Do you buy livestock at Petco?

[pusanpa]

I just would like to know how often you buy fishhes at Petco.
Personally, I think it is really hard to find better fish price than Petco.
And if you carefully choose healthy fish, i think perco is great place to buy live stock.

Tell me your experience with Petco.

 

[MBasile]

i sometimes buy fish from petco.

how can you not, their like dirt cheap. its ussually hard to find something cool and sometimes they arent healthy but if your lucky, you can really strike gold at petco ;- )

 

[bryanth73]

I wouldnt buy a thing from those Idiots! Iam giving them credit by calling them idiots too

 

[besl]

Lots of posts on RC about Petco so be sure to do a search. I can only speak about my personal experience and they are terrible and I would never buy another fish (or anything live) from them again. If they were selling dogs or cats the MSPCA would be all over them and shut them down. Specifically, their fish are very frequently diseased with ich and such. Worse yet, they don't treat the fish and will be more than willing to sell you any of the fish, sick or not. Bottom line - you have choices - go to a reputable and RESPONSIBLE merchant - not Petco!

 

[Sk8r]

I would never buy any livestock from Petco. I have to shop there because they stock the only dependable food my corn-allergic cat can eat. And on my last trip there, there was a 6-8 inch snapper crammed into one of their small sale tanks...judging size is hard, when the fish fills a third of the tank. Remembering that sight still upsets me.

 

[tweety69711]

Half of my fish are from petco.... i have no problems you just have to find the stores with good saltwater stock.. there are only a few... vernon hills has a large selection... some corals too..

 

[pikachoi]

I bought a small (1.25inch) watchman goby there for $2 to put in my 10gallon nano. This is because the dumb manager dropped him on the floor as he was catching him for me. I decided to take the chance on him, and he's still alive and eating well. It's been about a week now. They did advise me a week earlier that they had lost a bunch of stock die off to disease, but this guy survived, so i thought he must be a tough lil fish, hehehe.
They also had a beautiful Coral beauty that I probably would have snatched up if I had a much much larger tank....

 

[bryanth73]

I asked the new one on 59 who maintains there salt display? they said some company name I said they should be fired since they are keeping anemones and corals under a n.o. flouro. lamp in a 90 gallon display. There response was they never had a problem, a week or so later all inhabitants gone. They have no clue what they are doing and never will.

 

[billybear22]

from my personal experience i would stay away ..sure their prices are low but i've never seen a healthy fish come from a petco and i've ordered fish thinking they would be better quality and every fish i ordered was sick and covered in ick all they said was you ordered them so you have to take them .lol so i took 250.00 worth of sick fish and tryed to treat them all died except a niger trigger ..but anyhow i've just seen very poor tank quality and every time i go there just to pick up supplys i wonder why they don't run some copper or something all there fish are either dead in the tanks or dieing ..very sad sight

 

[nillan00]

The only fish I have ever bought from petco were a group of 4 chromis (since they are cheap and hardy I figured even Petco could handle providing me with healthy ones)... 3 of them died within the next 4 days. (And believe me, it was not my fault) After that I've stayed away.

In response to still buying the rare healthy specimens found at Petco- this is only my opinion, but I feel that they are so irresponsible and cruel to their fish that we should not encourage them to continue supplying saltwater fish by purchasing any at all... That is, sure you may get one cheap healthy fish- but how many poor little guys had to die in the process? But like I said, that's just my opinion.

I've had a lot of luck with Liveaquaria.com- everything I've gotten there has been priced fairly and more importantly very healthy!

Have a good one,

Nilla

 

[kerusso316]

Its like buying an old boat to ski behind.You spend all summer working on it.Never ski.Sell it [Fish dies}Then go out and buy a newer boat and go sking.Should have spent the extra money in the first place and gone sking.

 

[tikireefer]

I will never buy another fish from Petco. A few years back I bought a Koran angel from Petco and found that it had Marine velvet. It died and killed off pretty much every other fish in the tank. It looked great in the store, but a few days later it all went down hill. That taught me a few lessons. You have to have a quarantine tank and don't buy from places like Petco......they just don't have the people with the experience and knowledge to care for marine fish successfully.

 

[DSMawd21]

I buy from there every now and then i bought a 6 inch long arrow head crab( hes HUGE ) for 8 dollars... and hes healthy..

 

[RRafael]

I think they give ICH free with every purchase........ they are horrible I asked thme about ich in their tanks and all they could say is "YEAH WE KNOW" ....... I would pay extra to know what I am buying is healthy.

Find a LFS that is good to you and stick with them.

 

[Brooklyn8]

I work at Petco, and although I am not the fish specialist, I can tell you we do the best we can keeping our fish healthy. The problem is, many off them come in sick from whatever company we order from. In addition, we don't have any quarantine tanks to treat any of our fish and we just don't have enough ich medication to treat the entire system of tanks if just one fish is sick. Also, we can't just eliminate a sick fish like many small lfs's do, we have to give it a "fair chance to survive" even if it infects the rest of the system before it dies... Our fish are cheap for a reason, you get what you pay for. If you are going to buy marine fish from Petco, just be cautious and set up a quarantine tank first. Our freshwater on the other hand are usually healthy, and I've never had a problem with one. BTW, I work at the Bloomingdale store, so I can't speak for other stores.

 

[revclyburn]

Personally buying at Petco is a chance, which many have taken. I have, and I lost more fish than I have been able to keep. My last purchase is the only fish I have had survived. That was a Lyretail Anthias, which eats pretty well, did at the store and does now. I took a chance on it, and I'm glad I did. But the other 2 I left there are probably dead. I had planned to go back and get at least one of them, the only other one that was eating, but didn't get a chance. I will look in and see if they have anymore that I might grab, for 12 bucks.

But overall, it's a chance with any fish, from anywhere. We all have brought fish from other LFS and lost them, at least I have. So, it's a chance no matter what. Just use caution with Petco, and if it ain't eating, it's not going to eat when you get it home.

RevClyburn

 

[hansnfrans]

I used to buy from Petco when I first started, but then after losing multiple fish to ich, I quit buying from them. Very unhealthy systems. Not worth saving a couple bucks IMO.

 

[olivia640]

I can't bring myself to shop at Petco anymore since I always seem to leave the store empty handed and irritated. I've seen them sell a clownfish to someone who was planing on putting it in a goldfish bowl and a goldfish to a couple who were going to put it in a betta vase (the poor goldfish was as long as the vase was wide). I've had the people who work there tell me ich can only spread to the "healthy" fish in the tank if the infected fish dies. I've also had them ask me if saltwater fish are harder to keep than freshwater fish. If they sell both shouldn't they know? The customer service always sucks too.

BTW, these things happened in the Petco in Niles by Village Crossing and the Petco by Old Orchard.

I suppose it can be worse. The fish that are in Petco stores could've ended up at Walmart where I've seen bettas in 1 inch deep water (I wish I were exaggerating).

 

[gkq325286]

It all depends on the petco. The one is Rockford is pretty good. I know one of the managers and the times I have been in there, while not often, the fish have been ok. I have even seen them QT fish and say they aren't for slae. NOT all are like that. I can think of a few closer to the city that suck.

 

[bpd964]

OK.. this is my deal with Petco:

They suck and the fish are ALWAYS sick and hungry.. BUT----

They will sell you 2 for 1 on sick fish and if you have a good QT setup then in a few weeks you will have a healthy fish for a good price.. I actually buy fish from them regularly because of their deals and I feel like I am saving them from their doom..

All in all though.. they suck and the staff don't really know much about saltwater fish...