LFS chain stores..ie petsmart, petco, etc

[jmoore]

Whats has been your experience with the larger corporate fish supply?
As a rookie aquarium keeper I am quite perturbed with the sever lack of quality fish, and customer service.
Every single time I go in there, I am given false information regarding fish or the upkeep of the aquarium.
Every fish I have gotten there has either died, or had a case of ich, which I of course didnt see symptoms of in the store.

Thank god I found this site, or else Id be up that one creek with no paddle in regards to upkeep.
I tried the locally owned pet supply store, and they specialize in saltwater so their freshwater selection, tanks and information arent exactly spectacular.

Is this a fairly common problem among chain stores, or is the one by my house just a bad apple?

[cheezysquirrelz]

Probably around your area because I made a post a while back about petsmart being bad. They said it was probably the area I live in.

[JeffProe]

Well, [acronym:e853c13a55="Calcium"]CA[/acronym:e853c13a55] to GA is a pretty big area. And I think that pretty much covers the area that they are bad (anywhere in between) . I've gone into Petco and never seen a sales person and if I did, they couldn't answer anything about the saltwater fish they carried. unfortunately, none of the stock they carried looked particularly healthy either. Freshwater could be a different story, but I've not been in there for them either. In my limited experience of a couple years, I can't say I'd honestly recommend any of them for advice. You might use them to price shop equipment, but so far I've seen that you can get almost anything they carry for cheaper online. I guess it depends on if the price is worth the convenience. Find a your [acronym:e853c13a55="Local Fish Store"]LFS[/acronym:e853c13a55] and watch them for a while. Check out their stock and see if they are disease free and act "normal". Check the condition of their display tanks too. Talk to them too. I have not been in one yet that won't talk your arm off if you let them.

Just my thoughts, feel free to disagree, but that's been my experience so far.

[Devilishturtles]

Most stores like that..their sucess depends on management. The management's knowledge to hire knowledgable employees. People are going to give you a very good opinion here, and a very negative one also.

I can tell you from experience. I run a Wal-Mart pet department. Every person you ask, is gonna say Wal-Mart fish suck. Well, it all depends on the person who upkeeps the place and manages it.

It's hard to say something about a chain store, because each vary so much.

Every fish I have gotten there has either died, or had a case of ich, which I of course didnt see symptoms of in the store.

Ich is caused from stress as well. Not neccesarily from the pet store, but from it's transition from the aquatics dealer, to the store, to your tank. There are many things that can cause it...

And, just to add...the Petsmart in my area is awesome.

[Menagerie]

I have found the fish at the Petsmart in Spokane, WA to be free of disease; however, the sales staff gave me bad advice regarding which fish were compatable. Although, I have not bought fish at either Petsmarts up here, I must say that their fish look good. I cannot say the same of Petland.

As far as [acronym:ad0dfad05c="Local Fish Store"]LFS[/acronym:ad0dfad05c], I have had problems with them also concerning advice and ill fish. Your best bet is to research the fish you want ahead of time and have a [acronym:ad0dfad05c="quarantine or quart depending on context"]QT[/acronym:ad0dfad05c] tank ready. Also knowing the store's "Stay Alive" guarantee helps.

[tbonem91]

my petco that I am a regular at has a lot of good employees who know ther stuff and their stock seems in pretty good condition - its hard to tell how the fish are really doing because it changes so often. I've personally had pretty good luck with the big chains.

[patryuji]

Of the 8 or so petcos and petsmarts around here 5 of them have atleast one knowledge employee who isn't afraid to lose a sale if it means the fish have appropriate conditions.

The fish at the big chains tend to be more stressed around here unless they are less popular fish (which tend to be in the store for a long time).

[blackpuddle]

The petco here has pretty healthy fish, while the petsmart doesn't. Walmart's here also arent' the greatest.

[Apocalypse_Gold]

It really depends on the individual store. I have two petsmarts within 15 miles. One is good, the other awful. I don't know what to think of my local Petco. They have one guy who knows alot about fish, but he works the registers and they have someone who knows very little back by the tanks. If they have a tank of sick fish they don't sell them which is cool. I had another independent [acronym:beede70110="Local Fish Store"]lfs[/acronym:beede70110] that had been poor in the past but was getting better. Last week I went in there and some of their fish had these 1 cm parasites hanging on them . They were easily noticable, but when I asked the guy about them a few days later he hadn't even seen them.

[tsaraber]

I haven't had much luck with the Pet Supplies Plus in my area - I've been to about 4 or 5 of them and watching the way some of them handle the fish really freaks me out. And the advice the one time (I didn't ask) I got it was bad - told me the angels I was buying were aggressive and would kill the danios I was buying at the same time. Didn't happen.

Not to mention the tanks with dead or obviously sick fish. Everyone says Wal-Mart sucks but 90% of the time their tanks look better than the PSP's tanks.

I don't have a local PetCo but I did run into this site today:
http://www.petcosucks.com/index.asp