This past Thursday I stopped by Aquarium Gallery in Hudson, NH. While I was browsing around I saw a nice Flame Angel for sale and thought it would look great in my tank. I asked for the pice and it was 60.00. It was a bit over priced but I decided that it would be worth it anyway. I got an associate to bag up the fish for me. He netted the fish and then put him in the bag. I got home and acclimated the fish. I placed him in the tank and as soon as he was in the water I noticed that he had "popeye." I did some research and posted about popeye and found out that one of the causes is being netted. To me this is the most likely cause since he did not have it before he was netted. I wanted to see if there was any way that I would be able to return the fish back to the store so I called the store the next day when they opened. I spoke with an employee named Mike. I asked him what I should do about this and he told me that I could bring the fish back in. The next day I spent an hour taking out all of my live rock and corals so that i would easily be able to catch the fish, bag him up and bring him back to Aquarium Gallery. I got to Aquarium Gallery and spoke with a blonde guy who I assume was some type of manager. I explained him the situation and that I had spoken to Mike. He took the bag and walked over to one of his tanks and then floated the fish in the water. He then poceeded to say "Alright well you can square it up with Mike on Tuesday." I was very confused from this statement becuase I thought I was bringing the fish back and getting store credit or my money back or something. He then said that our policiy is displayed on the wall. I explained to him that his employee told me that I could bring the fish back. The reason I called a couple of days before was to ask the employee what the policy would be for this situation. If the employee had told me that there was nothing that I could do and that I would not be able to bring him back then I wouldnt have wasted all of my time doing so. I asked the manger if he was willing to do anything at all and he did not. He then accused me of doing the damage to the fish and was extremely rude to me. At this point i grabbed the fish and brought him back home. On my way out the door I asked him one more time if was willing to do anything to make this right. He said no. I told him that he would be loosing out on a customer and he proceeded to say "I understand that. That's fine." The reason I am so upset about the situation is becuase I called to find out, I was told I could bring it back, I brought the fish back, and I was treated like crap. The manager did not stand by his emplyee or even care about the trouble I went through. I am completely shocked at the way I was treatd in there. In my opinion based on my experience their customer service is horrible and non existant.
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maybe he will read this and find out that netting of a $60 marine fish is a no-no(not saying that this caused the fish's issue)
) of fish and seen co-workers and other aquarium industry folks net tens of thousands more. It is safe to say that any given fish will have passed through many nets from the time that they are collected from the reef, transferred, shipped to wholesale and then sold to stores for resale. I am confident that the nets of The Aquarium Gallery will not do any more damage than the others. Disease and/or injury are caused by disease and/or injury.
