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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Are everyones Petcos Good?


Zane W

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To preface this I live in SoCal

For the past year or so, my Petco's near me, whether it's in Temecula or Hemet, have been getting nice fish and only once in a while do they show signs of disease. I was wondering if other people have good petco retail stores or I'm just lucky. (Mine actually gets some really nice corals and unintentionally marks them wrong so they are cheaper)

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There is a really good one in Minnesota that had cheap Petco prices and those 30 percent off sales but the fish were well cared for and they even had a shallow frag tank with high end led lighting over it. I always stopped there when I was in the area. They even had a booth at the frag swaps and I could order just about anything from them. I hear Gem Tangs are showing up at Petcos now at pretty much unbeatable prices.

 

It really just depends on the manager and if corporate will give them upgrades to their systems. The new petcos being built or updated are supposed to have much nicer systems now.

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The one near me (Pensacola, FL) is pretty bad when it comes to saltwater. This has been my experience with most Petcos throughout the south. I have heard of “Flagship stores” that are better maintained, carry nicer fish, have actual frag tanks, etc.

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I'm in the NW suburbs of Chicago and they've never had salt water fish that I recall.  I see people talk about their local shops having coral and I'm just amazed at the concept.

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27 minutes ago, Lognor said:

I'm in the NW suburbs of Chicago and they've never had salt water fish that I recall.  I see people talk about their local shops having coral and I'm just amazed at the concept.

It depends on the store.  Some in my area have the saltwater livestock and some don't.

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In the LA area, out of the 7 or 8 I've been to, only 2 had saltwater, and only one had corals. 

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righttirefire

My local petco has no saltwater. But i have been to pne about 45 minutes north that had a terrible saltwater selection. Oregon 

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There's one by my job that used to be maintained really well. Until the guy left and opened his own LFS. That fish section had gone down hill since he left. 

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16 hours ago, Lognor said:

I'm in the NW suburbs of Chicago and they've never had salt water fish that I recall.  I see people talk about their local shops having coral and I'm just amazed at the concept.

Another NW Burb Nano-Reefer! 

 

The Petco in Arlington Heights has SW, but they could never compare to some of the great LFS's we have in the Chicago area. 

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Little Rock AR checking in. They stopped selling a frags and only seem to have a total of about 10 fish spread out through 6 tanks. 

 

Dead fish are always present along with cyno. I’ve heard that there is a good Petco about 45 minutes south (BENTON AR) that has good selection, but I’m not driving that far for a Petco. 

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4 hours ago, RickvD said:

We don't have any Petco's here but i think thats a good thing haha

From my experience, you're not missing much. The best thing about mine is I have somewhere close to pick up salt if I run out. 

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On 6/29/2019 at 11:04 PM, RickvD said:

We don't have any Petco's here but i think thats a good thing haha

Same, the only thing I think that I am missing out on is the Dollar per Gallon Sales that I see a few times a year

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16 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

Same, the only thing I think that I am missing out on is the Dollar per Gallon Sales that I see a few times a year

True that! A dollar per gallon sale would be amazing xD

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On 6/29/2019 at 7:57 AM, colinadam said:

Another NW Burb Nano-Reefer! 

 

The Petco in Arlington Heights has SW, but they could never compare to some of the great LFS's we have in the Chicago area. 

What shops do you find yourself at the most?  My regular LFS guy recently sold his place and the new owners got rid of the salt water stuff.  Sho Tank in Mundelein is my go to place now for local livestock.  I mostly use Amazon or other online for supplies.

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32 minutes ago, Lognor said:

What shops do you find yourself at the most?  My regular LFS guy recently sold his place and the new owners got rid of the salt water stuff.  Sho Tank in Mundelein is my go to place now for local livestock.  I mostly use Amazon or other online for supplies.

 

I like Seven Seas for my water and good frags ($15 frag bin), Xotic Aquatics in Niles for clean up crews, Reef Geeks has good corals. 

For fish I like Blue Line in Naperville or Aquatica in Tinley Park, both are far but worth it. 

The only LFS I haven't hit yet that people rave about is Aquapros in Glen Ellyn, gotta get there. 

 

I haven't been to ShoTank in years, they were my go to 10 years ago when I lived up in Antioch. 

 

 

 

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KingOfAll_Tyrants

It really just depends on how well things are run at the local store. There are corporate standards, but they are very loose apparently, and it’s hard apparently for them to enforce those standards. So, I would patronize the good ones, and complain to corporate about the bad ones.

 

Zane W - I drove up from San Diego to Idylwild a few weeks ago. Awesome part of the country!

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The local Petco doesn't have a lot of selection when it comes to saltwater, but what they have look healthy and well cared for. No frag tank at any I've been to in the area.

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Central Florida here and the ones by me are trash. $4-5 for blue leg hermits,$10-$15lb for basically just baseball sized LR,fish are always sick,corals always just brown or dead its pretty bad. I offered to help a few times but they said naaaaw 😂

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Waco Texas one is pretty good and their folks seem to really care. Temple is good too as long as the right person is there. Killeen is ok, and have a better selection but seem to have a higher staff turnover. 

 

We only have 1 LFS left outside of Austin in the central Texas area that I know of. North Waco Tropical and they are awesome! Just grabbed 4 mushrooms from them yesterday(and another frogspawn and devils hand from Aquadome in Austin today)

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