PETCO is a great company,
Haven't been there very long, have you?
PETCO is a great company,
As we all know most freshwater fish are just better able to adapt into a larger range of conditions.
This is by no means a swing at you or Petco. Just an observation and curiousity. Absolutely no offense is intended.
Fresh water tanks have their own set of maladies, problems, issues and all sorts of stuff that can go wrong. However, when I'm in any one of the four local (to me) Petco's the FW tanks always look nice. They are clean, the water is clear, I do occasionally see a dead fish (I do not count the feeder tank in this) but there must be a couple of hundred fish. Fish that are supposed to be active are in fact active. All in all, if I were there to purchase a FW fish there is nothing to make me think I shouldn't make the purchase.
I often wonder why the SW tanks look so rough. Sure it's a different ballgame but why such a drastic difference? It's not even nessecarily a more difficult ballgame, just a different one. Any notions on why it seems this way?
Haven't been there very long, have you?
PETCO is a great company, it just takes a person who actually cares and knows about the hobby to upkeep and maintain quality life for fish.
Usually its because some stores have an inexperienced worker who probably doesn't know or doesn't care or both.
Not taking a shot at you here, but if they were such a great company who truely cares for the well being of the pets they sell I believe they would go through the proper procedures in the hiring process to ensure they have a qualified human being overseeing their aquatic dept, which in most cases they do not. It appears they lucked out hiring you and hope they look for more enthusiast like yourself in the future to fill these kinds of positions.
I did a 9 month Bid at our local Petco as the Companion animal department manager. The fish were well taken care of in our store. Ordering was fun I could order small orders from ORA and SA that a LFS could not because I was with Petco. The small animals on the other hand were not taken care of propperly.
The cages for the rodents were broken badly causing mice and rats to easily escape and breed. They also were not secured to the wall and almost fell on me once while I was cleaning I sent numerous requests to corporate for them to be fixed and mentioned it on every corporate animal care walk. Nothing was ever fixed. That was two years ago and the cages are still there.
The real problem pertaining to animal care was the employees. The company pays poorly and does not drug test or do background checks besides checking that you are who you say you are. The employees are given very little training before being asked to care for a tremendous diversity of animals.
I was a manager and bagging crickets and selling pets 20 minutes after my 1st interview.
This is true in any labor industry. Once in awhile you stumble across an employee who also does his job as a hobby. They genuinely care about the products they sell and the job they perform. They research and learn more about the practice in their off time. Great for the customers in that area. But you can't rely on finding that one perfect employee for every location across the country. You need a training system put in place with solid management to back it up. When Petco can't take any random soul off the street and turn them into someone who can care about/for saltwater aquaria, it has a problem.PETCO is a great company, it just takes a person who actually cares and knows about the hobby to upkeep and maintain quality life for fish.
petco is the worst. it is absolutely necessary to have a specialty retailer for saltwater aquarium products and animals.
petco is the worst. it is absolutely necessary to have a specialty retailer for saltwater aquarium products and animals.
As a former petco employee who managed the aquatics department, it's frustrating to hear complaining about the employees. Sure you will have some that don't care or just don't know how to maintain a petco system. But, in my experience the majority of of employees do care and try to keep the systems healthy.
The problem is not them. It lies at the corporate level where they decide what is best for petco as a whole without any real knowledge of what goes on day by day in an aquatics department. Employees are hamstrung by a limited staff, limited setups and limited access to the right equipment and medications needed. There is a process for quarantine but requires a significant amount of time, and when the aquatics specialist is being called to do other store duties, his/her percentage of time per week actually working in the department is diminished. They do require the use of petco salt, they do limit what meds can be used and they don't allow the employees to retrofit any systems for the specific needs of different animals as referenced earlier in this thread with the diamond gobies.
While I completely understand people's desire to stay away from petco, I encourage those who do to not blindly bash the employees as they are, for the most part working hard to create healthy systems, even with one hand tied behind their back.
If I had my preference, I would like to see them remove saltwater systems from their livestock selection because the other option would require more time and money than they would be willing to invest. It is frustrating to not only those who shop in petco, but also to those who work there. End rant.