Scary

[MacWilliams]

So I was at my LFS (In Fort Walton Beach) with the family looking around and went by the fish section and was quite disturbed by what I saw. There was absolutely no water movement in the tanks and they were covered in algae and feces. Most of the fish had some sort of desease or looked overall very unhealthy. At what point do they get shut down for animal cruelty? Does it not apply to fish? They can be kept in this cespool until they die or some poor person purchases one. I know they are "just fish" but i feel bad seeing how poorly maintained this tanks were.

Rant complete.

 

[HumbleFish]

If they shut them down, then they'd have to do the same to almost every Petco.

 

[MacWilliams]

It's a Petland here in town. Normally their place looks some what maintained. But yesterday it was by far the worse thing i have seen condition wise for a fish.

 

[Dmorty217]

I know what it takes for the animal control to come to your house and save the 100 cats or dogs someone has in their 1200 sqft home. I don't believe anyone would ever do a thing. After all when the collection practice of places like the Phillipines is to use cyanide to poison and kill everything, and that's in the ocean. Fish in places like you mentioned don't stand a chance but then again a shark in a 55g isn't any better

 

[Maivortex]

I would not call petland/petco or any of the big chain stores a LFS. If that is all you have (myself include) you dont have a LFS.

 

[willyboy]

I had seeing conditions like this. Rant all you want! It's terrible

 

[Calappidae]

Large stores spred around the world like petco, petland, and such don't have a much concern for their animals as family owned businesses. Family owned business work by their rules.. petco/petland is forced to do whatever their head boss says to do and unfornuantly he/she doesn't know what to do.. I think ATM on tanked is the ones who got them into saltwater, and judging by the show and how they setup their tanks.. they don't know a whole lot either other than how to make some decent money. I also notice how they sneek large schools of look downs and the price tags on them.

 

[erndog1001]

If they shut them down, then they'd have to do the same to almost every Petco.

I don't know about your local Petco But around here the stores are very well maintained.

 

[Calappidae]

I don't know about your local Petco But around here the stores are very well maintained.

If the manager is well aware of the requirments of saltwater and not just doing whatever the petco website and boss says then they can be well kept indeed.

 

[thomb]

The Petco near us is also very well maintained and has even special ordered fish for us - frankly had better luck with them fish wise (and their tanks are better maintained in my opinion) than a highly regarded LFS near here.

 

[Mark9]

The Petco around here is maintained by a woman who takes really good care of the tanks.
Not perfect, they lose the odd fish, but she really does the best she can.
The vast majority are healthy and get bought quite quickly.

 

[Mpfaff77]

The Petco around here is maintained by a woman who takes really good care of the tanks.
Not perfect, they lose the odd fish, but she really does the best she can.
The vast majority are healthy and get bought quite quickly.

+1. Petco in toms river NJ has grown leaps and bounds in saltwater department. The new girl there knows her stuff.

 

[reefgoddess808]

It wasn't a LFS but rather an aquarium that I saw what I thought were pretty deplorable conditions. This was over ten years ago but in SC at a Ripleys Believe it or Not I saw algae, cracked glass, sick fish and even a dead specimen. That was quite shocking to me, especially considering it was back in collage on a class trip. I was a marine tech major.

 

[necessary_evil]

Take a minute or two, with out berating them, to point out to the staff easy ways to improve their system. A lot aren't going to listen, but some staff are working their first jobs an genuinely don't know better but may be open to quick easy suggestions.

 

[Rbs07fxstc]

It wasn't a LFS but rather an aquarium that I saw what I thought were pretty deplorable conditions. This was over ten years ago but in SC at a Ripleys Believe it or Not I saw algae, cracked glass, sick fish and even a dead specimen. That was quite shocking to me, especially considering it was back in collage on a class trip. I was a marine tech major.

The Ripleys Aquarium I went to in Pigeon Forge, Tn was in great shape. It's nicer than the aquariums I see in Fla.

 

[Wingity]

Many years ago I knew the fish and retile person in a Petco... she was required to leave sick fish in the display tank until they died, as the store only got credit for the fish if they died in the display tank. Weird. They once let her buy a sick chameleon for a penny, as they couldn't sell or get credit for it. It lived about a year with help from a generous veterinarian friend.
I'm lucky, in a nearby cities there are many live fish stores. My favorite in Caribbean forest, which is run by some nice, knowledgable guys. Healthy, beautiful tanks, and they have helped me get used equipment and healthy live rock from broken down hobbyist tanks.

 

[Allmost]

we had a store like that up here.

it got "poisoned", and took insurance money and left ...

 

[Calappidae]

Well... a 3 inch yellow tang from one of petco's 8 gallon cube tanks with internal parasites hanging out of it and ick ended up in my 10 gallon mini reef until my 125 gallon is up..

Next morning I question myself "What just happened?"

I only got it as a recuse. Definity an upgrade in tank size from them.. but I was going to get one for my 125 anyway so I figured why not just save the poor soul. While the 125 cycles I'll have a HT and treat it

 

[Reef Raf]

Keep in mind that a lot of those stores have one person who can run the salt water section. And when they quit or get hired away....the section goes up in smoke. I've seen that repeatedly around here. The stores do not care. Easy to let stuff die and hire a high school kid who knows how to get it up and running again a couple months later.

 

[Nina51]

the pet supplies plus store where i get my salt just moved to a much bigger building. i went to their grand opening recently and was not surprised to see that they added a few saltwater tanks. however, instead of offering "beginner" fish, their tanks contained things like scooter blennies, a mandarin, flame scallops, clams, powder blue tangs...everything a beginning should NOT buy. when i was checking out with my bag of salt, i mentioned they might wanna check the goby because it was laying on its side in a corner of the tank and the hermit crabs were all over it. guy says "oh, he does that all the time." i said yeah but this time, he's doing it permanently. since these tanks are new, they are sparkling and the fish look great (except the poor goby). i suspect there is gonna be a LOT of people who think they can keep 6 tangs in a 10 gallon tank because, after all, they did it there. oy!