PetCo is terrible - Photos

The only LFS close to me is an awful place, I could not bring myself to purchase any livestock from there, On the other hand the PETCO in Salina Kansas has a young guy working there who goes by the name of Brandon, I have to say he is a bright intelligent young man who certainly knows his stuff, he does of course keep reef tanks himself, since he took over that department I have not once seen a sick or badly injured fish, he took my cell # and immediately calls me with anything he thinks I may be interested in. I believe he "actually cares" about his fishy charges, well done youngun.
 
that Fish Guy said:
If everyone supported the LFS then they would not go down hill and would not go out of business.

I tell everyone to support the LFS and pitch in like I do.

Otherwise eventually they will not be around.
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I doubt LFS go down hill right away. The more corners they cut the more obvious it becomes. Like Any business its a slow decline once management stops caring about livedtock and find their happy medium of a least work possible cycle.
 
There are so many things wrong (and right) with so many of these posts. I have worked at petco before and I have turned sales away because people didn't have the proper setups for said animals.

One instance was a guy buying a hippo tang for his 40br. I told him that tank was too small for it, and he cursed me out and told me to bag up the "eff'n" fish. I said no and that I will not sell to somebody that is rude, manager then went over my head and sold it to him. Week later he showed up with a dead Hippo DEMANDING his money back. I laughed in his face and told him to leave (this time the manager backed me up)

Some stores get frag tanks based on the sales they do with the saltwater community, the store I worked at was on the cusp of getting a 75gal frag tank, when I quit due to moving. Their sales went down to where they couldn't support the frag tank.

My LFS is the most disgusting fish store every. I've seen the owner step on mice in front of children because they had gotten loose, I saw a lionfish who had no face and was covered in that "death mucus".

I'm on the verge of asking him if I can volunteer my services and try and get his salt system up and clean just so I can use his connection to get supplies/frags/fish.

Or I thought about starting my own Fish store that would just shut down his fish section (he does reptiles/cats/dogs/rodents). I just don't have the capital to start that right now.

Anyways, each store is a case by case instance. When I worked there it was a second job, I loved fish and it wasn't my main source of income. I gave people good advice, and had people get my phone number to call me when I quit (mind you I told them I was no expert).
Big box stores vs LFS's is an geographical/demographical debate. Do I like local stores more than big box, yes. Are they always better? Hell no.
If you see a petco that has a good system that is struggling to keep up, think about getting a job there PT...not only will they pay you (not much) but you'll get 20% off and if you don't trust the system you can order special and not let the item it the tanks.
Same goes for the LFS. But this LFS of mine has snakes, and I've seen snakes loose in the store, which just no.
 
matty0206 said:
Not all Petco's are created equally. This is at a Petco in Tacoma where a member of our local forum on Facebook works, better than some saltwater stores.
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Old post, but what Petco in Tacoma is this? I had thought I had been to them all and I don't recall seeing this. I did see a frag tank like that in Lakewood, but it had nothing but dead stuff in it.
 
Answering my own question:

So, I found this place in Tacoma, 6th and Pearl. Let's just say the tank doesn't look like this anymore. I'm pretty sure the pic was taken when the tank was set up and stocked for the very first time.

Bummer
 
^^^^ But the overall point of the post is still incredibly valid. The health of the aquatics department is going to be entirely dependant on the employees who maintain it, not Petco itself. Yes, Petco hires mainly <25 year old kids who just want to make a buck while they're in school. So you get plenty of employees that don't give two ishts about the company or the livestock. But you sometimes get that guy who has a 120g saltwater tank at home, is very active in the local reefing community and actually does hard work to keep the department healthy. I'm fortunate enough to have the latter. The biggest problem my store has is poor lighting. The fish and low light corals are always looking healthy (and I live 3 blocks from the store and am in there quite a bit). But the SPS that comes in occasionally dies off if not bought within ~2 weeks. They keep it on a frag rack up at the top of the tank, but there's only so much they can do.

EDIT: The same can be said with any LFS. And actually any other business too. Plenty of employees at Best Buy are morons, but there's plenty who love their job and really know their isht too. It's all gonna depend on the employees at your specific store.
 
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firebirdude said:
^^^^ But the overall point of the post is still incredibly valid. The health of the aquatics department is going to be entirely dependant on the employees who maintain it, not Petco itself. Yes, Petco hires mainly <25 year old kids who just want to make a buck while they're in school. So you get plenty of employees that don't give two ishts about the company or the livestock. But you sometimes get that guy who has a 120g saltwater tank at home, is very active in the local reefing community and actually does hard work to keep the department healthy. I'm fortunate enough to have the latter. The biggest problem my store has is poor lighting. The fish and low light corals are always looking healthy (and I live 3 blocks from the store and am in there quite a bit). But the SPS that comes in occasionally dies off if not bought within ~2 weeks. They keep it on a frag rack up at the top of the tank, but there's only so much they can do.

EDIT: The same can be said with any LFS. And actually any other business too. Plenty of employees at Best Buy are morons, but there's plenty who love their job and really know their isht too. It's all gonna depend on the employees at your specific store.
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Every last bit of what you said is reflective of the company. They hire the people, they manage the people, its their job after all. If the cannot, and stuff dies, its the company failing to deal with it. If they choose the bottom line, that's their choice, but the loss is entirely their fault in this case.
 
matty0206 said:
Not all Petco's are created equally. This is at a Petco in Tacoma where a member of our local forum on Facebook works, better than some saltwater stores.
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Yes, they have what are called magnet stores... those have higher level aquatic sections among other features.
 
At my local petco, I saw an undulate triggerfish picking apart a poor bicolor angelfish. They were put together in a ten gallon. This trigger was picking apart the angel LIMB FROM LIMB. I could barely watch it. I asked the saltwater "expert" if he could move the undy and he said it's fine and its the "quarantine tank". It's not the triggers fault.
 
The next time I went their I (of course) had a chip on my shoulder from my last visit. So I asked The "expert" what the "little white dots" on the fish were. His answer was, and I quote,"That is, um, uh, oh those are nothing". SERIOUSLY!!!!!!!
 
update! My local petco in hickory nc got a frag tank! Little do they know they have all corals on the sandbed and a light that barely pentetrates the surface. I hope they get this figured out. The fish have all took a turn for the worst though. They were selling a Wyoming white, two picassos, and a few wrasse that all clearly had a terrible case of velvet. All the tanks in that section are on the same system so unfortunately there are probably many fish that are going to die. They have a zoa frag in the Wyoming white tank that has at least 60 polyps for 40 bucks, but I don't want to chance getting anything from that tank.
 
My local petco just gutted their entire aquatics section in order to set up a dedicated frag tank and better holding tanks. Should be done in a couple weeks. I shouldn't be excited but I am.
 
Local PetCo to me has a couple hard working employees who are making the effort. Both salt and fresh aquariums are good condition or better.

Regarding folks' statements about single systems LFS and disease, single systems are cost effective and very common, and one needs to quarantine and treat prophylacticly regardless.
 
Local Petco and Petsmart here (Petaluma, CA) have freshwater only, no saltwater, probably a smart move on their part. Local LFS (Jofish) I enjoyed going to closed a while back, and the next closest one charges too much for things in my opinion. I found some serious hobbyists that also do a lot of sales in reasonable driving distance and always go there when possible. Luckily there is a good reef community in this area.
 
I had to stop going in there because of these reasons. If not I would have 100's of fish, literally. Feel so bad for those creatures that get treated like a pawn for a $. I have to say that I have a few beautiful specimens, Maroon/Gold and 2 Black Ice Clowns in doing so. Definitely wouldn't of been able to afford them anywhere else but gave them an offer and took it. One even had pop eye!!!! It was totally the employee they had working there with too much free rain on ordering. They don't even have the clientele to sell too, let alone them having the knowledge to care for it...
Its not how much the box is worth, its the value of life in it!!!!
 
I went to my local petco lastnight, was poking around the salt section they had 2 tiny cleaner shrimp in with a Hawkfish that at this point were crunched by the hawk. The woman tells me it's ok they were feeder shrimp so I ask her then why are they labeled cleaners for $29.99??? Ugh stupid people
 
Good news, my local Petco shut down their saltwater section. I was there last night picking up a few dozen feeder goldfish for my pond and noticed they shut it down. I was talking to the employee and he said, "The decision was made to stop carrying saltwater animals because we were killing about $500 a week." I said, "Well that doesn't surprise me given the fact that you guys don't have a quarantine system, you mix inverts with fish so you can't medicate and corporate won't allow you to run even a therapeutic level of copper in your system."

Needless to say, I was happy to see this particular Petco Marine Graveyard shut down. Hopefully this will become a trend.
 
CuzzA said:
Good news, my local Petco shut down their saltwater section. I was there last night picking up a few dozen feeder goldfish for my pond and noticed they shut it down. I was talking to the employee and he said, "The decision was made to stop carrying saltwater animals because we were killing about $500 a week." I said, "Well that doesn't surprise me given the fact that you guys don't have a quarantine system, you mix inverts with fish so you can't medicate and corporate won't allow you to run even a therapeutic level of copper in your system."

Needless to say, I was happy to see this particular Petco Marine Graveyard shut down. Hopefully this will become a trend.
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That's good news!
 
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