Petco and icthyocide

[Texas Aquarist]

I try to stay away from Petco whever possible.

[jpslickorocks]

Grimmjon I really don't think tokitay ment you in particular. I personally think you are doing a great thing in trying. Tokitay was saying that in general. I think you are an exception to his statement. You are one of the goodguys buddy.

[billsreef]

tokitay,

Take a look at the little blue links just under the quicky reply box, the middle one is "email this Page". Feel free and use it to email Don the link to this thread. Since you have his cell number, I'll bet you have his ear better than most

[75oceanic86]

Its pretty depressing for me to go into petco, all of those sick and dying fish, and im pretty certain they dont even feed their fish. The petco by me has three large groupers, prob 5-6 in. confined in those tiny little square tanks. Surprisingly enough they have stayed alive for a while but thats prob because whenever i go there i make sure each one secretly gets a feederfish.

[tsutherland]

I talked to Mak Henderson from Petco today, he is a regional companion coordinator. He told me that the store that is close to me should not even have inverts. And he said that he talked to the store that I was in and that they are treating for ich, I will see next time I am in there if that is true and I will also see if they are feeding well because all of the fish I saw looked way to skinny. He also said that only stores with special desplay tanks should be carring the corals and other inverts. I brought to his attention that the knowledge of most of the employees working around the saltwater displays is poor to none. He said that the company knew that and they were going to start making employees take a class per say on marine life to get an idea of what is going on. I was also told to call him back if things did not get fixed. Have any of you seen these special tanks for the inverts, because I haven't. this is his number 858-395-3159 and assuming he is not blowing smoke he seems like he really cares. He may not be able to help where you are but I would say that he could get you pointed in the right direction. I tried and am still trying to do what I can but it is going to take all of you that have a problem with the way things are done at Petco to say something too.

[Ploppers]

I have a couple positive things to add about Petco.
I purchased a 40 gallon breeder from them for a sump a couple months ago. It started leaking along the bottum seem in the front and seemed to be getting worse every day. They replaced it even though I had drilled the back side of the tank for a return pump. That was pretty nice of them.
Best of all the foxface I got from them is doing excellent.

[grimmjohn]

Originally posted by tsutherland
I talked to Mak Henderson from Petco today, he is a regional companion coordinator... And he said that he talked to the store that I was in and that they are treating for ich

If you read my above posts you'll realize that "treating" ich is a generous use of the term () : )

Originally posted by Ploppers
They replaced it even though I had drilled the back side of the tank for a return pump. That was pretty nice of them.

Yeh, petco is really good about returns..we'll take back anything...and if anything in the store is marked incorrectly or in the wrong spot then you get that price...like if a $15 dog toy ends up in the $1 bin then we have to sell it for a dollar, apparently.


cheers,

grimmjohn

[tsutherland]

I understand what you mean I was also told by an employee that they used copper to treat ich at that store and we all know that copper and inverts don't mix. I will keep trying but it is almost pointless when you know that they really don't care overall.

[Fishfirst]

indeed, they don't... I have often had petco employees ask me why their tangs, angels, and triggers ect. don't do well. I've asked them to tell their pet care manager to stop selling tangs, angels, and triggers because of their aquatic system flaws: too little flow, no quarentine, no UV, no protein skimmer, too high of nitrates/poor water quality, too small tanks. I've also told them they shouldn't order so many clowns, hasn't affected them one bit. They keep on truckin' with the Powder blue tangs, clowns, and lg angels. I've even confronted the pet care manager directly... she doesn't give a rats butt... I almost worked for petco... almost, but I decided I couldn't take the massive losses and the arogant management (the petcare manager has a "saltwater tank")/company policy...

grimmjohn, the new clowns probably were adversely affected by the salinity being too low and not properly drip acclimated (which would take hours depending on the bags salinity).

[grimmjohn]

Originally posted by Fishfirst
too little flow, no quarentine, no UV, no protein skimmer, too high of nitrates/poor water quality, too small tanks. I've also told them they shouldn't order so many clowns, hasn't affected them one bit.

Our MARS system actually does have a beckett skimmer with a reaction chamber about the size of a 2 liter coke bottle and automatic cup drainage, and our nitrates are consistantly in the 20s, less when I went hypo for the two days. Those readings are not bad at all for fish only systems. I'm also explained how most LFSs do not QT adiquatly, if at all...most "One week QTs" just make you feel better, a month long QT would be more satisfactory. I do wish we had more flow to help with cyano and one cheap UV unit could help assure that disease would not spread between the tanks, but MARS built the display, not petco :shrugs:

Originally posted by Fishfirst

grimmjohn, the new clowns probably were adversely affected by the salinity being too low and not properly drip acclimated (which would take hours depending on the bags salinity).

When the clown shipment arrived the salinity was normal. I lowered the salinity to 1.015 that evening after the shipment was already in the displays. A couple of the clowns looked bad from the get go (before the hypo). When I came back the next day to lower the hypo to 1.011 all the clowns looked good. The day after that my manager raised it back to 1.022 or something. The clowns still seem fine and none have died.

There is actually a school of thought that maintains that having 20 fish in a bag during an overnight shipment means that ammonia will build up to harmful levels..but at lower pHs (like what will be in the bag) the ammonia levels are less toxic...when drip acclimating fish for hours, that raises the pH in the bag, thus making all that ammonia much more toxic, which can harm the fish.
So, at petco, I float the bags for 20-30 minutes, then get them all out of the bags as fast as possible, on the premise that anything is better than being in the horribly polluted bag water any longer, and that a drip could hurt more than it could help. Obviously for more sensitive creatures extra precautions must be taken..like for marine snails/inverts...12 snails in a big bag of water doesn't get that dirty, and the snails are much more sensitive, so I dripped them for a little over an hour.

cheers,

grimmjohn

[Fishfirst]

although a valid point about the ammonia, when you drip acclimate you also add water to the bag, nulling the affects. Also, it does depend on how many fish you get per bag, I only usually had 1-3 depending on the species. I used to work at an lfs too, and i've drip acclimated several sensitive species, and had much better luck doing that than just throwing them in the tank. Ph shock, IMO, is worse than ammonia, and fish can tolerate ammonia for a while.

[Ricky@3rdshift]

John I am just curious about how you recieve fish b/c Ours do not come in over night. They come in via UPS ground. yes I know bad bad bad!!!!

I am also in the Arkansas area. Ft. Smith to be exact.

I have a lot of the same frustrations as expressed in this posts, but I am hopefully convincing some MGMNT to go against the system and prove better results by changing things.

[tsutherland]

It's great to have people like you guys trying at least.

[grimmjohn]

Originally posted by Ricky@3rdshift
John I am just curious about how you recieve fish b/c Ours do not come in over night. They come in via UPS ground. yes I know bad bad bad!!!!
I am also in the Arkansas area. Ft. Smith to be exact.
I have a lot of the same frustrations as expressed in this posts, but I am hopefully convincing some MGMNT to go against the system and prove better results by changing things.

Ya know, know that I look back, I'm not sure how the heck the fish get to the store, I assumed the trip from ORA/Seagrest was overnight, 2-night at least. Ground from Florida would not be over a day or two anyway right? I'll look at the shipment label more closely on the next one.

Nice to meet another Arkie () : )
I thought the Ft. Smith store was supposed to be something to "aspire" to, all I hear is how good Ft. Smith and the other stores are and that we suck and we need to get sooo much better and how their aquatics are run sooo much better. The Ft. Smith one was supposed to have an amazing girl that really knew her stuff from what I was told? I've been there though and wasn't impressed really, it's not ET or Just Fish even. Same setup, no matter how much knowledge she has it's still the same guidlines and everything. A brighter cog in the same wheel is just as good as an oily cog apparently, and will just get grimey over time.

At this point I'm not sure what I can change, if anything? I do think that the managment here wants me to get more involved, I finally got the $.50 specialist raise and I don't work register as much anymore, but still have little to no say in ordering, and there is still not much to do except try to do water changes more frequently, actually feed the fish, sell the live ones, and pick out the dead ones. I'm honestly lucky if I can get around to putting some nori in the tang tank, much less make sure the substrate in all the tanks is all in that nice little forward slope corperate likes so much. And on Thursday all the snakes are supposed to get fed and all the betta waters get changed (among other opening duties) and lets just say more often than not I can't do it even without a lunchbreak, and I'm pretty sure nobody else even knows/notices/cares. I did get to change the betta water once so far, the only time it's been done that I know of since I've been hired. I got a lecture about the "efficency curve" for my efforts. Apparently it was called into question which area my efforts were in: Urgent, but not important; Important, but not urgent, Urgent and important; Not important or urgent. MBA double-speak man. I was like "the scedule says to change the water on Thursdays, I'm doing it, we lose like 5 bettas a day, how the heck do you kill a betta!?"

We can try Ricky, but we're still just "associates" and can really only do what we're told and try to sqeeze in the other stuff when we get a second to spare. So far for me at least. Time will tell, the 1K a month is starting to sink in though.

Cheers,

grimmjohn

[MAreefer1]

Originally posted by Fishfirst
indeed, they don't... I have often had petco employees ask me why their tangs, angels, and triggers ect. don't do well. I've asked them to tell their pet care manager to stop selling tangs, angels, and triggers because of their aquatic system flaws: too little flow, no quarentine, no UV, no protein skimmer, too high of nitrates/poor water quality, too small tanks. I've also told them they shouldn't order so many clowns, hasn't affected them one bit. They keep on truckin' with the Powder blue tangs, clowns, and lg angels. I've even confronted the pet care manager directly... she doesn't give a rats butt... I almost worked for petco... almost, but I decided I couldn't take the massive losses and the arogant management (the petcare manager has a "saltwater tank")/company policy...

grimmjohn, the new clowns probably were adversely affected by the salinity being too low and not properly drip acclimated (which would take hours depending on the bags salinity).

Does PETSMART cary saltwater fish???

[grimmjohn]

That may be rhetorical () : ) But no () : )
Is the consesus that it's OK if you only support the collection and death of FW fish?

Cheers,

grimmjohn

[Hattie B]

WOW.. Guess I am on the lucky side of things as the Petco in my area does not sell any Saltwater fish and has a very small section (like 2 shelves) of saltwater supplies.

I have seen some bad looking rodents at Petco and I work with rodents all the time and let me tell you 25 rats no matter what size they are do not want to live in a 10g tub.

Anywho, not to go off topic have any of you been to a Wal-Mart and seen the fish section?

Seriously, they house freshwater fish, and I don't think any fish should suffer the way they do. I mean there must have been 60+ Mollies of all sizes most prego in a small 15g. When they we were swimming, if you can call it that, I actually felt really bad for them becuase it seemed they could not swim anywhere without being on top of another fish.

Amber

[Fishfirst]

I'm sorry, but our specialty department here is #1 in our district for animal sales vs animal loss. I've worked both in the corporate owned fish stores, and in privately owned fish stores, we have almost exactly the same rate of death in each case. However, I do not deny that petsmarts elsewhere have an ungodly death rate, as I've seen it first hand. But I've seen the whole petco fish department shut down because they were losing everything. "fish under observation" it said, but all I saw were dead fish.
On a side note about the irony that I suport the "death" of freshwater fish and not saltwater, I think the "death" of freshwater fish can be a little more forgiving as almost all the fish we get at petsmart have been captive bred. Not that any fish should die, but it does happen you know.

Frankly petco doesn't have the policies or the personel to even consider saltwater fish.

[piranhaking]

In regard to the long "what good would a quarantine do post, here is the logic.

The usefulness of the idea counts on the main tank being healthy and stable, otherwise it is useless.

You have a bunch of healthy fish in the main stable system.
you get in new fish.
if new fish that are sick are put in with all the healthy fish in the stable main system everything gets sick
if you put the new fish in quarantine and make sure their healty before adding to the main system it remains healthy and stable.
If the fish in quarantine end up being sick you can treat them and if you do lose them you only lose the new fish and the "old"fish in the main system arent hurt.

the reason you think it is useless is because in the case your talking about the main system is a mess, and isnt healthy or stable.

i would like to add to this that i dont think we should judge every store or every employ by the bad ones. The store as a corporation is bad as can be seen by the limits they put people in many of these cases. There are people that work there that dissagree with what is done and try to stop it. I dont think we should judge those people by the bad apples. I personaly dont deal with our local petco because it is much like the bad ones mentioned here. If you find one that is an exception then mabey if that store does well it will show people higher up the chain something. Mabey it wont, but thats just my two cents worth on it.

[nodoubt471]

I am one of the many converted who used to work at petco. Petco was what made me interested in saltwater hobby about 4 years ago. I would also like to add that it is our own store policy to have the customer do their own research, and we ask them questions before they purchase a pet to confirm that they know what kind of care needs the animal they are purchasing requires (don't get me started on those 13 year old kids that buy green iguanas not knowing that they grow to be 4 feet long!!!)

The problem is not the individual Petco- however incompetent their sales staff is- it is the wholesaler that provides the fish. Might I add that there is one Marine Wholesale Supplier who sends us fabulous, healthy fish (tank bred only) and these fish generally do fabulous in our tanks. The main supplier, who sells us both salt and fresh fish, is horrible (on both the fresh and salt side of things).

Petco Corporate will not allow us to use any medications in our tanks, instead suggest that we freshwater dip. Anyone who knows anything about marine Ich knows that freshwater dips are inneffective- the cyst surrounding the dinoflagellate is nearly impermeable! It is extremely frustrating to clear up an infestation, only to have it return the next week when a new shipment of fish come in, when it would be so much less stressful for the fish to enter a copper treated tank instead of playing around with salinity (with a SWING ARM HYDROMETER!!!!!! IMPOSSIBLE!!!). I know that copper is a dangerous medication and must be carefully monitored and is not appropriate for most home reef tanks, but in a commercial situation it is extremely important. The only reason they discontinued the use of the medication was because of the price of it (if I remember correctly it was almost $100 for a 1 gallon jug)- not becaue they care about animals.

The only positive thing I have seen petco do for the saltwater fish since I started working there was to make mandarin gobies and powder blues and other difficult to keep fish special order only, requiring the permission of a district manager to order. I was personally lucky to work for a store full of very knowledgable people, and to have the oppurtunity to interest others in this great hobby. I can't tell you how many people I have referred to Reef Central, or sold Bob Fenner's book to before I even let them look at "nemo".

I encourage you all to write to petco corporate and suggest that they change their policy on medications, or investigate another wholesaler, or even to just discontinue the purchase of saltwater fish from this supplier. The only way they will change is if they think that their business is in jeapordy. Please- it takes two seconds to write the letter, and think of all the animal's lives we could save.

[taflaw]

Forget about complaining to the company. Most areas have laws against abuse/neglet of animals. And you can always contact the local media as well or write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. I returned from my LPS today and saw lines of marine fish, including a powder brown tang, just wasting away because the skimmer was clogged and none of the employees did anything about it when I called them out. Unfortunately, for many people in the pet business, fish, corals and other animals are just considered products and not living creatures. Another way to let them know is to stop giving them business. I still think filing a complaint with a local agency/law enforcement is the best way to get them to act.

Originally posted by Tom_Nev
In the area I live there are 3 Petco's (and only 1 real LFS which isn't that local and of dubious quality at best). Here's my problem, I've been in each of the Petco's several times over the last few months. EVERY time I've been in, in each store, the marine fish are INFESTED with parasites and diseases. Additionally, they commonly have fish dying or dead in the tanks.

Yesterday, I went in to one of them and spoke with the attendant. They just received a shipment of fish that day (earlier in the day). A number of the newly arrived fish were already infested. I'm talking about 1 powder blue tang, a half dozen bursa triggers, 3 scopas tangs, some tomato clowns, 2 ocellaris clowns and a dozen varied damsels (At LEAST). I asked the attendant (short form), "what is going on with the fish, every time I'm in here they fish are infested and dying". She says, "I know it's very sad. Corporate won't even let us treat them, but sometimes we try to anyway. We just got some new ones today and they were really stressed out, some already had ich". This store is the best of the three with regard to the condition of their marine fish.

I went into another today. Half the tanks empty (I thought whew!). Then I see a volitan lion bloated and dead in the corner of one tank with a pair of niger triggers lying next to him panting.

This is despicable. Anyone else see anything like this at Petco? I'll be writing and calling them to complain LOUDLY, as well as suggesting they either get it right, or get out of the marine business. I had given it a few months to see if it was just an aberration, buts it's not, it appears as if this is business as usual. I have seen at least 4 shipments of fish, in each of the three stores (12 total), each end with similar results (once in awhile a particularly hardy specimen makes it a month).

If anyone else has seen this, I hope you'd also write, call, whatever (more voices is likey to make more of an impression)

[Abysswater]

PETCO IS A GOOD PLACE TO GET PARASITES! And if you get a fish use it to feed the PARASITES! Petco sucks! IMO! And for the ones that make petco great, good for you, at least someone will do the job right. But after you quit and another person comes in, it will suck again!

[trigger111]

I complained to the pet co corporate office, 2 months later I got a response to my email. The response from the local store was simply "well we use a UV sterilizer, so we shouldn't have parasites." How stupid are these people?

[tsutherland]

Save your breath and time with them. I too called and complained to national people and got the BS oh we will deal with it. Since then nothing has changed, the fish all look like crap still. So IMO screw Petco, you will never see me in there buying livestock and I will also tell people what I think about the fish at Petco everytime I am ask.

[billsreef]

I'll bet they don't/didn't replace the UV bulbs often enough, or even have them sized and plumbed the right way to do the job