Dtackett
Valuable Member
almost all of us have had a bad experience at petco or walked out in disgust due to the tanks. well, ive dealt with them a few times on a professional level and this is my advice if you want your petco to improve so you can take advantage of the low prices while still getting quality livestock.
this is my advice to everyone when it comes to petco, and this is what I did and it worked.
go into the store, do a full eval of their aquarium live stock and take pictures. file a detailed complaint and say you want to be contacted. in my case I was contacted. within a few days I was contacted by our regional manager by phone. I spoke to him frankly, but professionally. if you want them to listen to you, you must show respect. remember, most often they wont know exactly whats going on in the stores. after a brief conversation I told him I can text or email him the pictures showing how bad the store was and explained to him how much money the store is losing. in my situation I was able to use our saltwater market against him. we have a very strong saltwater market out here with 3 saltwater specific stores within 15 minutes of each other, then a half dozen saltwater/freshwater stores outside of the chain lfs stores and we have about a dozen of them. after he got the pictures he called me back and asked if I could meet him at the store.
we arrived at the store and he asked me to show him the issues so I did. as soon as we walked up to the fish section the store manager came up and tried to defend the mess. this made it easier on me because before I had a chance to say anything to him he went into defense mode. as I walked through the area I showed coral that was browned out and covered in algae, fish with ICH so bad it looked like snow, nems with gaping mouths, starving fish, algae and cyno on everything, dead fish sucked to the syphon, and he was as disgusted as I was. I then pulled out my test kit and tested the water right in front of him. nitrates at 100+ phos at 4+ and the regional maganager was getting more and more angry with each thing I showed him.
he then explained to me that petco standards includes an mandatory 3 day quarantine process for all incoming fish and coral and treatments regardless of if parasites are found or not. I asked him if it looked like it was getting done. he agreed they were not following the standard as most stores don't.
He walked away with the store manager and aquatics specialist for a few minutes and then offered me the aquatics specialist position. I turned it down but I can image the other guy didn't get to keep his job as I haven't seen him there since.
now, the outcome of this ordeal was great. the store put all of their live stock in QT and treated it all appropriately (the regional manager approved the use of quality meds) they tore down all their tanks and filtration and cleaned it all top to bottom. there were no fish available for sale for almost a week. now, the recovery and training took them a while. the tanks got a little bad again but the store manager was able to correct it and get everything right again. when I go into the store now, the store manager is always nervous because he knows ive got the bosses number but its never bad. they brought in a new aquatics specialist and the guy knows what hes doing. I spoke to him briefly about his setups which include a 210 reef, 90 sps, and a 55 tall seahorse tank. he says they are slotted to get the new tank setup next year which will include a frag tank running an 8 bulb ati t5ho fixture on one shelf and a 4 bulb t5 fixture on the second for the low to mid light corals.
im not saying everyone will have this same experience. im not saying petco as a whole will be fixed because of this. but doing something like this will do more good than just complaining about them on a forum. be proactive. we all want the deals that petco offers. their fish and coral are cheap and now that they own F&S and LA they have access to more fish and coral than ever before. but in most cases if no one makes it known at a higher level that their stores are junk, nothing is going to change and they will always have junk livestock.
this is my advice to everyone when it comes to petco, and this is what I did and it worked.
go into the store, do a full eval of their aquarium live stock and take pictures. file a detailed complaint and say you want to be contacted. in my case I was contacted. within a few days I was contacted by our regional manager by phone. I spoke to him frankly, but professionally. if you want them to listen to you, you must show respect. remember, most often they wont know exactly whats going on in the stores. after a brief conversation I told him I can text or email him the pictures showing how bad the store was and explained to him how much money the store is losing. in my situation I was able to use our saltwater market against him. we have a very strong saltwater market out here with 3 saltwater specific stores within 15 minutes of each other, then a half dozen saltwater/freshwater stores outside of the chain lfs stores and we have about a dozen of them. after he got the pictures he called me back and asked if I could meet him at the store.
we arrived at the store and he asked me to show him the issues so I did. as soon as we walked up to the fish section the store manager came up and tried to defend the mess. this made it easier on me because before I had a chance to say anything to him he went into defense mode. as I walked through the area I showed coral that was browned out and covered in algae, fish with ICH so bad it looked like snow, nems with gaping mouths, starving fish, algae and cyno on everything, dead fish sucked to the syphon, and he was as disgusted as I was. I then pulled out my test kit and tested the water right in front of him. nitrates at 100+ phos at 4+ and the regional maganager was getting more and more angry with each thing I showed him.
he then explained to me that petco standards includes an mandatory 3 day quarantine process for all incoming fish and coral and treatments regardless of if parasites are found or not. I asked him if it looked like it was getting done. he agreed they were not following the standard as most stores don't.
He walked away with the store manager and aquatics specialist for a few minutes and then offered me the aquatics specialist position. I turned it down but I can image the other guy didn't get to keep his job as I haven't seen him there since.
now, the outcome of this ordeal was great. the store put all of their live stock in QT and treated it all appropriately (the regional manager approved the use of quality meds) they tore down all their tanks and filtration and cleaned it all top to bottom. there were no fish available for sale for almost a week. now, the recovery and training took them a while. the tanks got a little bad again but the store manager was able to correct it and get everything right again. when I go into the store now, the store manager is always nervous because he knows ive got the bosses number but its never bad. they brought in a new aquatics specialist and the guy knows what hes doing. I spoke to him briefly about his setups which include a 210 reef, 90 sps, and a 55 tall seahorse tank. he says they are slotted to get the new tank setup next year which will include a frag tank running an 8 bulb ati t5ho fixture on one shelf and a 4 bulb t5 fixture on the second for the low to mid light corals.
im not saying everyone will have this same experience. im not saying petco as a whole will be fixed because of this. but doing something like this will do more good than just complaining about them on a forum. be proactive. we all want the deals that petco offers. their fish and coral are cheap and now that they own F&S and LA they have access to more fish and coral than ever before. but in most cases if no one makes it known at a higher level that their stores are junk, nothing is going to change and they will always have junk livestock.
