Sad sight at W'loo Petco

[vikubz]

On my lunch hour I swung into Petco to see what I could see, and unfortunately I saw a lot of dead and soon to be dead fish in their saltwater area.

One tank had a niger trigger, a volitan lionfish, a foxface all motionless on the bottom. Another had about 2 dozen damsels with 8 or 10 dead ones on the bottom of the tank. Another had a coral beauty in its final throes.

This is the worst marine fish department I've seen. If I thought it would do any good I'd talk to the management.

 

[phishcrazee]

Wow, what a sad end to these fish that were once free in the ocean I can only imagine what's they've endured to get to these sad little tanks here in Iowa........what a shame.

 

[vikubz]

For any of the folks that are just starting in this hobby, it is important that you resist the urge to "rescue" one of these animals by purchasing it. It is unlikely that they will recover, you will probably introduce disease into your tank, and you will only succeed in encouraging the retailer to continue to carry these poor critters.

 

[xroads]

Yes it is sad, I usually dont even waste my time going in there anymore.

 

[Dave Dunbar]

This is where an organization like PETA should step in!! They should fine and then remove the places privilge to sell these
animals!!!
Dave

 

[natereinhold1]

The best option is to "order" your critters from them and pick them up friday morning when they get them in from shipping, that way you can get them in the shipping bags, before they put them into their horrible tanks of death. Usually they arrive healthy and one of their biggest suppliers is segrest farms, which is who i used to order from and have always had great success with them.

 

[calebjk]

I think that with places like petco, the problem begins before their tanks. It seams quite likely that they get their product from vendors that have bad collection/shipping practices.

 

[SlukBunWalla]

Any distributors that carry poor quality livestock and have poor shipping or collections practices would be out of business in no time...there are enough wholesalers (and stores) doing it right that they couldn't compete in the market.

When you are in a store that has sub par livestock and living conditions, it is completely on the shoulders of the store. Working in a store, quite rarely do you RECEIVE livestock that is falling apart, covered in ich, or generally sick. Shipping stress is one thing, and does cause problems or very delicate fish (Copper band butterflies...or neon tetras haha) but for the most part a wholesaler will send good livestock, because it reflects on them.

Petcos and Petsmarts actually carry ORA livestock...which is some of the healthiest around and their shipping and packaging is top notch. When the poor clowns and things get to Petco's disease ridden, poorly maintained tanks it's all downhill from there...that combined with the shipping stress, it's just too much for them.

I encourage you to speak with the management when you see things like this. They need to hear how disappointed you are, and realize they just lost business. The more they hear this, the more likely they are to fix it...even if it mean discontinuing marine livestock. Anger and apathy does nobody any good.

 

[natereinhold1]

I agree with: "When you are in a store that has sub par livestock and living conditions, it is completely on the shoulders of the store. Working in a store, quite rarely do you RECEIVE livestock that is falling apart, covered in ich, or generally sick. Shipping stress is one thing, and does cause problems or very delicate fish (Copper band butterflies...or neon tetras haha) but for the most part a wholesaler will send good livestock, because it reflects on them." While we still had our family petstore, I ordered from most of the same suppliers that petco/petsmart did, in fact thats who steered me to them. The only difference is the fact that I had less than 1% mortality rate, and the chain stores are by far higher than that. I always received healthy fish and inverts, it's all in the holding tanks of the retailer.

 

[jstngates]

I have been to that one in waterloo and they arent very smart and it is quite dirty... i did witness the same situation in the Coralville one but I think the marion one is much better and they have been real helpful to me there. It is a bad situation though. Why sell the stuff if you know nothing about it and dont care to take care of them.

 

[cwbhawk]

I bought a Coral Beauty from the petco in Waterloo and it was infested with Flukes, or some type of similar parasite. It died within a month. I wouldn't have bought the fish, but they have poor lighting in thier tanks and I couldn't tell that there was anything wrong with the fish. I am really struggling to find a diecent store in the cedar falls/waterloo area, but even Emporium pets(now mad hat pets) in Cedar Falls is better than Petco. Any store suggestions?

 

[xroads]

I have few for you CB,

Live Aquaria, Saltwater fish.com, blue zoo.

Or if you want to make a 3-4 hour trip you can check out pets playhouse in CR, AE in the QC, Adams or IA seascapes in DM.

I dont think I would buy a fish anywhere in Waterloo myself

 

[cwbhawk]

thanks for the suggestions

 

[jamesk]

Don't forget about Sea Of Marvels in North Liberty/Coralville

 

[dewdad]

You may want to check out Aquatic Enviroments in Davenport,Ia. I was there about a month ago and all I can say about them is WOW.