Petco, where I dont go...Anymore!(img INTENSE)

[grimmjohn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7443184#post7443184 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Pillz

They are too cheap to buy cages for there extra animals so they plug up sinks and use them as cages, now even this could be passed over and seen as not that big of a deal, but not when there sinks all leak and pretty much the animals inside either drown or die of hypothermia from getting wet then not having anything to keep them warm.

We can order as many store use AGA 10 and 15 gallon tanks as we want...for free...we have about twelve 10 and 15 gallon tanks where we keep animals that are up for adoption or sick or are overstock. These animals are meticulously cared for...each cage has a care sheet detailing why the animals are in the "wellness room" and what meds/food etc... they should be receiving and when. This sheet is signed every morning and evening by the person who tended to the animals. If they are not signed off on then the manager on duty is subject to immediate termination. If the care sheet is signed but action was obviously not taken then the person who signed it but did nothing is subject to immediate termination.

Friday we were visited by our "Regional Animal Specialist. (RCAC) " The store is graded on a 1-100 scale on how well we care for our animals. We get docked 2 points if there is algae in a fish tank. If there are more than 5 dead goldfish or more than 2 dead tropical fish per section then the manager is in deep crap and could very easily get fired. Keeping an animal in the sink would be insta-firing. Scoring lower than a 90% puts the store and all managers on probation...corporate then comes down hard and checks in more frequently until the problems are taken care of, or new people have to be brought in. My aquatics section has always scored 100.

Cheers,

grimmjohn

P.S. don't make me laugh with PETA alligations...Their heart may be in the right place..but I can't take any organization that wants people to release all their ferrets, ban fishing as "Underwater torture," and considers OUR hobby as cruel and unusual very seriously and I must admit I doubt their sanity. Their agenda is to not have ANY animals EVER sold in ANY petstore.

 

[Pillz]

grimmjohn- This wasnt an attack on you.. Nor was this soley about your store.. IM talking about the stores in my area. Im saying there there hasnt been one petco that I have been to that has a decent small animal or fish setup. Just the fact that petco will by reptials off of non business breeders to sell should scare you.. I dont think any animal that has the potential to be over 3 ft long and live 20 odd years should be sold without knowing exactly where it came from..

as for peta, they may be stupid. But There also huge and shouldnt be shrowned at since they have the power to cause Huge problems with this hobby or any other hobby.

Thats good that your petco stays clean.. i would like to come there just to see.

 

[Dactyl]

thats nothing. come to florida where you have tons and tons of fish stores with tanks full of native species theyre just raping from the wild and selling for profit. its really a shame.

 

[grimmjohn]

Pillz,
I didn't take any offence, and I hope I caused none as well, I was just trying to give an account of how things /should/ work at a petco i guess..I know there are plenty of bad ones..hell, ours used to be plenty bad way before I got there..our SW shrink used to be around 50%...Our "inventory" still has several fish that have "vanished'' in it...either they were ordered and then died and were not keyed out..or an employee helped themselves..this includes a $150 clown trigger, queen angels, regal angel, purple tangs etc...needless to say, EVERYONE that worked in the store prior to me being hired was fired...I have worked in this petco longer than anyone else currently employed there.
Back to the inventory...now I'm kinds screwed cause to "clean house" I should "key out" those fish to take them out of our inventry...but doing that would make me look bad cuase our shrink would go through the roof and corporate would be on my manager and I like stink on **** for "killing" hundreds of dollars worth of stuff...even if we explained that all that happened previously and the other guy got fired for it, it would still be a huge black stain on paper and in the computer and every graph ever printed out about our store again. Err.

cheers,

grimmjohn

 

[loveclowns]

I went to a Petco in Gadsden, Alabama, in April just to look. The clownfish were OK, but they had a regal blue tang that was in its dying moments. It was covered with ich. I felt so bad for him.

 

[SerranidTerror]

I used to work for Petco as well but have moved into a much better part of the industry. I've pm'ed grimm a few times and he is a fantastic guy- so I definitely would never attack him. So this is on Petco not him.

I tried my hardest to get our store to set up quarantine tanks in the back, breakroom, and wellness room. I was usually pretty sucessful at convincing fellow managers that this was a good idea but of course the stupid RCAC's would say this is not protocol and "I do not approve." So kudos if your RCAC let you set up 10 and 15 gallon store use tanks and kudos to your DM if they let you order soooo many tanks and other store use items because my store was alotted NOTHING! (We had a tiny budget)

I also think the grading of the store is major BS. Sometimes I feel they focus a bit more on things like algae than health of fish or whatever critter. I mean it is cool they will do "care alerts" and also come back more often if you score low. However I have seen this scoring system used as a tool to oust managers and promote "hand selected" ones.

I dunno, the company does have/get some good ideas but as far as carrying them out-they flat out never give the stores the tools to do so. Unfortunately Grimm's store is one of the very rare exceptions in that company I guess. Had I not gone in the direction that I am going in now I would have applied for an RCAC position with the company and perhaps made a bit of a difference in "protocol." But in the meantime we have the forum to complain on and your local shops to shop in

 

[mnmsea]

my daughter worked for petco from the age of 16 to 20. This is actually where she developed her love of salt water fish. She taught herself by reading alot and her manager is salt water aquarist, so he taught her also. She came to be their expert and had regular customers. We still have a clown that she adopted from a customer taking down his tank. From her love and starting with a very small tank, and much trial and error...Now I am hooked!. And no, no one but her and the manager could actually help a customer with a saltwater question. she only worked part time (going to school, so only worked on school breaks), so she ended up getting frustrated and will NOT work in fish now. I have to agree that perhaps Petco should not sell salt water fish, as it takes a great deal to learn what it takes to keep a salt water tank. But, I can't knock Petco too much as that is how I ended up with our beautiful tank in progress!

 

[BMW///M3]

Wow,

I think it's about time I chime in....
I'm going to start off by saying I'm not siding with either party's opinions on this matter. I will openly (and proudly say) I am also an aquatics manager of a petco in Concord NC. In recent years I have been employed by a few different LFS's so I see how each store approaches fish keeping/retail. I have painfully read through this entire thread and taken notes as to what different people have said, what pictures have been put up, ect. To be honest, one of the reasons I took the job as aquatics manager (or C.A.S) is so there won’t be a continuance of gripes about petco, at least not about my store. I was hired on the spot by the GM of the store due to his need to a knowledgeable fish specialist. I have been in the hobby for years now (over a year in saltwater). When I arrived at my store the FOCAL (acronym for a display tank) had been set-up by another aquatics manager at the other Charlotte Petco and my jaw hit the floor when I saw it. There were 12, yes 12 LARGE angels (asapher, scribble, koran, emperor, ect) 15 DIFFERENT types of clowfish 3 fake rocks and 9 flake plants which were only about 6 inches tall. Needless to say I felt kind of panicked my first day on the job. All but one of the angels died due to stress from the 75!!!!!! Gallon tank they were in. I then took everything out of the tank, ordered 75lbs of L.R. put 130W PC's over the tank, and slowly started turning it into a reef tank with the inhabitants of 2 clowns, 1 purple tang, 1 lawnmower blenny, 1 clown goby, 1 orange spotted goby, 2 peppermint shrimp, 3 cleaner shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 30 hermits, 45 snails, 1 bar goby, 1 carpet anemone which houses the clowns, 1 LTA anemone, 3 green polyp toadstools, 10 polyp rocks (brown, yellow, green), 3 mushroom rocks, 1 large bubble coral, ect. The tank has been over healthy for 7 months now.

Now, on to my livestock. No where in my tanks will you find any powder blues, browns, ect. None of my fish have any type of ich, lymphosysts, ect. I have only lost ONE saltwater fish in the last 4 1/2 months who was sick on arrival. I do 30% water changes EVERY week, put ph buffer in, add any trace elements needed to keep my corals healthy. My water parameters are as follows

Fish System
Temp: 78
PH: 8.2
No2: 0
No3: 0
Alk: 300
Ca: 470
SG: 1.023

Coral/Invert
Temp:77-78
Ph: 8.3
No2: 0
No3: 0
Alk: 300
Ca: 500
SG: 1.024

My corals are all kept under T-5 HO's, I still have YET to loose a coral in 6 months, as we are very limited to what we can order (polyps, leathers, mushrooms, Zoa's). None of my fish have any type of ich, ever. If they do, I was given permission by my GM to set up a QT tank in the break room, I have nursed a fox face, a coral beauty, and a yellow tang back to perfect health after 3 weeks being in QT. A 20G which I run hypo salinity on at ALL times, with a 2 hours slow drip acclimation.

In my fish section probably the most exotic thing you will see are a blue tang or a yellow tang, both of which are in a 40L which is 4 feet, so they have plenty of room to swim, they all get fresh nori 2 times a day. We are required by corporate to keep so many fish on hand, so in the 40 I have to kept about 6-7 tangs or I will loose my job. Do I like doing this? Absolutely not, have any of them fought or died due to stress, absolutely not! The yellow tangs and the scopas tangs actually school together. My fish that do stay in the store for more then 2 weeks learn to hand feed some of the scoaps and blue tangs will eat right from my hand.

When ANY of my saltwater fish come it they get drip acclimated, sure, it takes 5 hours to do all of them, but it's done the right way

Who do I sell to? Whenever ANYONE wants to buy any type of saltwater fish I grill them to make sure they will be a responsible owner, and the fish will be comfortable in it's new environment. For example I won’t sell a blue tang to anyone who has a tank under a 90G. I wont sell a yellow tang to anyone who has less than a 55. If someone wants to buy corals I make sure they have the proper type of lighting to keep it alive.

If anyone in NC is near the charlotte area come to the concord mills petco and see the tanks/fish for yourself, I grantee you will be impressed. I am a hobbyist myself, and really care about the health of my animals, and who they go home with. I hope this rant has had some impact on some the members of this board to show that not ALL petco's are bad.

 

[DamnDamsel]

I stopped by Petco again yesterday to pick up some salt, and I met someone who seemed to know alot about SW. He said that he only worked at the store one day a week, and often tries to pursuade his managers to improve the SW system.

Reading the topic of the thread followed by this post was a classic

I have never been in a LFS that did not have some trouble going on in one tank or another.

There are some people in this hobby who have mastered it, but the rest of us make mistakes too.

 

[White Tiger]

One time I asked at Petco "Is it possible to fit 3 full grown niger triggers, 1 full grown humu humu, and 1 full grown lionfish in a 50g tank?"

The response was "Definitly, infact, you can fit 5 full grown triggers with a full grown lionfish with no problem!"

Another time I asked "Can my humu humu live with 2 cleaner shrimps peacefully?"

The response was from a Petco guy was "Yes! There should be no problem."

Luckily, most of those people were not saltwater specialist as I soon found out. However, one saltwater specialist at my local Petco said yes to my triggerfish question!

There is perhaps only one trustable saltwater specialist at my local Petco.

 

[grimmjohn]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7519875#post7519875 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SerranidTerror
However I have seen this scoring system used as a tool to oust managers and promote "hand selected" ones.

That is very true.
Instead of the animal care audit though they usually use the big 50 page store audit...they ONLY do that one if they want to fire the manager..cuase they have to score a 70% on it...and apparently there is not a petco in the world that can pass it..so then they can fire the manager.

Cheers,

grimmjohn

 

[FishGuttz]

Before reading it, I thought this thread was about our responsibility as reefers to care for marine animals in a humane way. If we all agreed to do so, we would force these fish stores to change there ways. Here's how:

1. Buy fewer or no items from stores that mistreat animals.
2. Buy fewer or no wild caught animals.
3. Tell the stores that you intend on doing this.
4. Support self sustained reefing by initiating area frag swaps.
5. Alert authorities about the mistreatment of marine and/or other animals in LFS.

Anyone care to add or detract?

 

[DrBegalke]

Nothing is humane as leaving the animal in its natural habitat.

 

[Shark722]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6368302#post6368302 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tdman3627
....Our department is way better looking than the pics you posted above. Most of the time with the fish overcrowding is because of some retard up in the corporate office....
Ryan

I work at the local Petco here too, I do have to second what is said here... Any fish sale that Petco has, they have to stock for. Basically, that means if tetras are on sale, you get 150 of them that you dont want on top of the 50 you usually order... so you will sometimes end up with all of those in one or two 50 gallon tanks. My store has a so-so salt section, not all of the employees know about the sw. Sales are usually followed by a 'push' order which usually consists of many fish you don't have room for. Anytime clowns are on sale, we generally will get 24 of each, Tomatos, Perculas(False), Clarkiis, all from ORA. As far as inverts go, I wish we didnt carry them as they are in poorly lit tanks. Also the manager here that orders them is dumb, and orders 'what looks cool' not what will sell.

 

[grimmjohn]

There is nothing wrong with splitting them up...we only have ~10 gallon FW tanks so I split the 150 neons up between 5 or 6 tanks...I split the normal 50 neon orders into 2 or 3 tanks. Seems to prevent the problem of them all dying within 24 hours.
I do that with angels too...we have to order 24 at a time so they get split into 2 or 3 tanks to keep them all alive too.

I did just order a red sea puple tang though (my first) and they come from another company (not Seagreast but CIS international)..so this other company apparently just "rounded out" my order (apparently the tang alone did not make the minimum order limit so they just sent me whatever they wanted to get my order up to the limit instead of calling or something) with 3 other random organisms...a juvi emporer snapper, and 2 "lobsters" of some sort...kinda ticked me off..cuase I can't see these guys selling very fast..though ya never know....but normally when an order doesn't make a # limit the order just gets auto-cancelled.

Cheers,

grimmjohn

 

[nomadnumber29]

It isn't surprising to see pictures like this. I used to work for a lfs and we had a similar set-up. 2 huge wall units divided up into fish and inverts. The bad part is that the animals aren't expected to be there long, however many times they are there for weeks. which leads to them becoming more stressed, and since it was all one system every animal was effected. The sad part is that most chain type of stores have this set-up and unless everyone boycots these stores it will continue to happen. But is this really realistic? no... it isn't.

 

[firefishbrain]

Like every sort of corperate company, quality is realitivly low. petco is in just for the money. I only go there if I can't find some eqipment at some lfs's. I wourk at a lfs and we actually have to do some setups for petco, it's hmiliating...

 

[Sea Ninja]

I used to deal with Petco on a daily basis and let me tell you they should scrap their fish department. I was the one they would call in to do the maintenance for them.

 

[Billybeau1]

Well as long as this thread is going, I might as well share my story.

Walked into a new Petco in my area this morning. First thing I see is a 40 gal tank with the lights off and the niger trigger is up at the top gasping for air and turning on his side. A closer look revealed that nothing was running in the tank and it was terribly cloudy. I see a guy stocking shelves (looked like an Asst Mgr type) and I say to the guy. "You might want to check out that tank in the front, your about to loose a trigger." He says not to worry, the lights on the tank go on at ten oclock. I said "I dont think you understand, the pump in the tank is not running. The fish is running out of oxygen." He walks over with me to see the tank not running at all. He quicky discovers the electric going to the tank is not working and gets another cord and plugs the tank in. I walked out shaking my head.

You think the least a store owner can do if hes gonna sell fish is to check his tanks first thing in the morning.

The only thing is I feel good about saving a fish today. Such a shame. Such a shame.

 

[xtm]

I came across this "underground" LFS in Pasadena this morning. I was driving by and decided to take a look - it was one of those super crowded LFS that sells mostly parrot foods and hamster beddings, so I said screw this. When I turned around, I saw the most shocking thing ever - a "Yellow" Tang housed in a betta bowl!!! I kid you not. It was horrific scene, it wasn't even yellow anymore.. it was pale white and uber thin. It makes Petco look 50x better