Rate your LFS in the Bay area!

[10" Red Devil]

Oh and All about fish is coo, but their employees are a little whackadoo, I once watched as one of their employees took a sponge out of the bag, exposing it to the atmosphere (Huge no, no), my eyes dropped out of my head, then the employee laughed and said relax, its okay...look, he then proceeds to place the sponge under water and shake it, which releases some of the trapped o2, but how he can be sure it all escaped is beyond me, ever hear of micro bubbles. Then they wonder why they cant keep their sponges alive. A blue sponge no less, whata waste!!! Also this one employee is so in love with his unit that he constantly hits on the women in the store, constantly sending inuendos, once I came in and he was with kind of an older lady, and was like do you preferr small medium, or large tanks, hahahaha, the customer was all embarrased and was like hahaha, but you could tell she wanted to get the F outta there. He does this right in front of his employer and does not even give a F. They dont seem to give an F either. I wouldnt be suprised if one day you walk in there and there is some crazy orgie goin on!

[10" Red Devil]

How anyone can shop at 6th for anything other then hard goods, even that should be questioned, is beyond me. I mean every tank has some sort of dead or dying animal in it. Not too mention they love to stock things that will most definitely die in anyones tank, they totally overcrowd their tanks and the poor fish are like grid lock traffic on I-880. They do nothing to educate the customer. It is so sick I once saw some people buying some fish, first off it is tottally iresponsible to let the cutomer net their own fish. Dudes this is not pay and pak like the grocery store. I once saw a person getting some fish, they netted out a lion, yellow tang, purple tang, royal gramma, some sorta angel and put them in the same container with about a pint of water!!! It is fisking absurd how they treat their livestock. They also have a bazillion Nurse Sharks which Im almost sure they dont tell their customer is the same damn 8 foot shark you see when you go to Steinhart Aquarium and ######!

 

One time they had a chambered nautilus in their Coral display...high light, plus warm water=######ty habitat for a chambered nautilus!! I feel incredibly sorry for the big cichlids, and catfish upstairs, they have about a 2foot red tailed catfish, full grown green terror, peacock bass, several oscars, knife fish, etc in a 100 gallon display. WTF!!! You know those fish dont sell fast enough to justify this.

 

Am I a bleeding heart for aquatic life, damn right I am. Animals live such very short lives in comparison to us, why shouldnt they get a better quality of life. Why do they on top of having short life spans have to put up with this ######!

 

I mean low prices are good but at what cost man! Jeesus people these type of places give our hobby a bad rap!

 

Sorry to go a little off topic, but damn that place gets me mad. I guess the only good thing I can comment on the store, is that it is open till 10pm unheard of for a fish store.

[B16A2NR]

Red devil, Are you talking about Ray at all about fish? Mexican guy with a major gimp limp?

[10" Red Devil]

B16A2NR,

 

Cant tell you his name unfortunately.

[bngowe]

damn.. barely started posting here and already got flamed.. :*(

 

yea. i agree.. quality in 6th is bad. tanks are extremely over crowded....but like i said. . it's cheap.. ( man i have a feeling imma get flamed on saying that again .. )

 

most of the things i've bought at 6th have survived (considering that i live an hr or two away)

THere is this one fish store back home. . they would catch the fish ..in a net.. .then use their hand to take it out and put it in the bag.... or if its like some freshwater tetra... they wouldn't even let u choose out your fish ..but rather net whatever they can get.

yea. .u shouldn't let the customers catch their own fish ..because there are some clueless folks out there.. but i'd rather personally trust myself catching the fish.

 

WEll i mean .. i havent' really been to many other fish stores in the bay.. but one that i like a lot. . even prices arent that cheap..and rather moderate. . is. . lucky goldfish in oakland. .

the owner is helpful ..and when he nets a fish ..he uses a bowl to scoop it out to minimize stress.....now i like that..

I hate going to fish stores where the workers duno how to use a damn net. .and just madly chase the fish around and around the tank.

 

*also .. other than capitol aquarium in sac. ..there is O street Aquarium just around the corner to capitol ( capitol is on 29th and t street and "O street aquarium @ 30th and O street)

personally i like O street better. .. . it's not as big as capitol aquarium..but their saltwater selection is much larger than capitol. most of capitol aquarium is freshwater. .while o street sells more saltwater.

both places are very helpful and friendly. ..but capitol is so big. and sometimes so busy that it takes a long time to get any help or advice.

[10" Red Devil]

bngowe,

 

Hey sorry if you took my rant personally. I just hate that store is all, nothing against you.

[yoshiod9]

capitol is the one of the worst places to buy reef stuff in sac. there is one employee who mans the coral tanks whom has a slight clue about what can go with what, under what lighting, etc. i've heard some of the most preposterous claims from employees there. for example...a employee was asked what kind of coral is about as easy to take care of as mushrooms. the employee points out a "flowerpot coral"(goniopora) and says these are just as hardy as mushrooms and will live for years! i almost laughed out loud since that is just a blatant lie!

 

the stores here in sac are all worth looking at but i would never take the advice of any of the employees.

[10" Red Devil]

Yoshiod9,

 

Lol! Yeah I never buy reef stuff, but like a lot of aquarist I get into all aspects of aquarium keeping, and they have some of the best freshwater fish I have ever seen, including some real rarities!

[SSMangrove]

I like where this thread is going! The real story is revealed in a brutally honest way. Props to you 10." Say something about that store we went to with the 40 year old clown pleco's and the pay-to-feed koi. That was a riot!

 

SS

[yoshiod9]

fw just seems so boring to me, ya know? i had a betta when i was a kid....thats about the closest i've come to keeping fw.

 

ss- the store red is talking about is capitol. i always forget about all the crazy fw stuff they have...2 foot long bala sharks(i think thats what they are), 2 foot long clown plecos, 3 ft. arowanna(sp may be wrong), the electric eel!....soo many weird creatures. those koi are freaking monsterous too. i swear that one of them probably weighs at least 40 lbs. they got the fish that "likes" to be teased...another one that likes to "rub noses"....so many funny things.

[10" Red Devil]

yoshiod9,

 

I use to feel that way too, then somthing just snapped and I discovered how amazing freshwater could truly be. For instance Apistogramas, African Cichlids, Killies, Some Amazon Cichlids etc can all be very interesting to watch, especially the cichlids, they seem to be more intellegent then the average fish and display some really interesting behaviors.

 

Man and if you really want a challenge, even more challenging then a reef try a high light Planted tank, Aquascaped Amano style. Phew!

 

Don't get me wrong though, but I got much love for the reef hobby, hell its how I started! I know that is kind of backwards start out with a reef, but that is how I started.

 

I guess its like how some people really get into just the soft corals/lps/zoos and some get into the sps and only want the sps and think everything else is crap.

[SSMangrove]

Yeah, reef snobs get to me too.. (moustache man)

 

A good comment to make about freshwater is that the more colorful fish have an almost illuminescent "foilcard look" (much like an expensive holographic-like baseball card..?) where-as saltwater fish are generally more pastel, and consist of less yet still intense-but still 'flat' colors. The way I look at it is:

 

Some of the most colorful freshwater fish (apistogrammas, severums, etc..) sparkle with color highlights, like a high gloss paint job on a car.

 

Some of the most colorful saltwater fish (butterflys, angels, etc...) look painted as with a few colors of flat-no shimmer paint. '

 

Either way, I love both. If I had to choose between reef and a planted aquarium with apistos like 10" said, I would probably choose the planted aquarium.

[10" Red Devil]

Wow! SS you continue to amaze me with your open mindeness.

[theANEMONEA]

I dunno...If you ask me i think reef or just SW in general is a lot more interesting. I don't know if you knew this, Nick, but i've had like 10 FW aquariums before that bow7 i got. I had planted tanks, brackish, south americans, Blackwater...yadda yadda. That's why i don't really talk about freshwater much; i'm kinda done wit it. Anyway, what I like about reef tanks is how it's a little eco-system, you know? i like waking up and seeing something different about the tank every day, be it some type of polyp growing on the LR, some copepods scuttling about, a couple of spots of coralline, some type of symbiosis...I mean, you don't really get that in a freshwater tank. I mean, if you buy 6 tetras and 5 Danios, everyday you'll look in the tank and see 6 tetras and 5 Danios. You know what i'm sayin, reef tanks can be really unpredictable. I think FW tanks can be sick as all hell when they're done right. Is it arguable that a reef tank is less maintenance than, say, a planted FW tank?

[10" Red Devil]

theAnemonea,

 

Yeah reefs rock!

 

But I have never had more trouble or maintenance then when I did a Amano Style High Light planted tank, gawd was it hard, was worth the effort, but was a great deal more effort then any reef I have ever done. I have kept high light so-called hard to keep sps, lps, soft coral.