Big Al's Aquarium Supercentres - Edmonton — Local services in Edmonton

The staff is not knowledgable enough and have a very bad professional approach to deal with problems faced by customers.

After I moved from Calgary to Edmonton in the end of January 2019. I wanted to have an aquarium. Because I had a betta fish when I was in Atlantic Canada and I had him for about an year, I wanted to have another betta fish. Last time I got the betta fish from Kijiji and the previous owner told me that she feed only two pallets a day to her betta fish.

This time in Edmonton I went into BigAl’s, just because I’m starting of this hobby and wanted to have a full aquarium instead of a betta bowl and needed advice. The first time I went to the store on March 11, 2019 and bought my first aquarium.

I have bought two aquariums, all my supplies and many fishes from them. I bought red, white and blue Dumbo half moon betta on March 16, 2019. Every time I went in to buy anything I always ask questions so that I’m not doing anything wrong later. Hence while I was buying my betta fish. One of the questions I asked was how much should I feed him and how often. And this particular store employee told me that feed one pallet at a time and if He take it then give another, keep doing it until he stopped eating any further. He also told me that remove the remaining one pallet once he’s done. I clearly remember that I even asked this guy that my goal is to introduce this better fish to my 15 gallon tank along with some other fish after the tank is cycled. But how I will feed him the way you are telling me once there other fish is also in the tank. To that he replied, that is one of the reasons why I do not recommend bettas to be in a community tank.

So I started feeding him the way he prescribed. To my surprise he would eat 10 - 12 pallets a day. He kept on eating this way for about for 4 to 5 weeks. And then he stopped eating altogether. It was three days since he hadn’t eaten anything that I went into Pet Value near my house for my pet dog grooming. They also carry betta fishes. When I told them about what’s happening with my beta fish they were surprised that how can anybody from a specialty store can give me such a bad advice to feed my betta fish. The girl over there told me that they feed one pallet every other day to the bettas they have. And I was thinking that maybe I was starving the previous betta fish that I had after this bad advice from the big Al’s employee. I found my betta fish dead after not eating for seven days in the morning of the 14 April 2019. I was so much in love with him, I had named him Freddy and he was on my YouTube channel all my viewers knows that. I don’t want to share the links to my videos here because then some people may think that I’m trying to promote my channel. But there is a recording of the day when I found him dead and anybody can feel the pain that I was going through.

being a responsible person I went into their store on 17th April 2019 to inform them about the whole incident. I talked to some other person because I couldn’t find this guy at first. While I was talking to this other employee I saw this guy who gave me the wrong advice and informer the other employee about him. He asked me “now what do you want” I wasn’t expecting that question because I have done professional work all my life and would never treat any of my clients like that. So I replied to him politely at least talk to this person and let him know that please do not give such a bad advice to somebody else who rely on you for the correct professional advice because many people like me do not have much information about this hobby when we are starting off.

I was also told that maybe your tank wasn’t cycled. But my answer is this betta fish remained in a bowl for 4 weeks. And I introduce to him to Aquarium after my aquarium water cycled. Again following the advice given to me by them.

just a couple of weeks ago I bought another Blue and white half moon betta fish from bigAl and I was feeding him the same way until got to know the right way to feed him from Pet Value. word...

I love Big Al's and usually have a good experience there. I'm giving them 4 stars because historically they've been great. My last visited warranted 2 stars, however, so I thought this was a fair compromise. [Review has been edited since this post - addition at the bottom]

The biggest issue was one team member who seemed to take a liking to the friend and I that visited. I'm not new to fish keeping but had to take down my tank a few years back and am just starting it up again. I went for supplies and a look around to try to decide what direction to take with it. The staff member lingered too much. They were very helpful but were just too overstimulating, and I really wanted to just check things out.

Towards the end of our visit conversation went way off topic and went into personal matters. When my friend and I corrected him on some of his information that was obviously not his expertise, he was offended. It made for a very awkward experience.

When I checked out I asked different staff members that were at the desk if I could get a hand carrying the heavy items I purchased to the car. They hesitated to answer and just looked at each other.

It is not apparent to most people but I have disabilities, and lifting heavy objects is incredibly hard for me. I have help at home to move these kinds of things. My friend took them instead, but that hesitation and no response was an answer in itself. We were literally parked right in front of the door.

Hopefully my next visit will go better.

Edit: my next visit wasn't better. I've been keeping fish for well over 20 years. My tanks have been down for the last few years because we moved and keeping the tank running wasn't feasible. I went in to get some starter fish after getting my tank cycled again and simply asked for a few specific fish. The gentleman helping wanted nto help, I get it, but I was in a hurry and had to ask a couple of times just to get the fish and that I was confident that my tank had cycled and I didn't need to run through the basics with him. I asked for a male and two females - you know, keep things even, don't stress the girls with too many boys, so on. I wasn't given a chance to see what was getting bagged because another employee engaged with me and distracted me. I wasn't terribly worried and was ok with whatever colors. Except I ended up coming home with two males and a gravid female who is showing signs of spawning only two days after getting her home. Moving gravid females is risky to her health and I'm disappointed that that's the girl that was chosen.

I used to frequent Big Al's while our tanks were active and the service was great and the people knowledgable, but I'm losing my confidence in them quickly. My online account is inaccessible and customer service wouldn't help, the store didn't have what I had tried to order online but had technical issues, and I think it's simply time to try some other aquatic...

My husband and I are new fish people, and went to Big Al’s in hope to be able to pick the brain of knowledgeable staff. Some of the staff there were really standoffish. We initially talked to one guy who rushed through our questions and just didn’t seem to want to be there. So we got the hint and went to find another staff.

Brianne ended up helping us and she was so patient and friendly. We ended up going home with two fish and two plants. When we got home, we discovered that one of the plants wasn’t one we asked for, so we called right away and brianne said there was probably a miscommunication. What happened was she had actually spent a considerably long time going through all the different plants they carried and eventually we found two we really liked (Sagittari sabulata and Hygrophila rosanervig) and had spent 10+ minutes talking about the care of it. We even bought iron supplements for the rosanervig under her recommendation and took a picture of how to diagnosis it if the leaves looked a certain way. Anyways, when we were ready for her to package the plants, we pointed out what we wanted and she asked us if it was the sagittari and anubias gracilis and we just said yes. I mean all these plant names are just a foreign language for us. We assumed she knew it was the two plants we spent a long time talking about and we also pointed them out. And no, the anubias gracilis was not next to the rosanervig. It was in a different tank on the other side. Regardless, I wasn’t upset with her at all... she asked the manager and they said it’s fine and we can bring it back and exchange it.

So I went back and I guess it was another manager on shift. I explained what happened and asked if we can return the plant but not do an exchange today. We realized with a 5 gallon tank, two plants made the tank look super busy. He said fine that I can have store credit today but that was he doing me a favor. Told me I should understand that due to the nature of these living things, I can’t just buy and return when I change my mind. I explained the situation again and this was simply a case where there was a lost in translation with plant names. He said the order form was written correctly per what we took home (which is funny he mentions this because the anubias cost more than the rosanervig). Basically he was insinuating that that was no fault on his end according to their paper trail. Honestly, if I was given the right plant to begin with, it would not even have crossed my mind to return it even if it didn’t fit in my tank.

All in all, I appreciate brianne taking the time to help us but I did not appreciate my last interaction with who I think I was think was a manager. Now I have a $20 store credit and a large bottle of iron drops which I...