Zoo Creatures tonight ...

[RayD]

I was store hopping today looking for a bunch of Peppermint Shrimp and/or a Cleaner Shrimp. The recent removal of ALL the Wrasses in my tank is allowing me the luxury of stocking shrimp again. It's been years! LOL!

So I thought for the hell of it I'd hit Zoo Creatures. Not really a long drive but a bit out of the way. They usually stock Shrimp. After looking over their terribly maintained stock tanks (each and every tank looks like a messy fuge) I spotted a Cleaner Shrimp and got all excited. OK no Pepps (no one has them right now) but I really wanted to start my collection of Cleaners and Bloods.

I asked the kid how much he was and after a 5 or 6 minute wait he came back and told me the shrimp wasn't for sale. I asked why and the kid didn't have an answer. So I asked him "you're not going to sell me that shrimp?" and he replied "no". I asked to see the manager and he said that the shrimp was a part of system maintenance and couldn't be sold. Since when are Cleaner Shrimp a part of system "maintenance"? C'mon I've been reefing an awful long time and never heard of that.

WTF guys ... I wanted the shrimp and no one could give me a decent explanation as to why I couldn't buy him. I was also going to buy a couple of other items (a couple Feather Dusters and a frag I spotted) so I bought NOTHING! I ended up with a couple of nice Feather Dusters at Petco. Hey when you're Jonesin for tank stuff you stoop to all levels to fulfill that jones.

All I could think of was the shrimp was hidden behind a humungus ball of Cheato and they were all too lazy to catch him. It would have been a little work but they didn't want to dig him out.

Very disappointed in my experience at the store and probably won't shop there again. It's not about price, or the fact that the tanks aren't kept that good, it's about the general attitude and the fact that I couldn't buy an item that was in stock and NOT marked "not for sale".

Never again ...

 

[JohnK]

Title edited

 

[gonorth16]

Hey RAY, I live right around the corner( 2 mins ) and I wont even go inside there. Had similar issues before

 

[jprince]

I'll never walk into that place again. Was told that I would get 10% discount for being a Veteran and the guy talked up how much they respect Veterans and Veterans should get a break etc etc. Well, when I returned for a skimmer that I had my eye on, all of a sudden they had to talk to the owner to see if I could get 10%. When they came back, they must have had a change of heart because I could no longer get the discount. Not only that, but an orchid doty back I purchased there was a terror in my tank. I called and spoke to the guy supposedly running the fish department, and asked if I could bring him back for credit. Sure they said...bring him in. So I did. When I got there, and the fish guy puts the fish back into a tank (no acclimation) he says that sorry, they don't give credit. I said what do you mean??? You told me I could bring the fish back. He says yeah, you can but we don't give credit. IMO they are liars and thieves and should be shut down. What comes around goes around.

 

[Bobbofin]

I gave up on them years ago. They have a nice set up, especially the bow fronts at the end of the rows. Too bad they take they take care of it so poorly.