To those who debate on buying fish from Petco...

[TheReefsEnd]

Let me begin by saying, I work for Petco. I'm an aquatic specialist, I specialized in fresh-water (Was originally the reptile specialist, now I do both) but I caught the salt water bug a few months ago. Now I surely won't parade around this website claiming to have knowledge because I work with aquatic life, but I'm content to say I've learned a lot and "earned" my title, so to speak.

 

Throughout the trade, forums, and everything in the middle, petco seems to get a bad rap. You can spare yourself the hassle of spending 60 dollars on a particular fish just by knowing how petco operates. While I know it isn't universally regulated, a lot of petco employees genuinely care for there animals, and I am one of them..

 

First off, Ich. Let me break this down.

 

Display tanks are in rows, obviously. One display has nine tanks. Each store has between six and eight displays. Now, two displays (19 tanks) are ran by one sump. The sumps are hooked up to a culligan. The culligan is filled with carbon, the sumps have aquarium salt (for freshwater), carbon, and standard filter pads.

 

If you see a fish in one of the saltwater tanks that has ich, all the the SW fish do, unless you have more displays than us (we only have 1 saltwater display, 19 tanks in total.) So don't go assuming your fish doesn't, or will not, introduce Ich. Please, please quarantine. Half the time, it usually isn't Petco's fault. We have NO prior knowledge of the fish in questions condition prior to shipment. It is usually the distribution centers fault, so don't be so quick to lambaste a petco employee as an idiot, or uneducated.

 

Diet. Now, we sell mandarins occasionally, in fact, just recently as per my request. I don't believe I've ever seen a store introduce copepods, but the distribution center trains these fish on mysis or brine shrimp. Everything gets mysis and brine shrimp. If I'm feeling lazy, I'll feed standard flake and incorporate mysis shrimp for the mandarins, lions, whatever.

 

 

As for fish, IMO, Ich is the common problem petco is riddled with. Now onto coral...

 

 

Unfortunately, we use tap water. It is dechlorinated, properly mixed (I in fact convinced my store manager to purchase a store-use refractometer. Can't stand swim arms.) Majority of the time we dose with iodide, calcium, and trace elements but I can almost guarantee the vast majority of employees don't take this time. We see a lot of deaths, so somethings are more easily wrote off than others, in particular, corals.

 

Don't know why the coral in question looks bad? Ask if they're supplementing! If they're, chances are it's just the tap water.

 

If anybody has any questions, feel free to ask

[TheUnfocusedOne]

I think the quick response you'll get from those of us who don't want to see another petco thread is this:

 

Though there are some pectos that do a good job with their fish, the vast majority do a terrible job. I myself see the local petco putting anems and corals under weak PC lighting in algae cover tanks. I'll come back to see those same corals covered in algae or dead. I've also heard them pushing fish into tank that clearly aren't cycle while sell rock made out of solid concrete for $6/lbs. One time in particular a guy had been through 7 damsels and was being told after each one died to clean everything and start over. Most of the fish I see (that aren't clownfish) are loosing color and look emaciated.

 

In my mind, most petcos are aim to selling fish to the uneducated. People who haven't a clue what a nitrogen cycle is, what live rock does or how much lighting a coral will need. Pecto seems to have no problem keeping the information withheld.

 

All in all, most pectos don't seem to care about their fish. Until I see an improvement with my own eyes, I won't support them.

 

Edit: Don't take this post to be against you in any way. I applaud you for your efforts. Just be nice if more people we like that.

Edited June 4, 2011 by TheUnfocusedOne

[TheReefsEnd]

I totally understand and I support that. I know a lot of stores, at the end of the day, try to capitalize on a business and market-driven basis.

 

The rock formation is concrete rock, yes, but it isn't as simple as rock formation>wait>tank. The company we purchase our rock from is actually sent out into the ocean for upwards to 3 and a half years. I'm not sure if it's long enough to sustain decent bacterial growth and what not, but it's a step in some direction. I personally don't agree with the LR prices, so I won't sit here and defend them.

 

I wasn't trying to stress petco is great, or even good, but some stores really take the time to make things good in hopes of being great. The store with the PC are probably way under budget and don't see enough profit to write off an expensive light. Unfortunately that happens.

 

The tap water is the reason for the algae you see, as per my knowledge, no petco's use RO/DI water. Petco as a whole doesn't make a tremendous amount of money off the fish department, we're centered around dogs, cats, small animals, grooming and pet training.

 

And yes, the nitrogen cycle and what not, some stores do not go into.. detail. Store policy is we cannot sell you a new tank with fish, you must wait 24 hours. I tell people to wait between 2-3 weeks and push the API test kits.

 

I was more-so just trying to clear up the issue with Ich as a fair amount of petco's struggle with it and a lot of people don't know how the sumps work, and if one SW tank has ich, the entire display probably does.

[TheUnfocusedOne]

The rock formation is concrete rock, yes, but it isn't as simple as rock formation>wait>tank. The company we purchase our rock from is actually sent out into the ocean for upwards to 3 and a half years. I'm not sure if it's long enough to sustain decent bacterial growth and what not, but it's a step in some direction. I personally don't agree with the LR prices, so I won't sit here and defend them.

 

But do you think that the rock is porous enough to really have a rich bacterial culture in it? The stuff I see are those stupid red rings that look like someone took a bunch of pebbles and cement and shaped them together.

 

I was more-so just trying to clear up the issue with Ich as a fair amount of petco's struggle with it and a lot of people don't know how the sumps work, and if one SW tank has ich, the entire display probably does.

 

Gotcha.

Edited June 4, 2011 by TheUnfocusedOne

[TheReefsEnd]

I don't, really. Some rock looks like crap, but even I have caved and paid roughly 15 dollars for a single rock, medium sized, absolutely cakeed in coraline. It all depends on the quality of water, light, and tank maintenance. I know at my store, the vast majority of our rock has coraline, but our area isn't good for saltwater, and those who have saltwater, have better places to get rock.

 

It's hit or miss, really. For some, like me, the cost of buying in store (At least for a nanotank) Offset the cost of paying per/lb + shipping.

[johnmaloney]

Welcome to the world of saltwater! It is a fun hobby once you get into it.

 

If you see a fish in one of the saltwater tanks that has ich, all the the SW fish do, unless you have more displays than us (we only have 1 saltwater display, 19 tanks in total.) So don't go assuming your fish doesn't, or will not, introduce Ich. Please, please quarantine. Half the time, it usually isn't Petco's fault. We have NO prior knowledge of the fish in questions condition prior to shipment. It is usually the distribution centers fault, so don't be so quick to lambaste a petco employee as an idiot, or uneducated.

 

stressed fish get sick, transported fish are stressed. you have to accommodate for the fact that all your livestock arrives to you in a stressed condition, by rehabbing them before selling them. A few days in the dark and a possible hyposalinity bath will go a far way. It isn't the distributor's fault the fish get stressed in transport, it is just the way it is....

 

Unfortunately, we use tap water. It is dechlorinated, properly mixed (I in fact convinced my store manager to purchase a store-use refractometer. Can't stand swim arms.) Majority of the time we dose with iodide, calcium, and trace elements but I can almost guarantee the vast majority of employees don't take this time. We see a lot of deaths, so somethings are more easily wrote off than others, in particular, corals.

 

you should probably skip the dosing, especially since you aren't testing those parameters. If you are just buying and selling corals they wont need trace elements really, just keep up with the regular water changes it will be fine. Blind dosing usually causes more trouble than good. Do you dip when they come in? Dipping corals will not only remove possible hitchhikers, it will help to disinfect the coral, who may be susceptible to infection because of tissue damage in transport.

 

Well good luck in the future, sounds like you need a backroom and twice as many tanks and a larger filter. Adding water volume to your system may help as well, you can hook on rubbermaid stock tanks for pretty low cost and they are easy to access and work with.

Edited June 4, 2011 by johnmaloney

[TheReefsEnd]

Life would, as well as business, be inherently easier if they let me run it my way! Heh..

 

As far as acclimation goes, the corals get fresh-water dips, and any SW fish do if they have ich. During shipment the lights are kept off for about 8 hours. I can really only do so much. The water parameters are monitored and we dose accordingly. It's not into the wind cal doses, if you were assuming..

 

A backroom would be awesome.

 

Again, at the end of the day, you can only expect so much from a large, money driven corporation. Just don't give us all a bad rap! Petsmart is worse.. they don't even SELL sw! Lol

[johnmaloney]

try to cut back on fw dipping the coral, especially if they have only one tank to go in. to do that to a wide variety of species is going to cause chemical response stress, also water is a pretty stressful dip, go with something different like coral rx or something.

 

What are your parameters?

Do the dipped fish go back into the infected tanks?

 

Good to hear you are trying, sorry to hear the store isnt setup right for it, sounds like that is the problem. Maybe if SW becomes bigger the company will look into a receiving system, it will solve a lot of the things you are working on.

Edited June 4, 2011 by johnmaloney

[Fish Bowl]

I do agree that each petco is significantly different from the next in terms of how they care for their pets and in addition to simply avoiding petco, just invest in a QT since disease is possible from ANYONE's tank or STORE.

 

I'll throw in my final add in about the petcos I visited.

Round 1

"All your Oscars have severe hole in the head" - me

"That's how they normally look" - worker

"I need you to treat the oscars for hexamita" - manager to the worker (I highly doubt it was that though and more of a water quality issue)

"Facepalm" - me

 

So Petco1 basically attempted to lie to me as if I didn't know what an oscar is supposed to look like. IF in the case that you don't know something, don't bother spouting out false information because then I wouldn't be so harsh about all of this.

Sadly there was a picture on the card as well...so I doubt it's smart to lie to anyone about it unless you suspect they don't like to look at pictures.

 

"Round 2"

"I have gold fish, can I put that fish in my tank? (Points to oscars)" - random customer

"They get along just fine!" - worker

"Can I get 2? and will they be okay in a 20 gallon?" - random customer

"No problem! they won't grow bigger than the tank space they have anyways" - worker

"....." - me

 

Petco2 is another case of spreading false information. I think it's about a 5-10% chance that you will have an oscar that gets along with goldfish (My friend has a 12 inch one that lives happily with Neon Tetras and has never eaten one since they've lived together).

Additionally, I hate it when people decide to throw around that stupid fish don't exceed their tank size in growth....Yes they do, and then suffer from stunting or abnormal body development (Can't think of the other word atm)

Oh and 2 oscars in a 20 is a likely chance of 1 = dead in a few months (Most people that I've met around here significantly overfeed their fish)

 

And now that I'm done with my mini flaming of petco. I will now mention some of the things that should clarify some things based on what I know from my friend who is a manager at a petco.

 

1. The whole not dosing anything is a GOOD idea simply because some facilities lack real testing equipment and use the junk strips (Plus I wouldn't want to trust potentially incompetent workers with dosing my store tanks)

2. It isn't reasonable for petco to change water as frequently (or infrequently) as we do simply because they don't have the workers or time or both to do such (At least from the one she manages)

3. Sick/unwanted fish are usually put down and there isn't enough of a knowledgeable staff to perform hyposalinity for ich nor do they have the time to constantly regulate the pH and salinity levels (Especially with hydrometers)

4. They are usually sent fish that corporate chooses for them. The best they can do is not accept a shipment, but for the most part most diseases/flukes and so forth won't be too visible on fish immediately (QT for even a week is unreasonable for most stores let alone petco)

5. Freshwater dips do nothing for ICH and if it does I would love to see proof

6.They have a crappy 60 gallon sump with an undersized skimmer for roughly 18 tanks (May not be true for all petcos)

 

There's probably more that I'm forgetting, but lets leave it at that for now

Oh and don't take my information for fact. My information basically comes from a total of 3 petcos 2 of which are pretty bad at caring for fish (the 3rd one isn't that great either aside from one worker and the manager) vs however many there are that could be potentially bad OR good in the US

Edited June 4, 2011 by Fish Bowl

[phiber_optikx]

But we still gloss over the fact that the company itself does not care if they are unwilling to install the right equipment at the time of construction. Causing knowledgable employees to have to rig together a manageablesystem later.

[TheReefsEnd]

Our parameters for FW are usually spot-on, but for salt, we usually are at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrates, .10 ppm nitrites, PH is usually 8.7 (again, tap water, located in PHX and out of the tap PH has got to be somewhere around 9.7) cal is around 1375, etc.

 

We don't use test strips, we test your water with strips, but I always recommend people who come in more than once for a water test pick up an API kit. Usually 2/3 people who come in for tests walk away with one. We test our water with API kits.

 

A receiving system would be great but unfortunately, as far as business goes, it isn't feasible. With only so many displays it's hard to dedicate one as a quarantine as opposed to incorporating just another display.

 

 

Also,

 

"Round 2"

"I have gold fish, can I put that fish in my tank? (Points to oscars)" - random customer

"They get along just fine!" - worker

"Can I get 2? and will they be okay in a 20 gallon?" - random customer

"No problem! they won't grow bigger than the tank space they have anyways" - worker

"....." - me

 

 

I sincerely hope that they employed a mentally handicapped person. Even people I work with who have absolutely NO knowledge of fish what so ever know that tropical species and coldwater species don't mix, as well as the fact that oscars generally don't go with any fish.

 

A lot of people do believe though that fish grow the length of the tank, I try and dispose of this myth every time I hear it

 

 

>

 

4. They are usually sent fish that corporate chooses for them. The best they can do is not accept a shipment, but for the most part most diseases/flukes and so forth won't be too visible on fish immediately (QT for even a week is unreasonable for most stores let alone petco)

 

 

Sorry, but this only applies to freshwater. We're only required to display clown fish, damsels, and tangs. Any other saltwater fish is at the aquatic specialist/department head's discretion. For instance, I often ordered mandarins, copepods, pistol shrimp, unique gobies, coral beautys, and variety of wrasses. Hell, I ordered a large (9") sapo puffer today, just for the hell of it. I've sold quite a few.

 

We have roughly 1000 (ballparking here, probably less, though just maybe a lot more) fish and inverts in our system database we get to choose from. A few fish aren't available, but whatever. It also only takes about an hour to an hour and a half to change all the tank water. Most of the tanks are hooked up to a culligan or something or other, which is loaded with carbon, dechlorinated, and set to auto-fill. So you unplug sump, drain, and then plug the sump back in. Bam, freshwater. I got it down to 51 minutes for roughly... 100 tanks?

 

 

 

6.They have a crappy 60 gallon sump with an undersized skimmer for roughly 18 tanks (May not be true for all petcos)

 

 

We don't skim, at least, I haven't seen a skimmer? Could be built in. We use marineland produced sumps and they're good quality, but I'll have to get back to you on the gallon size. We also do water changes everywhere, each tank has 15 to 20 percent water changed. It happens once a week, and any more than that isn't feasible, considering the low amount of gravel plus the high turnover of the sump.

[wombat]

Agreed with John that you absolutely should not be dipping corals or fish in FW.

 

Freshwater dips for fish rarely do anything long term and are incredibly stressful. Light chelated copper or hyposalinity in the display systems are more likely to keep parasites at bay, at least temporarily.

 

Freshwater dips for coral will outright kill many species and don't do much good for the species that can tolerate it. Perhaps knock off some of the nuisance flatworms, but not the truly nasty ones like AEFW. A much better treatment would be Revive or CoralRx for certain stonies that are prone to parasites that are difficult to eradicate (Montipora, Acropora). But from what it sounds like your systems should not even be holding any of these species anyway.

[Fish Bowl]

Our parameters for FW are usually spot-on, but for salt, we usually are at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrates, .10 ppm nitrites, PH is usually 8.7 (again, tap water, located in PHX and out of the tap PH has got to be somewhere around 9.7) cal is around 1375, etc.

 

We don't use test strips, we test your water with strips, but I always recommend people who come in more than once for a water test pick up an API kit. Usually 2/3 people who come in for tests walk away with one. We test our water with API kits.

 

A receiving system would be great but unfortunately, as far as business goes, it isn't feasible. With only so many displays it's hard to dedicate one as a quarantine as opposed to incorporating just another display.

 

 

Also,

 

"Round 2"

"I have gold fish, can I put that fish in my tank? (Points to oscars)" - random customer

"They get along just fine!" - worker

"Can I get 2? and will they be okay in a 20 gallon?" - random customer

"No problem! they won't grow bigger than the tank space they have anyways" - worker

"....." - me

 

 

I sincerely hope that they employed a mentally handicapped person. Even people I work with who have absolutely NO knowledge of fish what so ever know that tropical species and coldwater species don't mix, as well as the fact that oscars generally don't go with any fish.

 

A lot of people do believe though that fish grow the length of the tank, I try and dispose of this myth every time I hear it

 

 

>

 

4. They are usually sent fish that corporate chooses for them. The best they can do is not accept a shipment, but for the most part most diseases/flukes and so forth won't be too visible on fish immediately (QT for even a week is unreasonable for most stores let alone petco)

 

 

Sorry, but this only applies to freshwater. We're only required to display clown fish, damsels, and tangs. Any other saltwater fish is at the aquatic specialist/department head's discretion. For instance, I often ordered mandarins, copepods, pistol shrimp, unique gobies, coral beautys, and variety of wrasses. Hell, I ordered a large (9") sapo puffer today, just for the hell of it. I've sold quite a few.

 

We have roughly 1000 (ballparking here, probably less, though just maybe a lot more) fish and inverts in our system database we get to choose from. A few fish aren't available, but whatever. It also only takes about an hour to an hour and a half to change all the tank water. Most of the tanks are hooked up to a culligan or something or other, which is loaded with carbon, dechlorinated, and set to auto-fill. So you unplug sump, drain, and then plug the sump back in. Bam, freshwater. I got it down to 51 minutes for roughly... 100 tanks?

 

 

 

6.They have a crappy 60 gallon sump with an undersized skimmer for roughly 18 tanks (May not be true for all petcos)

 

 

We don't skim, at least, I haven't seen a skimmer? Could be built in. We use marineland produced sumps and they're good quality, but I'll have to get back to you on the gallon size. We also do water changes everywhere, each tank has 15 to 20 percent water changed. It happens once a week, and any more than that isn't feasible, considering the low amount of gravel plus the high turnover of the sump.

 

Well I did say that what I may be saying may not apply to all petcos (Notice disclaimer at the end of my last post) so it's entierly possible that there are minor differences in maintenance and some equipment being used.

 

As for the SW fish ordering aspect, I suppose my friend assumed I meant FW only while I interpreted it as a whole, at least that's clarified now. I'm glad to know that there's quite a few managers out there that order fish irresponsibly (possibly coral) that a majority of their employees/customers lack the knowledge/capability to keep.

 

The oscar seller may either be quite challenged in the fish knowledge department, or may be under one of those policies to sell a product regardless of consequences from the standing manager. I have heard of an incident a while back regarding either a petco or petsmart worker that got let go for not selling fish when he could have (Not sure about validity of this incident but worth mentioning at the moment anyways)

 

A receiving system would be great but unfortunately, as far as business goes, it isn't feasible. With only so many displays it's hard to dedicate one as a quarantine as opposed to incorporating just another display.

I don't think I was the one who said petco should have this or not, but I will however take the liberty to re-state/add/clarify on to what I mentioned about this earlier.

A. They see sick fish = think all your fish have the sickness (That's actually true if it's already in the DT's) and of course they don't understand it's a QT for an assorted treatment = they feel even less secure about purchasing.

 

B. When you treat using Hypo/Copper based meds, it isn't possible to have an employee(s) manage all the water parameters (You swear petco is going be happy letting their workers do a 90% water change for a horrible ammonia spike frequently + spend excess money on salt/pH buffing equipment and then holding the fish for 2-6+ weeks only to sell it for even less of a profit margin than they would just selling it as is) = why it is unreasonable for people to ask of such.

 

C. Not cost effective if the fish has bacterial infections even in bulk. As far as I know there is no bulk SW Maracyn-2 out there and each unit of 16 at cost is anywhere between 8-10 bucks. Furan-2 bulk is about 75-100, 5 gal cupramine from sea-chem is about 150 with the first 2 making the water either yellow or neon colored and the latter giving customers a slight risk of wiping out all their inverts if they accidentally add some of the water for whatever reason. AND labor/carbon to clean out all the residue from medication AND it may be ALL that work just to treat single clownfish and then for it to die in the end regardless. Not exactly appealing looking and I won't even bother getting into Formalin,Methylene Blue, Kanamycin, Metronidazole and a Praziquantel based med.

 

So I hope that at least the people reading this understand that this is a business (specifically big corporation), not a knowledgeable store with ideal workers and management (I'm sure a lot of us wish even our LFS were like that ) and not somewhere all our dreams of an ideal store come to life. Don't go blaming the people who try. BLAME THE GUY WHO SELLS OSCARS TO GOLDFISH KEEPERS!!! lol.

 

I am glad your putting all this effort into improving the experiences/opinions of most non/previous petco clientele. Many other workers there and such wouldn't even consider putting nearly as much effort into improving how things work around their own petco as you have.

[Kylie]

I went to pet co with my mom to buy one gold fish that she wants she Mother’s Day petsmart it didn’t work out ethier because both stores said do you have a 29 inch tank and petco wanted a water sample I got my bata just fine and hampsters and ginue pig no problem fish problem and it’s not just us many people are mad too