Are there good Petcos?

[Vadafallon]

I have a Petco in my area that is very clean. Has a ton of stock and just seems to good to be true. However i have been in several times and everything looks good and no sick fish. Well not that i see at least. Could there be this one where someone actually knows what they are doing???

 

[fishfreak2009]

My petco is pretty decent. Purchased a few fish from there already, and won't hesitate to purchase more from there. In fact they are ordering me in a powder blue tang for their online sale price of $35, and then I can use my $5 in pals rewards plus the 25% off coupon in Tropical Fish Hobbyist Magazine. I bought multiple copies of the magazine. On February 22-23 they have 25% off saltwater fish, and that can be combined with the 25% off coupon.

I always quarantine anyways, so not too worried about ich. Never seen a sick fish at the petco by me though. Great selection and dirt cheap prices compared to the LFS. I actually bought a pretty large heniochus a little while back and payed $20 for it after coupon and pals rewards, and one LFS by me has them at the same size for $55, while another LFS is charging $75 each with visible ich...

 

[Vadafallon]

Think i should even bother with Quarantine if they are the going to be the first ones in my tank anyway? I have two Bangai Cardinals i will add later but they are already in a tank upstairs. My only worry would be adding them later and then some of the more aggressive fishing picking or killing them. Thoughts?

 

[albano]

In the tri-state NY area there seems to be 3 types of Petco...1 without a SW dept, 1 with a small SW section and inventory controlled by corporate and the 3rd with a large SW section that has a manager that orders and controls his inventory.
The stores with the small SW sections are usually not well maintained, and seem to be the source of most complaints. The large SW section stores seem to have more knowledgeable employees, and often have some nice fish at good prices!
I really haven't seen descent coral inventory at any of their stores.

 

[fishfreak2009]

Think i should even bother with Quarantine if they are the going to be the first ones in my tank anyway? I have two Bangai Cardinals i will add later but they are already in a tank upstairs. My only worry would be adding them later and then some of the more aggressive fishing picking or killing them. Thoughts?

Always quarantine no matter what! I lost too many fish from skipping quarantine. I wiped out thousands of dollars worth of fish in the 4 times my tank has been wiped out from skipping quarantine. All the beautiful lives that were lost because I didn't bother to quarantine or a family member decided to add a fish as a surprise.

 

[SGT_York]

Most Petco's I've seen are dependent on their employees if you get a good concerened supervisor/employee, they look nice however those good employees are quick to find a better job and things degrade rapidly after they leave. You just won't get a good quality corporate store where wages are so lo.

 

[Reeferz412]

The Petco I go to is pretty nice. A limited SW collection but they are building a frag station to start selling corals. Kinda pumped to see what they got. I got my maroon clown from them and it was a great deal and a healthy guy. Been through it all. It could be that this is a new Petco and most of the staff transferred from the old facility and have been working under Petco for 5-10 years oddly enough.

 

[Calappidae]

My local petco, they keep half their lights off on the tanks so no body can see the livestock each and everytime. There is labels on every single SW tank that says "Under observation" and they won't sell half the livestock they get in.. one employee said they only sell 1-3 fish a week.. and they order in 50 a week and I can only find 10 or so.. what happened to the rest? I have yet to get an answer other than silence..

But I've been to a couple decent ones before where they looked like a nice LFS.


If the employees and manager don't know what their doing then the store will be very unwell kept as they have to listen to corperate no matter what and get in the livestock.

 

[Fishfirst]

The short answer is no... supporting the stores that do well only encourages this monster of a corporation to keep the bad stores selling livestock as well. I have experienced several different companies/stores first hand by working at them, from top of the line to bottom of the barrel. There is no other corporation/business that gives me more of a gag reflex more than petco. Their policies are terribly backwards, and they do not care about their fish at all and are not willing to learn anything.

 

[Calappidae]

The short answer is no... supporting the stores that do well only encourages this monster of a corporation to keep the bad stores selling livestock as well. I have experienced several different companies/stores first hand by working at them, from top of the line to bottom of the barrel. There is no other corporation/business that gives me more of a gag reflex more than petco. Their policies are terribly backwards, and they do not care about their fish at all and are not willing to learn anything.

Their youtube channel is a prime example. Especially the tanked ones where they give the most useless information on setups.

 

[Reeferz412]

It depends on location as well. Being in Miami, it is a lot easier to come by various aquarium stores and you can run your tank without a heater for most of the year. Large distributers dont have to worry much about temperatures during shipping either so I assume there is a lot less DOA when they hit Petcos and other stores. A lot of factors to keep in mind.

 

[Vadafallon]

Don't get me wrong, i support my LFS, but the prices seem nice and everything seemed in good shape. Just seems like a place to pick up a few cool fish. Infact they had something i had not seen at any of the LFS's.

On the quarantine note; The ones i would get from PETCO, if i get them there, would be the first ones in the tank. So my thoughts are the main tank is the quarantine tank. After all is well i would move other fix into the tank. The only thing that will be in the tank when i start to repopulate will be two cleaner shrimp and some snails. I am totally redoing my tank.

 

[Dmorty217]

No there aren't any good Petco stores you can just walk in but Petco.com will sell you the same fish you can buy from LA, since they come from the same supplier but you will pay less, sometime much less thru Petco.com

 

[ca1ore]

I have never bought a fish or invert from Petco, but it is my goto for smaller tanks when running the $1/gallon sale.

 

[atreis]

The Petcos near me seem okay. They haven't carried livestock in years, but obviously once did - they have a row of tanks in a corner covered over in pretty pictures of various different types of animals.

 

[Mark9]

Petco near me is quite good.
Bought 7 fish from them, all are doing great, except for the one that jumped.

 

[peter15]

We have a Petco and Petsmart nearby. Never bought a fish but the prices are much better than LFS. Dry goods in store are poor.

 

[reefsandrotts]

I snagged a red blue eye goni baseball size for $25.00 at a petco

 

[jmski333]

Their youtube channel is a prime example. Especially the tanked ones where they give the most useless information on setups.

Hahahaha! I thought the same thing when I saw that!

I find that my local Petco's are only good for their $1 per gallon sale. Otherwise I don't think i'd buy anything from them.

 

[shamus]

I actually have a good one near me. Either the management likes salt water or they have an employee that does. Anyways, they have nice frags, fish and inverts. Even the tanks are clean and algae free and the prices are good. It's the only one I have seen that hasn't been a joke.