MLAARE -Air Pumps

It's amazing how many people call work, thinking that we're a 'know it all encyclopedia" of knowledge here. I mean...it's a retail job. Even for a petstore where you do have to have a lot of knowledge...we don't have that much knowledge. Not the sort of knowledge that experts, veterinarians, biologists, people who study specific creatures would know....

Yet still they call, thinking to get an answer.

It's always a moment of dread when the phone rings.
The wonder of 'can I actually help this person?'
I picked it up.
To have a guy calling to find help.
About his cichlids.

As he'd done a water change a couple of days before.
Done everything like normal.
Added the chemicals like normal to treat the water and make sure his system was all square and happy.
Only to wake up the next morning to one of his cichlids dead, and the rest acting "Docile and swimming in a group." Something that obviously wasn't normal in his book.
It didn't sound normal to me either, as Cichlids can be rather active unless they're stressed out and it sounded like something had stressed them out.
So what did he did?
Well, he thought he may have gotten too much of a chemical or something into the water and so he did another quick water change which seemed to help for a little bit....only the remaining cichlids returned to their docile state.

I spent like 10 minutes talking to him.
Going over options.
That no, he shouldn't do another water change today, it was possible he'd added too much salt and chemicals, blah blah blah.
Until we finally reached a solution we both thought was viable.

I hung up,
Only to have him call a few minutes later and ask.
"Hey, I just remembered, my air pump went out about that same time, could that be why they're being docile."
O.O
Uh.
YAH!!!
Ugh.

I mean...I'm no expert in the big fish tank systems. I was young when we had the bigger tanks growing up.
But I've been around fish enough to know that if there isn't a lot of oxygen flow in the water, fish can die.
The feeder goldfish do it all the time it seems like if there isn't enough flow into the tank.
It's not too far of a jump to guess that other fish would suffer if the flow of water they're used to suddenly disappears.
It suddenly makes sense as to why they're acting 'docile' swimming together. Why one died.
It was the lack of oxygen flow in that tank.
And I told him so.
I also told him to come and get a new pump ASAP.
After all, the longer he waited, the more likely it was that his other fish would decide to kick the bucket as well.

It wasn't much longer later, like a couple of hours, that he showed up, and bought himself a new air pump.

I can only assume that that fixed his problem, as I didn't hear from him again.
(Doesn't mean he didn't call the store again, just means I wasn't there if he did.)

But seriously...
I'd think that would be an obvious solution to the problem.
"My air pump quit working, oh my fish are acting weird, oh no one died!...I should go buy a new air pump."

*shakes head*

-Sarnic Dirchi