Beware of Advice from Tri-City Tropical Fish!

[Acoustic]

Many of you know that I recently helped my dad setup a 29 gallon reef tank. I spent the cycle period teaching him how to maintain water chemistry and everything about reef keeping. So after the cycle I fragged my frogspawn and gave him the frag. I also gave him my plate coral so I can have room for clams. I also went to Tri-City Tropical fish with him and picked out a very small less than 2 inch Ocellaris clown. I normally would suggest getting the fish last but his grandkids, (not my kids), NEEDED a goddam NEMO. So anyhow, I call him today and asked him how everything is doing. He told me that he went to Tri-City Tropical fish to buy a coral. Someone there ended up selling him a bubble tip anenome and a cleaner shrimp. That someone also told him that the clown would not host on the frogspawn and would actually kill him. I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS! So now he has been maintaining his reeftank for less than 2 months and this is what is sold to him. He even told that someone at the store that he has a NEW reef tank. So now I had to spend a gajillion phone minutes explaning to my dad the reasons why not to have an anenome and how clown fish will host on just about anything including powerheads and heaters.

 

This is not the first time I have had problems with them. I AM SO MAD AT THEM FOR DOING THAT TO MY DAD!

 

So if anyone happens to venture into that store please, please, please, talk to the owner if you hear anyone giving bad advice.

[Gilman]

Did you call em and light em up?

 

Gil

[Acoustic]

I am going to first thing tomorrow morning.

 

And you know what else............

 

My dad called me back about an hour ago and said that it had moved to the frogspawn coral and was stinging it. So he got upset and flushed the anenome. I am now sick to my stomach. I cannot believe how emotionally disturbed I am because of this incident. Part of me feels guilty for telling him about the anenome and ultimately leading to its demise, part of me wants to find the guy who sold the anenome to my dad and shove a bristle worm in his eye, and the other part of me wants to scream at my dad for not reading before buying and flushing the anenome instead of placing it in a container in the tank as a quarantine.

 

Sometime I wish I never had a reef-tank for this reason. I by no means am not a bleeding heart environmentalist. But this whole reef hobby experience has definitely changed me.

[Gilman]

Bristleworm in the eye!!!

 

Well it sucks that your dad just up and flushed the anenome, but I'm sure its not the first time your dad did something that ####ed you off right? I say let him know he blew it, and tell him about reading up on stuff before purchasing it in the future. Maybe he will listen. Maybe he won't. I would definitely light up the LFS guy or better yet, his boss.

 

Gil

 

ps. did you mention to your dad that he could have just moved the frogspawn a few inches away and taken the anenome back later?

[ninhsavestheday]

i was at tri city tropical the other day and they were just pick up live stock out of the bucket and dropping it into the tank. tst tst tst.

[LITTLEFISHEE]

Acoustic, I just helped my parents set up a reef tank also. I can relate to you being angry at your Dad for buying the anemone, mine can't stop buying detructive creatures (pencil urchin, decorator crab). If you have any books give them to him. That was the only way I could get my mom & dad to listen to me. And rule no. 1 should be: Do your homework! Rule no. 2: Salespeople aren't always a wealth of correct information.

 

Don't waste your energy with the salesperson, ultimately your father bought the anemone. Noone forced him.

[MrSaltyDog]

Wow...I'm surprised that your dad got bad gouge from Tri-City Tropical. When I used to live in Oceanside, and was new to the hobby, I used to frequently visit Tri-City Tropical. I knew the owner and some of the people in the store. I know that they had some young kids working there who weren't THAT knowledgeable, but they were never worried about referring me to the adults running the store if they didn't know the answer. When I was new to the hobby, they were very careful about what they sold me, and wouldn't sell me anything that was incompatible with my tank, or anything that I simply was not ready for. They were definately very helpful and I learned a lot from them.

I no longer live in the San Diego area, but when I read this post, I was surprised to hear the bad review of Tri-City Tropical. Anyway, there's my two cents. I hope that everyone else will have the same good experience that I had with them. Take care all.