Local PetCo

[cdness]

Well I was in my local PetCo yesterday only to pick up some chinchilla food and boy was it a bad sight in the saltwater section. I have never seen so many fish with diseases that still have price tags on them. I saw their little sign that says that their critters are number one, but I don't believe it for a second. It says they are checked every hour, but there were dead crabs, a dead anemone, 2 dead clowns, and other dead or almost dead fish in their tanks. There was a powder blue tang there that you could almost see through! Over half the fish in the tanks had visible signs of ich, most of them completely covered in it.

I don't know if it is the care of the fish after they get there or the condition of the fish when they receive them, but this was really bad. I feel sorry for the fish having to be in those conditions. I am going elsewhere for all my pet needs... I hope anyone else who sees this type of issue in any LFS will do the same.

 

[chrisgil10]

I have bought many times from petco in ny I bought 5 damsels
and my puffer fish in 2005 all but my puffer are still alive and they were in great condition

I also just set a tank here in florida (my neice kept my tank in ny when i moved) I bought a clown and 2 damsels and they are and were very healthy. I have never been in a petco with sick looking or thin mistreated fish.
Maybe you should contact the coparate office about this particular petco's terrible treatment of livestock.

now I have seen many a lfs (small mom and pop type) with poor conditions that were disgusting and I refuse to shop there!!

 

[cdness]

Thanks for the recommendation to contact corporate. I know that not all PetCos are bad, just like not all ma and pa stores are bad either. It all comes down to the treatment of the livestock there.

Do you happen to know how to get ahold of the corporate office?

 

[Spideybry]

It is very sad seeing stuff like that. There is even an aquarium store, but I dont know how they dare to call themselves that with the disgrace that their store is in. It is a sad sight and they will never get my business.

 

[ranger07]

Some are better than others.

 

[Sculp1n]

The problem with petco is that they are corporately owned and don't really care wether their SW livestock lives or dies but care if there loss of stock is less then the profit of those that are sold.

The only thing that makes a good petco over a bad one is the employees knowledge of their product. Most things are easy to care for, like the dogs, cats, reptiles, etc... but with SW fish and coral it takes years of experience and finding someone who will work for a petco and have years of experience in SW is limited.

My local petco is managed by a guy that used to own a brick and mortar pet store for years and their live stock looks great. They are one of the only petco's I've seen with astounding looking corals and other livestock that lasts for a long time. But if I go to the petco 2 cities away, everything is dead or dyeing.

Now petco could solve this by not offering such a delicate product or properly train their employees and pay them more but like I said, it's all about the money for these guys and heart is not a factor. So they will keep killing SW fish in massive numbers everyday and continue to soldier on.

So should you shop at Petco? Well thats up to your own conscience.

Thats just my 2 cents

Sculp1n

 

[sdietz2469]

sculp1n-m i totally agree. i take care of the salt department in out petco, and i do 3 times the "recommended maintance" and i dont follow all their rules either(please dont tell), and i have a very good rate of sucess in my fish, but i also wont order delicate things like powder blue tangs, and such... plus i bring in my home made food enriched in garlig, hufa's and aminos, so they are all fat and happy. the other two petcos just a few miles away are horible and dont take care of their saltwater like i do.

pets come first only if the employees believe that... i will let things go in the store such as throwing freight etc to make sure the animals are well taken care of, and sometimes i take my lashings for it, but i beleive what i believe, and if they ever tried to fire me for it i have plenty of stuff i could throw back in their face...

anyways i totally understand where you are coming from... ask to talk to the general manager, take him back and ask him to see what you see wrong. and ask for a water sample of his tanks... if you still see a problem, ask for the # to the corperate office... they will take care of it... believe me... their whole satndards are relied on by the way the customer views the store... if you are persistant then you will make a difference!!!!!!!

shane

 

[Sculp1n]

You have a great point sdietz and I agree. There is another thread here somewhere thats link to a website for a petition to boycott petco or something along those line (I didn't really read it, seems like a waist of time) but your method of going in a talking to the petco's GM is probably going to be way more effective.

Really though, I think a corporate store should not even bother with SW livestock, kind of like what PetSmart does. Though they kill off FW fish by the thousands every day, FW fish are mostly bread in captivity and the environmental impact is far smaller though still present. And any idiot can take care of FW fish, only some idiots can take care of SW.

I think next time I'm at the "Bad Petco" I'll have a talk with the GM and see what I can do.


Sculp1n

 

[garygb]

Definitely you should at least contact the manager, but as others have suggested, corporate headquarters might be more effective.

I was just in a Petco in Pasadena (on Arroyo), and the saltwater fish and corals were in very good shape. I've spoken to the guy that is over the fish dept.. and he is a hobbiest himself. It definitely varies from store to store how well the livestock is kept.

 

[MileHighFish]

I now know what you guys are talking about in so-cal I had no reason to visit a petco, now I live in the sticks and I went the other day to pick up nori. They had 3 yellow tangs in a 20g long. They are all in bad shape, fins were destroyed one of them was severally harassing the others. It was a sad site indeed. They had Anemones for $40 and maybe and inch wide. It seems like no one there had a clue as to how to take care of these fish. I would never support them.

 

[MileHighFish]

after thought: When i asked the sales guy a question his answer was "where i come from we eat fish! and dont spend $40 to watch them" just thought i would share..

 

[armada]

The same goes for the petco where I live i bought 3 damsels there when I couldn't recognize a diseased fish. They all died a week later. I now go to a Marine store about 45 minutes away now and have had luck with them. I recently went back to the petco and saw that every salt water fish there had ich. Very disappointing

 

[noboddi]

My local Petco has very clean tanks. Two of my local LFS's make me cringe when I see how they keep fish. It depends on who is maintaining the system. It's an industry wide problem, not just a Petco problem.

 

[m0nk]

PetCo scares me. I only ever see fish riddled with ich or starving, or dyed coral and anemones. Sad, sad stuff...

 

[Fishboy9227]

It all depends on which store you go in to. I urge you to complain to the corporate office as much as possible when you see horrible conditions. Corporate office cannot do anything about it unless you complain. They do not step into the stores often enough to know whats going on.

 

[JAG107]

I saw a green carpet anemone at my closest petco, in a 10gal tank with yellow water under a low wattage garage-style flourescent light that you'd see on a freshwater tank. It was pitiful, at first glance it looked like a dying toadstool leather, I told the department head that if it didn't get proper lighting NOW it would be soon dead. His reply? "Usually those sell fast, it's only been here 6 days so someone'll buy it soon and take care of it."
It's just so unfair for that animal to be removed from its habitat and slowly killed like that. Just ranting, sorry. I'm going to buy my dog food somewhere else from now on, Petco doesn't need my business for any of their products if that's the way they care for their livestock. I won't even get into the reef fish they had there, it was like a concentration camp for fish!

 

[billvan]

Whether a store is hit or miss, does not matter to me. Until Petco becomes consistent, as with any Mom and Pop not caring for their animals, I won't spend my money at Petco.

 

[A.T.T.R]

lfs in florida are usualy great since the competition is so high
( i can hit 6 stores in a short drive )
http://www.fmas1955.org/lfs.php
check it out lol we are lucky

now petco's while the one near me isnt the worst. it still is pretty bad esp the inverts they have

 

[cich4fish]

petco

petco

I work in retail myself and can say it is very hard to find people who care about thier job anymore.They believe they should come to work and get paid to stand there.Retail work doesn't pay very well so most do little and care little.

Petco's in my area are not very good either.Most fish and other livestock they have is poor at best.Fresh or salt its all the same.As a retail manager I would want to know that something was wrong in my store,so talk to the manager first(we don't like complaints that go to corporate)if that doesn't work then call corp.I would hope that the manager cares enough to fix the problem.

just my .02

Eric

 

[benzreef]

"It's an industry wide problem, not just a Petco problem." I happily work at a petco and have years of reefing experience. I couldn't have said it better myself noboddi.