I just got a job at petco for some bank till I hear back from med school so I would like to address some of the stuff mentioned above (this is by NO MEANS a defense, I'm a hobbiest first and foremost too ). I knew that I knew more than enough to run the store from a livestock perspective and knew that I would be a valuable asset, and help save some fish in the process, and have ended up teaching everyone a lot. I walked in, told the big manager more than he knew about almost every animal in the store (which is fine, he's a manager right?), was hired immediately, and started an hour later and have been getting over 40 hours a week since...so petco will hire good people if they can. They can't help it if an experinced hobbiest/biology student/animal expert doesn't apply (I guess $7-8 doesn't cut it, any of you want the job you can have it..the guys with marine biology degrees are spending grant money on a boat over a reef somewhere, not working at petco for under 20K a year) . I think that most managers want to keep as many animals alive as they can, but then there is a "corporate" side too. Our store has not had any ich infestations since I started, and the "dead list" has begun to shrink. (all dead fish should be removed every morning at 7AM and several times through out the day as per company policy (and as an animal lover I wouldn't have it any other way.))
I wish that I had time (or we had the employees) to allow me to spend all of my time in the fish/reptile section instead of stocking and other stuff, but I don't yet.
Also, I know it's a crappy excuse, but sometimes fish just die. We get in a shipment of several hundred fish, acclimate them, put them in the tank, feed them, keep the water decent, and some just die. I'm pretty expereinced, but I don't know much else to do..anyone else? I like to show up at LFSs when they get in their shipments to get a deposit on the good stuff, and ya know what? Some of their fish are dead too, more die within 24 hours, and some die within the week, or before they are sold...multiply that by the volume that petco's deal with and well...
Many people order online from stores with amazing reputations and one out of ten or so of those fish die too during shipping or within the week too, multiply that out? Fish are going to die; I can feed them, maintain water quality, try to medicate them, but some still die. It breaks my heart cuase I get to pick out the dead ones too...but anyway.
So, a good aquatic specialist, and an understanding, willing big manager can go a long way to making a petco a very decent fish store (no comment about the berlin skimmers and no PHs over 200GPH, or decent hydrometers for sale).
Being a hobbiest first, I have sent lots of people to my favorite LFSs for goods/livestock that we don't carry, or that they may find cheaper, and usually end up telling them they should check those stores (and RC
) out anyway, but I am trying to make petco a better store, and give people the same level of advice I would expect to find from good members here.
Back to "corporate," which was mentioned before. Our catalog that we can order livestock from is disheartening in many ways. It included many fragile species of butterflies, goniopora, X-mas tree rocks, mandarins, and every kind of anemone (yes Ritteris and carpets) you can think of (except BTAs?). I doubt many petco stores in the nation have the capabilities to assure quality conditions for these creatures. I took the book and told all the managers what we would more than likely kill if we ordered it and could not turn it around immediately (not that immediate turn around is a good thing, I could git rid of all the Ritteris we could order if I said they lived in FW too and ate algea.)
Anyway, my favorite is that flame scallops require "high intensity full spectrum UV light :lol: ." Anyway, that's my take on petco, ours is pretty good, I'll try to help make it better, some fish are gonna die dispite my best efforts, help as many people as you can along the way, stay away from the bad ones, if you can stump the main "aquatics speicalist" then go somewhere else, or apply for a job () : )
Again, this isn't a rant, or a defense of bad petcos, just an appropiate place for me to ramble on about my new job to a group of people that care and for whom it is relavent. () : )
Cheers,
grimmjohn
EDIT: Guess I'll keep going () : )
We've only gotten one shipment in with ich, a bag of small black moor goldfish, most were dead within 24 hours despite my efforts. And only two fish have gotten ich since I've started, 2 parrot cichlids, I took them out of the tank with oscars and they cleared up.
A manager ordered a naso, a PblueT, et al...they come in Wed. morning, I think a few of them figured that now that they had somebody that knew about SW/reef tanks they would get in all the "cool" stuff they've been missing out on. It's gonna be my job to figure out which fish go in which tanks this morning, all the lions and puffers isn't gonna make it easy
I'm really worried about the powder blue.
I'm kinda disapointed...they asked me if I had anything I wanted to order and I told them "I bet we can sell some firefish/purple firefish pretty quick, some false percs, and a dwarf lion or two, a snowflake eel, a couple YWGs, and some chromis." I'm worried that we're gonna get in this huge order instead. I'm really worried about finding a customer with a 125+ tank to take that naso and 100+ for the PBT and the purple tang we already have (not to mention the 2 baby panthers we have, though every LFS in the world has a tank full of baby panthers and assorted tangs). Anyway, hopefully everything will work out great, I'm pretty sure I can make all the fish happy (I hope I can find some decent angel food for the baby koran I think we're getting though).
