petco

[scsdukefan408]

Originally Posted by PlatinumPercula

Here are some pics of the coral frag tank at a local Petco. Not all employees/stores neglect the needs of their animals. Most of the employees here are very knowledgable. A picture IS worth a thousand words...

Wow the only thing my petco ever has coral wise...which they never really have everrrrrr is green mushrooms & ugly zoas way over priced

[keywestcoralboy]

They opened a Petco in Key West! Now I can share in the awesome!

[ReeferKimberly]

Gotta be a Petco by Petco thing. Long ago I saw some live rock at my local one with aiptasia on it that they were selling to unwitting customers (actually priced by the amount of aiptasia). Well I need aiptasia to feed to nudibranchs so I went there last week and was too early so waited in my car for an hour, finally they opened and I went it looking for aiptasia and they had only really nice LR with not a single aiptasia. Long ago their fish were in horrible shape, now they had all nice looking fish and not a single dead one anywhere. Something must have changed because it is sooo much better than it used to be. There was a niger trigger I would have loved but I don't have a large tank. So I went home with nothing after waiting an hour. Was glad to see it's not so dank and crappy anymore like it used to be though.

Oh and they had nice corals and nems too. I was kind of shocked.

[scsdukefan408]

Originally Posted by ReeferKimberly

Gotta be a Petco by Petco thing. Long ago I saw some live rock at my local one with aiptasia on it that they were selling to unwitting customers (actually priced by the amount of aiptasia). Well I need aiptasia to feed to nudibranchs so I went there last week and was too early so waited in my car for an hour, finally they opened and I went it looking for aiptasia and they had only really nice LR with not a single aiptasia. Long ago their fish were in horrible shape, now they had all nice looking fish and not a single dead one anywhere. Something must have changed because it is sooo much better than it used to be. There was a niger trigger I would have loved but I don't have a large tank. So I went home with nothing after waiting an hour. Was glad to see it's not so dank and crappy anymore like it used to be though.

Oh and they had nice corals and nems too. I was kind of shocked.

haha thats funny

[roninmagik1]

I haven't gone to petco in years ReeferKimberly, i will have to check out mine and see if it shows any improvement! =)

[AcroporAddict]

Interesting thing is that Petco does internet livestock sales of fish and corals. They are shipped from California, and by the appearance of the packing, they come directly from an LA wholesaler and not from Petco Tanks. I actually bought five leather jacketed filefish (aiptasia eating filefish) for $20 a piece and free shipping. They arrived very healthy and are actually quality fish.

[Pico Perfect]

@AcroporAddict - Ya, you can shop there, but you have to choose your livestock well, and closely examine each purchase. I would watched the clown I bought there for a period of three days coming back there to make sure it was healthy before I bought it. I also had them feed it in front of me. The petco I go to for saltwater stuff takes very good care of their saltwater stock. It really depends on the store. The petco closest to my house had to shut down their saltwater because corporate said enough. But the other one takes very good care and has an actual reefer in staff. And yes, lots of their ugly corals are overpriced.

[AcroporAddict]

Originally Posted by Pico Perfect

@AcroporAddict - Ya, you can shop there, but you have to choose your livestock well, and closely examine each purchase. I would watched the clown I bought there for a period of three days coming back there to make sure it was healthy before I bought it. I also had them feed it in front of me. The petco I go to for saltwater stuff takes very good care of their saltwater stock. It really depends on the store. The petco closest to my house had to shut down their saltwater because corporate said enough. But the other one takes very good care and has an actual reefer in staff. And yes, lots of their ugly corals are overpriced.

What I was saying is that their online fish sales don't come from a Petco store. They come directly from a wholesaler, so you avoid them ever being in a Petco store tank.

[pktech]

Or be there on delivery day & don't even let them put it in their tank.

[AcroporAddict]

Originally Posted by pktech

Or be there on delivery day & don't even let them put it in their tank.

Not my point. Petco sells on the internet and delivers to your house, just like LiveAquaria. The fish come from a California Wholesaler and are outside of ever being near Petco Store. Geez man, I've had to qualify this twice.

[reeferstace]

AcroporAddict, I understand your point. I believe a lot of Petco livestock comes from QM which also supplies LA, IIRC.

A little off topic, but I actually ordered liverock from Petco a couple of years ago. I compared liverock prices with shipping and they were more competetive than anyone else I saw. I was pleased enough to order more from them when I needed more. Their rock was very nice.

[sucker_fish]

I always wondered how petco fish ended up so poorly and after a visit to petco to take advantage of their 1$ a gallon sale I now know the answer...I went back to the fish dept. and was greeted nicely by the guy back there. He soon asked the kids if they wanted to see something neat ( of course they did) then he scooped up a few feeder fish and started dropping them in tanks with the few saltwater fish they had. In one tank the groupers and trigger fish started picking off the fish while the ich infested powder blue tang hid in the corner, the next tank over had a puffer in it which ate 2 of the 5 fish dropped into his tank, the rest were killed but not eaten. Then I started explaining to my 3 year old that some bigger fish eat other smaller fish and then lied and told her the big fish were saving the little dead ones with chunks missing for later on. After returning to check out that powder blue tang which looked ok other than the ich I noticed that stuck to the back of the tank where the overflow was there were about 50 feeder fish bodies with little chunks missing. I bet that helped a lot with the water quality. I bet every time someone walked by the fish tanks more little feeders wre thrown in because it was "neat" . Sheesh.....you would think one of the largest pet retailers would educate their employees.

[latinyoungn]

I've had great luck with petco fish. i go to the store and ask to special order the fish I want and ask them to not put it in their tanks. This saves me shipping charges I would get hit with if i ordered from petco.com. Always quarantine before introducing the fish!

[29144u]

I cannot support petco - every $ you spend w/ them allows them to continue to be the a$%holes who just constantly vomits bad info to their customers . I just dont see how they change if they continue to be supported by people

[specvjeff]

I was a Senior Aquatic Sales specialist at a Magnet store for 3 years. Most stores don't have anyone dedicated strictly to the department. The guy throwing dog food could be the aquatic specialist for that store. I've been keeping fish for 15 years. I know what I'm doing yet it was a constant struggle to maintain healthy fish. The systems are not capable of supporting the volume of fish set by the planogram. I was constantly pushed by my general manager to overstock the tanks and was then blamed when we had high losses. The CAS and GM would come in and do their dog and pony show trying to push the blame elsewhere. They'd analyze everything and offer no solutions. It was incredibly frustrating to know what to do yet not be allowed to do it. We were only allowed to treat with hyposalinity and freshwater dips. We used tap water filtered through a culligan water filter that would have nitrites in it to mix our saltwater. We would constantly have algae problems but weren't allowed to use anything but a net and a sponge to get rid of it. Then we'd be grilled when we couldn't get rid of it. I believe I was given a talking to for suggesting we use rodi water. We'd also get pushes of fish and coral that we had no business caring for. Sps, Elegance, Goniopora, Powder Blue Tangs, I could go on and on. In the end, there are simply too many people making decisions that shouldn't be, and I don't think that will ever change. It's sad because they are in a position to impact so many new hobbyists and those hobbyist will either get the wrong information, or will buy poor quality fish. I was lucky to buy from companies like Quality Marine, ORA, A&M and Sustainable Aquatics but I would still get pushes of fish from questionable vendors. I don't want to knock every Petco because there are good ones out there. The store in Minnetonka, MN is a perfect example. Jason has done a great job and has a GM that is open to his suggestions. This was an overview of my experience while working there. After 3 years I simply had enough, and moved on to working at a fish hatchery. Leaving that behind was one of the biggest reliefs of my life. It was an incredibly frustrating 2 years. I was constantly pushed to conform to the Petco ways by my GM. He felt my passion for maintaining healthy livestock was rocking the boat and showed I had a bad attitude towards the company. The 1st year wasn't so bad. We had a lot of support from outside experts and our suggestion were considered by the project leaders. I could go on and on but I'll leave it at that.
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[Fishfirst]

I had a similar experience working for this company.

[567234ta]

check out their compatibility chart lol i guess all tangs are okay together and clowns can usually co-exist with others.
http://www.petco.com/assets/livefish...aterchart.html

[89Foxbody]

Originally Posted by specvjeff

I was a Senior Aquatic Sales specialist at a Magnet store for 3 years. Most stores don't have anyone dedicated strictly to the department. The guy throwing dog food could be the aquatic specialist for that store. I've been keeping fish for 15 years. I know what I'm doing yet it was a constant struggle to maintain healthy fish. The systems are not capable of supporting the volume of fish set by the planogram. I was constantly pushed by my general manager to overstock the tanks and was then blamed when we had high losses. The CAS and GM would come in and do their dog and pony show trying to push the blame elsewhere. They'd analyze everything and offer no solutions. It was incredibly frustrating to know what to do yet not be allowed to do it. We were only allowed to treat with hyposalinity and freshwater dips. We used tap water filtered through a culligan water filter that would have nitrites in it to mix our saltwater. We would constantly have algae problems but weren't allowed to use anything but a net and a sponge to get rid of it. Then we'd be grilled when we couldn't get rid of it. I believe I was given a talking to for suggesting we use rodi water. We'd also get pushes of fish and coral that we had no business caring for. Sps, Elegance, Goniopora, Powder Blue Tangs, I could go on and on. In the end, there are simply too many people making decisions that shouldn't be, and I don't think that will ever change. It's sad because they are in a position to impact so many new hobbyists and those hobbyist will either get the wrong information, or will buy poor quality fish. I was lucky to buy from companies like Quality Marine, ORA, A&M and Sustainable Aquatics but I would still get pushes of fish from questionable vendors. I don't want to knock every Petco because there are good ones out there. The store in Minnetonka, MN is a perfect example. Jason has done a great job and has a GM that is open to his suggestions. This was an overview of my experience while working there. After 3 years I simply had enough, and moved on to working at a fish hatchery. Leaving that behind was one of the biggest reliefs of my life. It was an incredibly frustrating 2 years. I was constantly pushed to conform to the Petco ways by my GM. He felt my passion for maintaining healthy livestock was rocking the boat and showed I had a bad attitude towards the company. The 1st year wasn't so bad. We had a lot of support from outside experts and our suggestion were considered by the project leaders. I could go on and on but I'll leave it at that.
Sent from my Droid RAZR MAXX using Tapatalk 2

I was an Aquatic Specialist for over a year and I feel this post summarizes my experience to a T.

EVERY time I would make a suggestion to improve things or make things better for the fish, they would push back and say I was not "doing things the way the company wanted" and I was being difficult because I was not a team player and couldn't follow instructions. Nevermind the fact that our feeder tank pump died and they refused to shelf pull air pumps and over 500 feeder fish died overnight. It happened a 2nd time and that time I did not ask, I just ripped open the boxes and set up the air pumps.

[bugs713]

Originally Posted by 29144u

I cannot support petco - every $ you spend w/ them allows them to continue to be the a$%holes who just constantly vomits bad info to their customers . I just dont see how they change if they continue to be supported by people

I agree!
I have not bought anything from Petco in 6 months, finally gave up on them after the last visit seeing a rotting RBTA with 3 tentacles being hosted by a clown with ick!
They can keep their $1/gallon aquariums, they probably have ich also...
[IMG]http://i50.*******.com/2gvqa13.jpg[/IMG]

[jelley fish]

i have had the same luck with this store they dont seam to care about what they sell

[Mekanic]

I stop by every now and then to check on clearance items (got my QO4000 return for $24) the petco nearest to me does not have any SW fish, corals, etc. Hardly any SW supplies.

The petco about 45 minutes away does have a SW section.....

In the "coral" tank they were selling aptasia.

I left.

[specvjeff]

I made an error in my post. I used general manager when I ment district manager. My GM was great. He kept reef tanks as well and supported me the best he could.

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[ReefTrigger]

Originally Posted by dorky

Is there a way we can force petco to stop selling saltwater fish n coral? It really hurt me to see those beautiful tang in the tank wit a dead fish floating. The dead fish is already decomposing cant say how long it been dead in the tank it look like a week. What worst i feel like the manager of that department is neglecting their duty for taking care of the fish or dont know a ding things about them as well. so I got fed up wit n brought one of the tang tht struggling in tht tank hoping that tang still have a chance to recover.

Take a picture with your phone of the dead fish and make it known your posting it online to the manager ? Maybe that will get him off his *** to do his job

[Forrest3320]

The petco here in york we have 2 and both always have dead fish floating around even in the freshwater lack of people who care...not only are the living things but take some pride in your job

[jgraz]

Originally Posted by Forrest3320

The petco here in york we have 2 and both always have dead fish floating around even in the freshwater lack of people who care...not only are the living things but take some pride in your job

And no doubt you have never seen a dead fish in any other LFS. would you complain here if you did? Nope