LFS offer no support

brief history of my LFS/pet store experience

My girlfriend wanted a veil chameleon, so I finally snuck off to the pet
store one day and bought one for her with everything (cage, food, etc.). I
bring it home to an excited yet concerned woman. She tells me that
everything they instructed me to buy was wrong ...The cage was glass (not
mesh) and now he could see his reflection. It was also to short and didn't
provide for enough ventilation. The heating pad was wrong too. They need
to have a light and never a pad because they will walk on it and burn
themselves and also because they are never on the ground. I also didn't get
told about the special UV light I needed to prevent a calcium deficiency
disease. I went back and bought a UV bulb and a heat lamp along with some
other things. I also decided to build my own cage.

When I was starting off with African Cichlid's I went to the petco because I
didn't trust the LFS/Pet store that sold me the Chameleon. I was able to
get some advice from the kids working there, but again I was getting false
information and this time I knew it because I had been researching (this was
something I was into unlike last time it was my girlfriends thing). I ended
up getting a nice collection of Cichlids up and thriving, but it was hard
for me to figure out what most of them were. I spent many hours searching
the Internet looking for what type of Cichlids they were. I went to 4 other
stores only to get pushed in the wrong direction each time I also noticed
their tanks were so dirty and nasty that I would not want those fish, so I
always ended up coming back to that petco because they at least had
clean/healthy looking display tanks.

/brief history

Well now my problems with the LFSs are compounded. I am trying my hand at
marine tanks and I am on my own as far as they are concerned. I have been
back to the 'chameleon' store to be told to come back when Chris is working
(he is never working) or to PetLand where they only sell salt and skimmers,
no fish, no help. I went to a feed place on the west side that sell
sal****er fishes. They were rude and the tanks (which were a lot) looked
bad. The LR was 8 per lb! I made it back to Petco hoping to get some help
and I was directed to the "sal****er guy". I'm asking questions and making
my list of things I'm going to buy when I get to the question about LR and
he stops me there. He doesn't know anything about it??? My questions from
that point on went unanswered.

That is the point where I doubled my reading on the subject and started
reading every post in NGs like this. Thank you all for taking the time to
answer posts.

I think I'm going to search my butt off for a close by sal****er group or
club.. I'd love to get into reefing (after I move) but wouldn't mind have a
few tanks to look at in real life first.