Aaah! Petco's aquatics is horrible!

[SoloChromis]

They don't. They sell them to you whether eating or not. Unless they specifically show you the fish eating. What kind of 'striped' butterflyfish is it, because I know of many butterflyfish with stripes, and I don't know of a specific species called the Striped Butterflyfish?

I meant propeller or whatever the spinning thing is that makes the boat go forward lol. I don't do vehicles. But it did indeed get struck with a boat part, kind of like the sea turtles and manatees, except it was a fish.

Holy CRAP! Not only would it make for a good story, but man that must be one bad*** of a hippo tang :bum: All I'd need then is to pair him up with a hippo that blew up 3 sharks, fought off an anglerfish, got swallowed by a whale, hitch hiked on the back of a sea turtle, and flew around in the mouth of a pelican :beer:

 

[Genera]

Holy CRAP! Not only would it make for a good story, but man that must be one bad*** of a hippo tang :bum: All I'd need then is to pair him up with a hippo that blew up 3 sharks, fought off an anglerfish, got swallowed by a whale, hitch hiked on the back of a sea turtle, and flew around in the mouth of a pelican :beer:

cough cough Dory cough cough
:rollface:
The tang's skin is almost healed up now, before it used to have a huge scar on its face/body. Now there's a light bluish pink mark.

 

[SecretiveFish]

I was at a Petco over the weekend and made the mistake of looking in the saltwater section. I was surprised that some of the fish looked ok (including a goby/pistol shrimp pair), but the system definitely has ick as evidenced by the powder blue tang covered in it.

There was a gorgeous Lubbock's fairy wrasse that caught my eye, but I walked away... and looked up over the weekend if he was compatible with my the size and stocking of one of the tanks... and went back Monday to decide if the fish looked strong enough to handle treatment... The fish has visible symptoms of ick, and I asked the employee about guarantees since the fish is obviously sick. The employee somehow got it in his head that MY system had ick and showed me their ICK treatments (did you know that freshwater ick treatments work on marine ick?!?) including ICK Attack, and then he went on to tell me how it was unfair to buy a fish and put it in a system with ick. Ummmmmmm.... K.

The fish manager was back after that, and he 'said' they have a treatment tank in the back. If the fish survives they will call me... I am not expecting a call. Poor little fishy.

 

[karazdzinnicki]

They sold me a "reef safe" chocolate chip starfish. When i realized it was eating my coral, i tried returning him. They said no. I complained, took the star to my lfs and Petco replaced my coral. Not many employees have basic marine knowledge. And i am too new to the hobby to have known better!

 

[karazdzinnicki]

I also Wanted to say since that day i have returned and "evesdropped" on customer / marine conversations, always ready to google the questions/answers and they do have 2 very knowledgeable employees. Also when the "starfish" incident happened the manager asked what could she do to make me happy, because i already said I would not come back and i have been a loyal customer since that location opened 6 years ago. I said all employees should minimally have a refernce guide for questions on animal care for which they are not familiar. Or even have the chart of who is compatible in a reef tank, from live aquaria blown up for customer reference. But training on animals of any types is necessary. So have an expert in each field do a weekly training meeting. Have the employees write questions about any animal care and collect those to determine each training. The manager has stepped up. But they do a monthly training instead of weekly because it gives employees more time to question things and after training submit more questions. Sorry for the ramble but that post just set me off!

 

[Mark9]

They sold me a "reef safe" chocolate chip starfish. When i realized it was eating my coral, i tried returning him. They said no. I complained, took the star to my lfs and Petco replaced my coral. Not many employees have basic marine knowledge. And i am too new to the hobby to have known better!

You blame the store for your purchase?
A 2 second lookup on liveaquaria will tell you what you need to know.

 

[Mark9]

I was at a Petco over the weekend and made the mistake of looking in the saltwater section. I was surprised that some of the fish looked ok (including a goby/pistol shrimp pair), but the system definitely has ick as evidenced by the powder blue tang covered in it.

I recently moved, been to 3 independent fish stores in my new area.
All 3 have ich in their systems, seen dead/dying fish in all of them.
Believe me, it's not just Petco.

On the flip side, been to 2 Petco's, both have ich.
So basically, no store near me has a clean system.

 

[Scooba]

This seems to be hit or miss, out of the two Petco's around me, one has a very sub par maintained saltwater section and another has a clean well maintained section with staff that seem to actually know about the fish the sell and how to properly keep them.

I asked my local store about them getting their fish from LiveAquaria now and he said no. Even though they are the same company, they still have to get their fish for the store from their normal suppliers.

 

[Duke4life]

You blame the store for your purchase?
A 2 second lookup on liveaquaria will tell you what you need to know.

I've done this many times when in my LFSs. I typically check LiveAquaria, then do a quick search on here (lots of info on this site), I'd rather not be doing this at some point later that day :headwalls:.

 

[hart24601]

Sad to say Petco is about the same as the two LFS here. Actually Petco is has more consistent healthy fish than the LFS do. Not saying much really... except how bad our LFS are. But Petco is still generally better.

 

[fishy boy]

I know never by saltwater fish from petco its horrable

 

[fishy boy]

Petco has terrable fish but the rest is ok

 

[Rob6311]

I think the worst part about it is that no one except for the people who are reading this will ever hear about this but when petsmart hurts a few dogs in the grooming process it makes GMA not to bash dog lovers because I love my dogs too but it's sad that no one really raises much concern about fish

 

[codyreed29]

I have only been to one good petco where employees actually cared. Always to busy employees and what's really bad is that they don't really care if you know about fish. If they would only hire people or pay someone to actually take care of the fish you wouldn't see losses bad thing like this.

I have worked in a pet place and they care more about stacking dog food and keeping the labels facing right and the store clean the the animals they sell you have to know that the aquatic sections are were petco and pets mart lose or break even on sales.

 

[TygerBytes]

Petco

Petco

I have discovered Petco is only as good as it's employees, I go to the Petco in Pasadena, TX. Joel is amazing in Saltwater and has helped me countless times dealing with issues and questions regarding the SALTWATER HOBBY. That being said make sure they know what they are tanking about seriously.:reading:do your own research too, don't expect them to not sell you fish.