So some of you may or may not know I once worked at petco. I worked there when I turned 18 because what teenager didn't want to work at a pet store, and by the time I was 19 I was the aquatics specialist and I was in that role for 3 years while in college. I just wanted to give people a deeper look into how things worked at petco and point out some hypocrisies I see on this website, and no I don't expect to change any minds with this post. Now buckle in because this is a longer post
Petco; like any store; varies in quality depending on the staff that work there. There are some stores where they could care less about salt and only order clowns and damsels for their store because it's too much of a hassle, and sometimes even give blatantly wrong info to customers. At other stores you had people that really cared and would order more obscure or expensive fish, and probably know a lot more than your average joe about the marine aquarium. I myself gave out my personal cell for anyone that had questions or if they wanted me to order any specific fish for them. To the point where more than half of my phone contacts were just fish people. One of the things that annoys me about working at petco is one fish I have will come in underweight and we get the "what do you expect from a petco" yet people will go to a lfs where half their fish have ich, has no qt process whatsoever (essentially a treat once you see it store), and has told me he could care less about fish he cares far more about corals and inverts, and they have a 4.9/5 on google. One lfs I went to I heard an employee say a mimic tang was actually an angel and that derasa clams only live a few months in the aquarium, and of course while I was there there were diseases everywhere, and the fish where anywhere from 2-5 times as much as our fish... 4.5/5 on google.
Now that leads me into stocking. Yes petco has some really bad vendors. The one that comes to mind is apet, their sizes are inconsistent and the health (mostly just tangs) is questionable. For instance I ordered a koran angel one time and they send a sub adult where its getting its adult colors (that sold instantly since it was like 30 bucks). The next one I ordered was 2 inches long. However our other vendors are some of the exact same vendors that other lfs use and even some really popular fish like ora clownfish as an example, but because its petco everyone just goes "bad vendor" or "bad store" despite the fact a lot of the vendors are the same ones that your lfs uses because most of the vendors are regional therefore there is a high chance that your lfs uses some of the same ones.
Fish care... This one is painful. Essentially if you want to keep your job you either have to only order cheap fish and inverts so shrink isn't terribly impacted, or you have to break the rules... rules that get you fired. For instance petco doesn't let you treat with copper, or prazi, or metro, or anything anyone on here actually uses. They tell us to use herbtana and artemiss, and any petco employee will tell you that it doesn't work, I have even tried tripling the dosage and no improvements. So I bit the bullet and started buying the essentials out of pocket. Now no one will come into the store and test your tank for copper (thankfully). But because its against the rules if you get caught with it you will probably get fired, but since it is a rule you have no excuse to remove the rock and crushed coral they use, it can be a MASSIVE pain to get copper to therapeutic levels and maintain it. I actually only kept a really thin layer of crushed coral, and live rock (its more like concrete than actual rock). I was essentially running copper 24/7/365, except for the day before an animal shipment arrived I would throw a carbon pillow in the system to lower copper levels (which is why I prefer cupramine).
small side tangent here. I really love (sarcasm) the people that came into my store 3 months after getting a fish and demanding a refund on a yellow tang they got that potentially introduced ich into their tank and wanting compensation for the lost fish, not my fault you didn't quarantine a fish referred to as ich magnets.
That leads me into my final point. Even if you think petco fish are more prone to disease, you are going to (or you should) quarantine the fish regardless. If you see a healthy good size fish at petco, ask to see it eat, if its a good price get it as you are going to put it through the same quarantine process as every other fish you get from any other store. I told everyone that came in, how long a fish has been there, if its eating (and I'll show them... especially for things like lionfish), and how long its been in copper and if I've treated with anything else. I still tell them regardless to qt a fish even if its been in copper for 30 days I will tell them to do it regardless.
Small side note if a fish is mislabeled at petco, the employees probably know this. It is typically the vendor sending the wrong fish, the fish comes in under a name it has to sell under that same sku (however I used one of those labelers to put the actual name up). What really irritated me; especially when I was new because I would do a bunch of research beforehand; was to send something blatantly wrong like I order a dragon wrasse and in the bag IS A SCOOTER BLENNY. anyways
if you survived this borderline rant block of text I applaud you. Feel free to ask questions about deathco as even I call it from time to time.
It really is a matter of knowing which individual stores are worth shopping at.
