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[Busy B]

When you shop for a new koi, what impresses you the most...the facilities or the service or both?

[rll]

The quality of the fish, I'll deal with the other two if the fish are good and the price is reasonable. My only problem I always want the expensive ones! In Seattle last weekend visited a dealer that had a tank of Tategoi that were incredible, but out of my price range. He made a good argument for spending more money to make sure that you'll still have a nice looking fish as it develops. "Four uglies or one beaut". makes alot of sense. Especially once you've seen a pond with nice big show quality koi. That's my two-bits!!

[Jackie Ramo]

I think that most times quality of fish and facilities go together unless you meant did they have facilities for humans :roll: Seeing a good big filter and good areation is more important than if they have prettied up the place to appeal to humans.

[Terri]

I past 2 years I've bought koi based on quality and references - I haven't seen the facilities as they are shipped to me. Previous to this, well it didn't matter to me much what the place looked like as long as it was "clean" and the fish appeared healthy. What turned me off the most was walking to a place and seeing "purple" water in the tanks/ponds in which they were still selling fish out of!

[GregBickal]

Its all about the koi :D Being someone who sells koi out of my garage, my facility is not that impressive. As for service, I do my best to make sure my customers are happy.

[Busy B]

What about if the dealer has 5 tanks and 1 net? His last shipment came from 5 different places.

[Terri]

WEll, does he sanitize the net between tanks? There's a garden nursury here that does that with formalin... mind you they have enough nets per tank but the they are not used primiarly for one tank or the other.

Really, that one net between several tanks, .. wouldn't impress me much.

What's worse is watching them toss fish from one tank to another... and then the staff wonder why there's costia or ICH(or something!) in all the tanks ... :rolleyes:

[Jackie Ramo]

There is a big nursery in the west end that does that, move sick fish from one tank to another.... I buy plants there but not fish.

[Wayne S.]

Jackie - I know the place you are reffering to - great place for plants of any kind but everytime I go there, some fish have very clear ulcers. The same water treats all the tanks. Since the equipment they sell is all aimed at water gardeners (no large pumps, no large filters, no skimmers or bottom drains etc) I would assume most of their customers don't know very much about health care and just keep coming back.
From a purchsing point both the facility and staff service are very important. The facility needs to be in a condition that implies the fish are being cared for. The staff should be able to answer basic questions and know how to handle fish.
Wayne S.

[Jackie Ramo]

Wayne, I'd hope the staff could answer more than basic questions, after all who will the customer come to when they have problems. Good knowledgable staff are who I would look for.

As an aside, my local Pet Smart the staff there have all taken courses, mind I do think the are courses supplied by the manufacturers to help them sell the products but they seem to be at least trying to train they staff.

[Mudsow]

I guess I look for health of fish. Since I've gotten a few koi at "pet stores" I'm obviously not in it for quality.

But I do frequent a few pet stores in the area and there are some that do seem to put more time into the health of their fish.

I can't say that I really are impressed with their fish knowledge, but then again I don't give them much of a chance, I prefer to get my questions answered by someone NOT selling me something. I've been on the selling end of the pet business and I didn't like it a bit, so I try to avoid the song and dance of salesman.

Mudsow