Aaah! Petco's aquatics is horrible!

[Genera]

So I went to Petco to pick up some bird toys, and I snapped of few pictures of their aquatics section.

A dying tiny Pacific Blue Tang


An Orange Butterflyfish with ich, fin rot, discoloration, and missing scales
In the video

A malnourished, pacing Yellow Tang with ich, head and lateral line erosion, and signs of fin rot, some of which do not seem to be visible in the picture


Pajama Cardinals showing discoloration and signs of malnourishment


Starving Snowflake Clown lying on the bottom, you can see how skinny he is


Too many Ocellaris Clowns in one tank resulting in aggression and injuries
This is in the video

Valentini Puffer with fin rot and ich, which is very slightly visible in the picture


Bleached and dead coral frags


Even the damsels have ich! Almost all have missing scales and/or injuries from conflict with other damsels


A dead Tiger Barb that is missing a face and scales, the other fish were eating the dead barb, which may indicate they are very hungry or starving


Unknown fish carcasses that have obviously been stuck to the filter intake for a long time


Hundreds of poorly kept Goldfish and Minnows, suffering from many many diseases in extremely crammed conditions, being sold as 'feeder fish' which I have a few of except they are kept in an approximately 600-700 gallon pond, as pets, not living food. There is an extreme difference between the 'feeder fish' in the pet store and when I brought them home (they were riddled with disease and very shy), and how they act now (they beg for food and let me pet them)


I don't want to know what this means
link

A few videos
Klein's/Orange Butterflyfish
Clownfish, cardinals, dead coral, dartfish, assessor, too many Ocellaris Clowns in one tank, damsels
Yellow Tang
Dead corals and a bit of Yellow Tang

This petco also had tons of Bettas dying in cramped poop cups, Coral Beauty Angels which all had ich, Scooter Blennies which were starving, and Feather Worms that were losing their crowns and probably starving, they do shed their crown every so often, but knowing the situation of the other fish in the store, they probably weren't shedding because of natural causes.

If anyone else has bad petco/smart experiences feel free to share.

[Bent]

I see no pics...

[Genera]

Originally Posted by Bent

I see no pics...

I think I fixed it.

[SoloChromis]

This is infuriating. I can't tell you how many times I've gone in there and asked simple questions just to get blown off completely or met with stuttering confusion. In order to properly maintain a large system, housing all kinds of different species, each with unique requirements and dispositions, you NEED someone there with knowledge and experience, otherwise the result is exactly what you see here, suffering animals due to pure laziness and ignorance, all to make a buck off of the wave of people entering the hobby after seeing a coffee maker turned 60s themed tank with a dozen panther groupers on 'Tanked!'. This misrepresents the hobby as a whole and I'm sure that most all of the fish/inverts that don't die at the store itself, are sold to uninformed novices who are then going to go around ranting about how "impossible and delicate" saltwater fish are to keep. No matter an animal's level of intelligence, or emotional complexity, pain is pain and unnecessary suffering is unnecessary suffering. Keep it up Petco, you're doing great work

[Lucky Lefty]

Walked up on this at a petco on rt. 1 in NJ..
I've deleted the other pictures since then, but this was the worst. They saw me snapping pics and the manager made someone rush over and start pulling it out of the tank... then he had to pull out about 5 other fish I took photos of, dead and decaying.
I approached the manager about it and she said they have "a guy" who comes in who is a "salt water genius" but he missed coming by a couple times.
This was when petco had that crazy Wyoming white clown sale for like $49. I told her about the sale after she pointed out how amazing they were for $129.99. She didn't believe me until she checked the SKU, then she said I better hurry up and buy them because that's an amazing deal.
I explained that the fish were missing a large amount of scales around the head and the white parts were turning green, and they're covered in what looks like ich, and I simply don't have the know how or qt setup to treat them.
Walked out horrified and will never return.

Complete flip side, I've found a local petco who has a great salt water section and have hired on a salt water specialist and he runs the entire department and is actually quite knowledgeable and a nice guy. At least 1 of them out there is trying the right way.

[Bent]

Originally Posted by Lucky Lefty

Walked up on this at a petco on rt. 1 in NJ..
I've deleted the other pictures since then, but this was the worst. They saw me snapping pics and the manager made someone rush over and start pulling it out of the tank... then he had to pull out about 5 other fish I took photos of, dead and decaying.
I approached the manager about it and she said they have "a guy" who comes in who is a "salt water genius" but he missed coming by a couple times.
This was when petco had that crazy Wyoming white clown sale for like $49. I told her about the sale after she pointed out how amazing they were for $129.99. She didn't believe me until she checked the SKU, then she said I better hurry up and buy them because that's an amazing deal.
I explained that the fish were missing a large amount of scales around the head and the white parts were turning green, and they're covered in what looks like ich, and I simply don't have the know how or qt setup to treat them.
Walked out horrified and will never return.

Complete flip side, I've found a local petco who has a great salt water section and have hired on a salt water specialist and he runs the entire department and is actually quite knowledgeable and a nice guy. At least 1 of them out there is trying the right way.

It's all in the employees.

Management in every corp in my experience are as useless as tits on a boar hog. They stand around and look dumbfounded most of the time I've ever approached one with an issue. They usually just yell and fire some poor sap making minimum wage.

We had a petland years ago that two of my buddies worked at and they both were reef fanatics and knew their stuff. I helped out from time to time when I had nothing else to do. (Young and not married with kids.)

Their fish section was immaculate. We ran that place like a top. Passion and caring went into the fish section, management gave us slack to do what we wanted, to the point we were making trips to Home Depot for 2x4s and plywood making displays, and the hard work paid off. The boys were making sales left and right, the stock was healthy and the store flourished.

Both my friends worked at the place for years, in typical corporate fashion, management got tons of bonuses and praise, and the guys got squat. No raises, no advancement, not even a thank you from corporate. Guess what? They quit, the fish section went to ****, and the store closed about 6 months later.

Anytime I go to a pet store, I always talk to the fish guy/gal. If they are morons, I move on.

[Genera]

Originally Posted by Bent

It's all in the employees.

Management in every corp in my experience are as useless as tits on a boar hog. They stand around and look dumbfounded most of the time I've ever approached one with an issue. They usually just yell and fire some poor sap making minimum wage.

We had a petland years ago that two of my buddies worked at and they both were reef fanatics and knew their stuff. I helped out from time to time when I had nothing else to do. (Young and not married with kids.)

Their fish section was immaculate. We ran that place like a top. Passion and caring went into the fish section, management gave us slack to do what we wanted, to the point we were making trips to Home Depot for 2x4s and plywood making displays, and the hard work paid off. The boys were making sales left and right, the stock was healthy and the store flourished.

Both my friends worked at the place for years, in typical corporate fashion, management got tons of bonuses and praise, and the guys got squat. No raises, no advancement, not even a thank you from corporate. Guess what? They quit, the fish section went to ****, and the store closed about 6 months later.

Anytime I go to a pet store, I always talk to the fish guy/gal. If they are morons, I move on.

True, I've found one Petco with a true knowledgeable employees, they had two fish guy and a reptile/amphibian guy, who knew tons about the animals. The problem is they didn't seem work a lot, and I think two of them stopped working there. So now the Petco with the smart people is going bad, and the last time I visited, the fish were covered in ich and a few were starving and had other diseaes, and there was aiptasia in the coral sales tank which used to be amazing with corals as difficult as acropora and as bulletproof as kenya trees. This place even has a 180 gallon sales tank for bigger fish, and a 150 gallon cube display tank with a rescued Pacific Blue Tang that got hit with a boat rudder. I also used to bring one of my budgies there to pick out treats, his name was Cole, and he was a rescue that could not fly at all due to previous injury before adoption, and he lived with his mate Ella, who had a feather picking problem before I adopted her, passed away at almost 12 years old, due to construction vehicles fumes in the backyard, then Cole passed away from a broken heart and also the fumes. It is not uncommon for monogamous birds to get depressed and even pass away after the loss of a mate, which I find endearing (not the birds become depressed and pass away, but that they love their mate so much that they act that way).

[Bent]

Originally Posted by Genera

True, I've found one Petco with a true knowledgeable employees, they had two fish guy and a reptile/amphibian guy, who knew tons about the animals. The problem is they didn't seem work a lot, and I think two of them stopped working there. So now the Petco with the smart people is going bad, and the last time I visited, the fish were covered in ich and a few were starving and had other diseaes, and there was aiptasia in the coral sales tank which used to be amazing with corals as difficult as acropora and as bulletproof as kenya trees. This place even has a 180 gallon sales tank for bigger fish, and a 150 gallon cube display tank with a rescued Pacific Blue Tang that got hit with a boat rudder. I also used to bring one of my budgies there to pick out treats, his name was Cole, and he was a rescue that could not fly at all due to previous injury before adoption, and he lived with his mate Ella, who had a feather picking problem before I adopted her, passed away at almost 12 years old, due to construction vehicles fumes in the backyard, then Cole passed away from a broken heart and also the fumes. It is not uncommon for monogamous birds to get depressed and even pass away after the loss of a mate, which I find endearing (not the birds become depressed and pass away, but that they love their mate so much that they act that way).

It's corporate anywhere. They don't value their employees or their work quality anymore, everyone is out to just leech on a company and get out.

Hard to blame them though, it's what America has turned into. Owning a business is an exhausting affair because the government just sucks away so much of your profit that it's not even worth the effort. It's nearly not even worth it to be employed at all. The government is just bleeding the working class to death.

For some reason they think taxing cigarettes will discourage people from smoking but taxing income won't discourage people from working. Then they wonder why the labor participation rate is in the crapper.

2017 can't come soon enough.

[/rant]

[ryeguyy84]

Quality live rock though (sarcasm)

[Grkgod36]

That is just disturbing .. Infuriating , and sad

[tkeracer619]

[Docdiggy]

Lucky lefty, I got the same explanation. They have an expert that comes in once a week. The bs the manager was trying to sling was so crazy I just had to leave. I've emailed corporate a complaint on this before and they had the idiot manager call me. Once again, he made himself sound like a fool over the phone.

[Docdiggy]

I didn't realize they sell sw bushes now.

[chefbill]

When I first got into the hobby, the local Petco was no better than OK. Thinking back, the main problems were over crowding, no aquascape or hiding places, leading to stressed and harrassed fish and poor selection. Then it got worse, or I became more aware. Ich, fin rot, beat up fish, rotting slimey nems, starving blennies and dragonettes. About 9 months or so ago, a new employee was hired. Completely clueless as to SW BUT willing to learn and change things. Things improved dramatically.

3 weeks ago, all the fish were gone, FW and SW. All new tanks, all new substrate, cycling, new lights, frag racks!

Was in a few days ago, were only a few clown and softies, and I was told they were slowly restocking as the system matured! WTH? Not Petco?

Looking foreward to see if they keep up their standards, locally at least.

[thestreetzking]

I went to petco yesterday just to see what they had since I had to get dog food. They had a green mandarin, and by "had" i mean all you saw was the body with no fins or head..

there saltwater stuff is very unimpressive

[joshky]

I hope you didn't walk into Petco with high expectations....

[Deberber]

Luckily, there are some petcos that are perfectly fine. Mine has a nice saltwater section where I've actually considered buying some corals there. They don't have any dead fish in tank and even the betas are all alive.

However it is a smaller petco.

[GilliganReef]

Originally Posted by Genera

This petco also had tons of Bettas dying in cramped poop cups, Coral Beauty Angels which all had ich, Scooter Blennies which were starving, and Feather Worms that were losing their crowns and probably starving, they do shed their crown every so often, but knowing the situation of the other fish in the store, they probably weren't shedding because of natural causes.

If anyone else has bad petco/smart experiences feel free to share.

Which Petco where you in? Burnsville, Minnetonka, or Maple grove? I know when I go inside any petco, I wish I had the money and tanks to save most of the fish.

[SoloChromis]

Originally Posted by Genera

True, I've found one Petco with a true knowledgeable employees, they had two fish guy and a reptile/amphibian guy, who knew tons about the animals. The problem is they didn't seem work a lot, and I think two of them stopped working there. So now the Petco with the smart people is going bad, and the last time I visited, the fish were covered in ich and a few were starving and had other diseaes, and there was aiptasia in the coral sales tank which used to be amazing with corals as difficult as acropora and as bulletproof as kenya trees. This place even has a 180 gallon sales tank for bigger fish, and a 150 gallon cube display tank with a rescued Pacific Blue Tang that got hit with a boat rudder. I also used to bring one of my budgies there to pick out treats, his name was Cole, and he was a rescue that could not fly at all due to previous injury before adoption, and he lived with his mate Ella, who had a feather picking problem before I adopted her, passed away at almost 12 years old, due to construction vehicles fumes in the backyard, then Cole passed away from a broken heart and also the fumes. It is not uncommon for monogamous birds to get depressed and even pass away after the loss of a mate, which I find endearing (not the birds become depressed and pass away, but that they love their mate so much that they act that way).

The tang had been hit by a *boat rudder*???

[moondoggy4]

We have three real good Petco's all run by reefers from local clubs, the one close to me not, I was there on shipment day and they had three fish I wanted still in the bag I wanted to buy the three but they would not sell me the fish unless the were first put into their tanks then netted and put in a new bag, I said I would save them the trouble, give me the bag with the fish in it and they said that they were not allowed to.

[FinzAquatics]

Its a shame that the Petcos near your are that bad... There are a few really good ones in my area. To a certain extent, I think the closest petco is actually better than a few of the local fish stores... Beautiful frag tank and great assortment of reasonably priced fish..

Wish they the quality of fish didn't vary from petco to petco cause some stores get a bad reputation because of the bad stores that are out there

[FinzAquatics]

Originally Posted by moondoggy4

We have three real good Petco's all run by reefers from local clubs, the one close to me not, I was there on shipment day and they had three fish I wanted still in the bag I wanted to buy the three but they would not sell me the fish unless the were first put into their tanks then netted and put in a new bag, I said I would save them the trouble, give me the bag with the fish in it and they said that they were not allowed to.

Im surprised buy this.. Their policy (although not always used) is to NOT use a net while receiving their live fish. They are supposed to drain the bag and then allow the fish to "freely" swim out of the bag as silly as it sounds. Got a friend who works for one of the local stores. My local petco will gladly sell a fish while in the bag as its understood that less stress will be put on the fish it stays in the same bag to the next tank..

[Zooxanthus]

lol cultured live rock. That is funny and sad at the same time.

[nuxx]

Yeah that's pretty bad

Even bothers me when I got to a LFS and 3 employees are sitting around talking to each other and there are dead fish in their tanks...

[andrek787]

Does anybody where does petco get their fish from? My first and final fish purchase at petco was a stripped butterfly that just arrived and was still in the shipping bag. I wasn't able to get him to eat anything and he didn't last more then a week.

I don't really get how the fish distributor can keep the fish alive without them eating any prepared food.