobby and it kills me that it's not more widespread so I like to support the LFS as much as I can.
Fast forward to day, I had a day off and decided to check out aqua hut, country critters, and magic isle. It was disheartening to see what was going on and it was at this point I realized that there in my opinion aren't any good LFS in my area. Here was my experience today.
Aqua hut: this place is number one on my do not go to list. I used them years ago when I was in the hobby last time and let me say what a decline in the store from then and now. I've been to aqua hut a few times in the last few months. Today I went in and there might have been 1 other customer in the store. There was about 4 teenagers maybe 17-20? Who I assumed where working there one girl behind the counter on the phone , 2 guys doing what I assumed was tank maintenance, and the 4 th horsing around the store. I was there for a total of maybe 15 mins and in that time it was like I was invisible, no one asked if I needed help or if I had any questions. Now generally that's the way I like it I consider myself to be pretty knowledgeable and prefer to be left alone while I observe the live stock. One of the boys where working in the isle where they keep a lot of there invertebrates, I was walking down the isle looking at the tanks and realized I was getting dirty looks from the employee like I was in his way. But enough about the employees let touch on the reason I will deff not be going back and that's the live stock. All the tanks where dirty and there was a dead fish in almost every tank. The coral was almost all covered in algae and discolored. Nems where in tanks that had no lighting and all the live rock they had for sale was covered in detritus. As I walked through I was thinking to myself " my god how can anyone who has decent knowledge about this hobby come in here and buy from them". This wasn't just one time this is what I have witnessed over and over again from this place and today was the straw that Broke the camels back