Strike three, no more business from me. I am fairly easy going. First off, most of the crew is very…read moreknowledgeable, I will give them that. I bounced back into the hobby after 10 years. I have 6 aquariums in my home all purchased since September. I have tetras, barbs, and south central and American cichlids in various tanks within my home. I love the hobby, especially the aqua scaping aspect. On my 125 planted tetra tank I wanted premium lighting, so I purchased (4) AI Prime 16 lights for around $1200.00 with tax. One of them stopped working within 2 weeks, never submerged, just turned red and refused to light up. I drove an hour to the store and asked for a replacement. I was told to go through the manuf. After reading multiple reviews online with horror stories of customers having to pay shipping back to AI, and then they refuse to honor warranties I said no thanks. So now I only have (3) lights with an 18' span on a 6 ft tank. Frustrating as hell, but OK, I overlooked that and said fine. Then I asked to purchase a large Gold Saum from their big cichlid tank. The employee bagged it up while I was looking at other fish in the back. My mistake for not looking in the brown bag before I left, I ended up with a Redhead Vieja. No big deal, I lost 2 hours of my day returning to get the fish I ordered and about $20 in fuel, the employee was apologetic and grabbed the right fish for me, so I moved on. My last straw was dealing with Dereck. I went in on Monday and asked him for a Starry Night cichlid. I showed him a video of my 180 setup and gave him a list of fish that I kept within it. He told me that the STarry Night would be just fine due to all of the hiding places and he pointed out that my Jack Dempsey's were much smaller than the Starry Nights and assured me it would be fine. He then showed me a tank and said they were in there. I said, where I don't see them, are you sure these are starry nights? He replied, "Yes, they are juveniles they don't get their chips until about 2 years". A Starry Night cichlid is a rare African from Madagascar and is compatible with South and Central American cichlids. But I have never owned a juvenile, I just did some research on the species and did not know if they looked completely different as juvies, so I took his word for it and took 3 of them home. I am looking at these fish in my 180 with all S/ C American cichlids thinking this can't be right. So, I Google searched "juvenile starry night cichlid" in images and NOTHING looked even close. I am scratching my head thinking they look like African Haps. So I search again under "Starry Night African Haps" and see star sapphire cichlids and realize this guy sold me the wrong fish. OK, no big deal, empty the rocks, driftwood, and scoop them up. An hour later and 2 towels on the floor I brought them back 20 minutes before they closed. One thing that was super frustrating was the fact that I didn't bring my debit card, and they said they couldn't give me a refund without the card, so I was forced into searching for fish to make up the $120 difference in store credit that I really didn't need or want. It was a Monday evening, so stock was low, and I didnt want to make a third trip seeing they are over an hour from my home and visiting the store usually eats up 3 hours or more round trip every time. I ended up buying some pearl scale koi angels for one of my planted tanks and was able to buy ONE Starry Night like I originally wanted. I left with my angels and 1 starry night cichlid. The next day I woke up and found the starry night dead and floating at the top of the tank. My Redhead Vieja was biting at it so I grabbed the net, drove over an hour back to the store only for Derek (the genius that sold me Star Sapphires instead of Starry Nights) to tell me he needed the original receipt (even though they could have easily looked it up in the computer) and a water sample. I said, your kidding, right? I told him that my water parameters are perfect, I have well water and a natural PH of 6.8. He said it says that I need these two things next to the register. I said you know I just bought this fish, and have driven out here numerous times, and you know I told you the tank he was going into, and you know you said the fish would be ok, and they are guaranteed, and you know I live over an hour away. I told him I am not spending $30 in fuel and 3 hours to bring a water sample when you have water in the bag with the dead fish. He said that is the store policy, I I asked, if he'd make an exception, I've spent like $3k in this store in the last 2 months alone. He said that the store policy. As I turned and walked away, I told him I wouldn't be back. He started laughing at me with his co-worker as I got to the door. This is not the way you treat customers. I am not a difficult customer, and I am very easy going, I've overlooked a lot of mistakes that cost me a lot of time, let alone money, but this was strike three for me.
