Petco and marine fish

[WMR]

I don’t think this post is a rant or anything like that, you did what you had to do maintain the fish in your department. My friend was a manager at Petco for a few years, but, got tired of the bs that corporate says. Being “green” is fine for some stores, but when you’re dealing with saltwater & freshwater fish going green to treat fish doesn’t cut it. Most of the Petco stores have a high fish mortality rate(saltwater & freshwater). They don’t care cause there green. My background & my friends, we worked at one of the largest independent pet stores in the state. We had 3 stores, but one was 10,000 sq ft. 95% of it was saltwater & freshwater. I’ve been keeping fish for 50 years, saltwater since the mid 70s. You can call me a fish fanatic, loved everything aquarium keeping. Anyway, the owners of the store let us handle all the fish keeping, it was GREAT!!! If it was different, we’d get it. We rarely special ordered fish cause we’d get them. We had at least 10 different fish wholesalers that we’d get fish from.We were ecologically conscious though. No coral eaters, cleaner wrasses, pinnatus bats, etc, etc. our saltwater systems we’d use copper, metro, praziquantel, whatever we needed. Sometimes, you’d get sick fish from the wholesalers,mainly they’d come in with icy or flukes.We’d fw dip the fish if they had anything cloudy on them, eyes fins, body before they went into the systems. The fish systems had uv sterilizers on them and weekly water changes, the invert systems, mh & t5 lighting, skimmers. Now I’m going off on a tangent. You did what you thought was best for the fish & you’re a true aquarist through & through

 

[HotManwich]

I don’t think this post is a rant or anything like that, you did what you had to do maintain the fish in your department. My friend was a manager at Petco for a few years, but, got tired of the crap that corporate says. Being “green” is fine for some stores, but when you’re dealing with saltwater & freshwater fish going green to treat fish doesn’t cut it. Most of the Petco stores have a high fish mortality rate(saltwater & freshwater). They don’t care cause there green. My background & my friends, we worked at one of the largest independent pet stores in the state. We had 3 stores, but one was 10,000 sq ft. 95% of it was saltwater & freshwater. I’ve been keeping fish for 50 years, saltwater since the mid 70s. You can call me a fish fanatic, loved everything aquarium keeping. Anyway, the owners of the store let us handle all the fish keeping, it was GREAT!!! If it was different, we’d get it. We rarely special ordered fish cause we’d get them. We had at least 10 different fish wholesalers that we’d get fish from.We were ecologically conscious though. No coral eaters, cleaner wrasses, pinnatus bats, etc, etc. our saltwater systems we’d use copper, metro, praziquantel, whatever we needed. Sometimes, you’d get sick fish from the wholesalers,mainly they’d come in with icy or flukes.We’d fw dip the fish if they had anything cloudy on them, eyes fins, body before they went into the systems. The fish systems had uv sterilizers on them and weekly water changes, the invert systems, mh & t5 lighting, skimmers. Now I’m going off on a tangent. You did what you thought was best for the fish & you’re a true aquarist through & through

It's a little ridiculous how Petco is trying to become "green" by using natural medications but the medications don't actually work. It's like the company is trying to save a dollar by spending fifty. Yeah some people have issues with using non-natural medications, but I've never met someone who legitimately keeps aquariums and avoids tested and true medications over more natural approaches.

 

[ashs_exotics]

surprisingly any petco with a saltwater system can order flame angels. There are three primary assortments. B assortment stores can get regular clowns, damsels, and angels (just coral beauties and flame angels), and yellow tangs, blue tangs, and powder browns. C assortment which was what my store was could order really just about everything there are a few exceptions like some tangs and butterflies, but if it was out of my assortment I could just special order it and I've never been rejected. Then there is G assortment which is 99.5% of all livestock. after that is S assortment which is special order only but I believe that's just for reptiles.

talked to the guy at my local petco again today, gave me a huge list of places I could order through him free of shipping charge, and obtain the discount from petco...not a bad bargain

 

[burningbaal]

Living in a metro area, there are a lot of petco's around me. I see about the same range of variation as local fish stores. Lots are fresh only, some have okay fish, some have gobs of pest algae, some have decent frag racks and healthy fish. I know the two petcos near(ish) me that I'll go to. I also know a LFS that I won't be walking into again. I only went in that LFS before I learned about other LFS options...thank goodness I found out about the others, it was pretty rough, worse than any petco in my area (there's probably 5-7 I've been in that are near me)

 

[Old Fritz]

It's a little ridiculous how Petco is trying to become "green" by using natural medications but the medications don't actually work. It's like the company is trying to save a dollar by spending fifty. Yeah some people have issues with using non-natural medications, but I've never met someone who legitimately keeps aquariums and avoids tested and true medications over more natural approaches.

Trust me those bottles of herbtana are not cheap for the store. Considering aquatics medication was part of our normal monthly budget there were some months I'd have to pull product off of shelves to treat our fish. Herbtana and artemiss worked mildly well with freshwater combined with adding salt. In saltwater you might as well just not try if you use it there.

 

[Old Fritz]

talked to the guy at my local petco again today, gave me a huge list of places I could order through him free of shipping charge, and obtain the discount from petco...not a bad bargain

It's nice saying you can order just about anything they want and have it within a week lol. Some people wouldn't follow up which kinda sucked but it gave me a reason to order a more expensive fish than what my boss was comfortable with.

 

[MombasaLionfish]

I forgot to mention at my petco I asked them why they didn't treat their fish because the treatment bottle was right across the tanks. They said they weren't allowed and all their tanks are hooked up to the same system so their inverts would die if they did. They did FW dip them weekly which somewhat kept the desies from spreading.

 

[OrionN]

The tanks are connect vertically. The Petco in Corpus Christi treat sick fish and Mark the Quarantine and Not for sale.

 

[Dragon52]

The petco that is about 10 mins from my house used to have people who cared & even kept tanks in their homes. always had nice fish & some corals. after the 2 ladies I dealt with left the fish section went downhill, Don;t buy from there anymore.

 

[puffy127]

So under the petco constraints, what do employees do differently at stores with healthy livestock vs not healthy livestock? What are the stores with unhealthy livestock supposed to be doing that they are not?

 

[MombasaLionfish]

So under the petco constraints, what do employees do differently at stores with healthy livestock vs not healthy livestock? What are the stores with unhealthy livestock supposed to be doing that they are not?

They should be have a decent knowledge of SW and FW. They should also FW dip almost everything.

 

[WMR]

They should be have a decent knowledge of SW and FW. They should also FW dip almost everything.

I agree 1,000%, all of the employees should be knowledgeable in both fresh & saltwater, the problem is they’re a box store. Being “Green” & low pay doesn’t help. I can’t even imagine the losses company wide. Don’t get me wrong, there’s probably some knowledgeable employees that work there & genuinely care about the fresh& saltwater animals, however, the “Green” thing has to go

 

[Old Fritz]

So under the petco constraints, what do employees do differently at stores with healthy livestock vs not healthy livestock? What are the stores with unhealthy livestock supposed to be doing that they are not?

So being knowledgeable helps. Also having a high volume store helps as well because the faster a fish sells the less likely it will get sick. Herbtana does jack. Most good stores do freshwater dip and/or treat with medication they shouldnt use.

 

[Fishnut]

I had a Petco manager that would order fish for me and call me when the shipment arrived so I could pick up the fish before it was put into their tanks. Prices were always great.

 

[tony'stank]

I agree with the author that the quality of the livestock at Petcos varies directly with the expertise of the sales staff. But the same is at least partially true with LFS. When I lived in rural AZ the local Petco was thirty miles away and it’s saltwater section was well run with a very good manager and good sales staff. Since my next closet LFS was 90 miles away I did shop at the Petco with reasonably good success.Here in the Detroit area I have many good to excellent LFS. Even so when I established my RSR450 five years ago I couldn’t find the Pajama Cardinals I wanted at any of the LFS. I was too impatient to have them ordered. I bought three of them from a local Petco with a good saltwater manager. I quarantined them . I still have them and they are fat happy and doing well.

 

[ImNemo]

Petco should be sued for animal cruelty. All Petco's nationwide. I don't care if the person taking care of their tanks is a marine biologist with 100 years of experience.

 

[Mickeyt1reef]

Every fish in my tank came from Petco in Pensacola. Granted none are high end its a 40 gallon tank but was tired of walking into other lfs and looking at dead or soon to be dead fish in all the tanks. The if the fish is about to die remove it. I agree with Fritz a lot of it is staff and policy. But I agree with Brian on BRS you don’t buy a dog from a Breeder with sea and dying dogs everywhere. The PETCO here has a few salt tanks that always seem clean with healthy fish.

 

[Old Fritz]

Petco should be sued for animal cruelty. All Petco's nationwide. I don't care if the person taking care of their tanks is a marine biologist with 100 years of experience.

With that logic any store that has had an animal die at their store should be sued for animal cruelty. People complain a lot about petcos ball pythons, when their 1200 dollar python came from a breeder who keeps their snakes in tiny drawers.

It isn't just petco my dude. It's like every store and breeder

 

[Old Fritz]

I agree with the author that the quality of the livestock at Petcos varies directly with the expertise of the sales staff. But the same is at least partially true with LFS. When I lived in rural AZ the local Petco was thirty miles away and it’s saltwater section was well run with a very good manager and good sales staff. Since my next closet LFS was 90 miles away I did shop at the Petco with reasonably good success.Here in the Detroit area I have many good to excellent LFS. Even so when I established my RSR450 five years ago I couldn’t find the Pajama Cardinals I wanted at any of the LFS. I was too impatient to have them ordered. I bought three of them from a local Petco with a good saltwater manager. I quarantined them . I still have them and they are fat happy and doing well.

I'm in a wealthy area of Chicago (believe it or not all of chicago is a ghetto lol). So we have a lot of other lfs and we constantly get compared to other stores. I once was ringing a customer up for a harlequin tusk that was only 75 dollars with a sale we had going (normally 99.99 it was the Indonesian variety I think which is cheaper) and a guy behind just said "have fun with your ich, it's a petco fish".

That story had a funny ending though because two weeks later the guy who made that comment came in looking for medication for velvet I think lol

 

[secret_reefer337]

Not because it’s from Petco means it’s a sick or low grade animal/fish. The Petco where I live have a decent saltwater portion in their aquatics dept. and I have purchased few from them that have been in my tank for 4 years now. It’s not because it’s Petco, their fish sucks or their tanks are dirty. There are so called specialty store or “aquatic” store that have a dirty and lot’s of dead fish in their tank. Maybe they are hobbyist who venture into business but not all hobbyist are good at taking care of their livestock...sometimes more on profit. I’m in CA and I have been in many big aquatic stores in the bay area and Sacramento area so not all Petco are disgusting when it comes to aquatic livestock care.