[oregon aqua]

I have been stewing on this since yesterday. I was at Home depot yesterday to get a new surge protector. and decided to pop in to the Petsmart next door, to check out some things. I walked into the fish area and was shocked! I have not seen anything like it since the time i found myself in fish hell at wallmart! (another story)

First off their filter system was locking up and every 45seconds or so it would unlock and make a horrible noise, then shoot a large amount of bubbles into all the tanks. Of course the fish where in all states of shock, they where colorless and all hiding at the bottom. The worst part of it all is that almost every tank had at least one dead fish in it. Some fish by the looks of them had been dead for awhile. Sad part is that most of the fish looked as if they had died of stress, no signs of outward disease like ich, popeye etc....

I really never have expected much from giant chain stores, but i do expect them to see they are killing their........money, profit. a simple turning off of the filter would have helped a lot, allowing the fish to be not so stressed.


And their plants LOL.

just had to vent. Im better now... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

[krisw]

This is no surprise. Fish don't get near the same animal rights attention because they're not as cuddly as a puppy. Doesn't mean they don't deserve better. The biggest thing you can do is to discourage folks from shopping at these places, and instead point them toward a LFS that does care for their animals properly.

 

[davemonkey]

That surprises me about a PetsMart, but I guess it all depends on who the manager is. The one I visit on occassion in Abilene is always clean and the fish are healthier than in most pet stores (although still not as happy as when they find a home). When I lived in the Houston area the PetsMart there was the same.

Of coarse, the plants are still a joke. Even when they manage to have a good selection of actual aquarium plants, they are always floating around, mismatched, no way to tell how many stems come in a bundle...

It's the store manager's job to keep the aquatic area staffed with reliable/educated staff. Take your complaint to him/her and see if you might make a difference.

 

[columbia]

I too have been horrified at the way some of the animals are treated at my local petsmart. I always make sure I find the manager (there is a new one every few months!) and nicely explain the problem. For example, most of the time the hermit crabs are totally out of water and I always stand there and wait for their sponges and bowls to be replenished - gently reminding them of declor when they attempt to put in tap water. I agree that the solution is just not to shop there.

 

[southerndesert]

Sigh.... Remember the little mom and pop stores where you knew the owner and they would call when they had something new. Everything was healthy and actually cared for. There are still a few left, but less and less. Here in AZ at Petco or Petsmart they are usually not too bad and the folks working there are fish keepers at home too.

Walmart though.....terrible.

Bill

 

[Ravenous]

I have never purchased fish at that petsmart, but their whole aquatic section is very poorly kept. I have however purchased several plants there and they were always in just as good if not better condition than The Wet Spot (my current lfs of choice). That being said I have been in there many times where their stock looked like it was completely rotten. I was at the walmart by krispie kreme on 82nd and they had green spotted puffers in a tank with hatchets and goldfish, and in another tank with a now nearly finless pleco and they were feeding the puffers flake food. If I had a spare large tank I would of bought the group and given them away to people who would care for them appropriately. Needless to say I was pretty po'd as I am a puffer fan.

 

[oregon aqua]

That wall mart is what i call the 7th circle of hell for fish! one of the worst kept fish i have ever seen. when they first started it was so much worse, they had the tanks packed with a huge order and it looked like they had just dumped the bags in no acclimating and didn't remove the dead fish from transport. They easily had 30 -40 3 spot gouramies in those little 10 gallon? tanks.

As for the plants at pet smart they have had some nice basic plants before, in that nice display. i would have fun and see what plants where house or aquatic.

IN the past that pet smart has had some nice fish in healthy condition. Something the wall mart will never have!

I just don't understand, their isn't much profit in selling fish or plants, so i would figure you would want to keep your stock healthy and happy to maximize your profit. Not buy stock orders you would be unable to keep and their for would be unable to sell. example to a beginner who decides he wants one bala shark, a red comet, 2 figure 8 puffers and a pleco with some nice house palm plants that are mixed with the aquatic plants for his new 10 gallon. and once they all die the noob gets fed up and quits, so their for doesn't buy any new equipment or fish. sells go bye bye. when if they had taken their time could have sold them some healthy and more suitable fish for a beginner 10 gallon tank. Then when they learn more and get better they come back buy a bigger tank more equipment and more healthy happy fish. $$$

 

[grim]

come to the pet smart in Albany NY if you can see inside the tank and actually see a fish i will hand you twenty bucks they have been under a green algae bloom for a little over a year i would say now and there big answer is to stick gold fish in every tank i got to see what happened to a gold fish when put with Oscars and there assorted African cichlids

 

[Ravenous]

Yea I fell victim to the house plants being sold as aquatics. Except it happened at Petco at Clackamas Promenade. They have potted three packs for a decent price, and I know for sure from another post on this site at least two of my plants are indoor house plants. I am a beginner, so I don't know what all the names of the aquatic plants or what plants aren't aquatic if they are in an underwater display tank. Now I am starting to order my plants online just to be safe... well safer anyway. Honestly I haven't found a LFS locally that I think keeps good care of their stock, some are better than others but I have been to many where I see violations to the rules (aggressive species with wrong tankmates, plants that are rotting or covered in algae, or general mis-informed staff). Any recommendations?

 

[oregon aqua]

Well then i need to introduce you to The Wet Spot, they are the biggest fish store around, only sell freshwater, they get a pretty good selection, In fact they own the the place where other LFS get their stock (so i have been told).

They take great care of the stock and they can get ADA tanks.

EDIT: sorry forgot link http://www.wetspottropicalfish.com/ I just found the RAW image format on my camera and i am super distracted.

 

[Ravenous]

Well then i need to introduce you to The Wet Spot, they are the biggest fish store around, only sell freshwater, they get a pretty good selection, In fact they own the the place where other LFS get their stock (so i have been told).

They take great care of the stock and they can get ADA tanks.

EDIT: sorry forgot link http://www.wetspottropicalfish.com/ I just found the RAW image format on my camera and i am super distracted.

Check out post #6 haha, I guess it is all well and good that they are my current LFS of choice. I wish they had a few more inverts but i usually end up there a couple times a month. Their pricing is pretty darn good too. I have noticed that the expertise varies from one person to the next. If I really want something that I probably shouldn't have then I just ask another person, somebody is bound to tell me it is ok[smilie=u:. Not that I try to return anything... never have, but I do like to see how things work for myself. I purchased a couple otos, shrimp, and dwarf puffers and they assured me that the puffers would eat everything else. Scared my girlfriend too, so after I convinced her that it should be ok I went back and bought the shrimp and otos as we purchased the puffers the first time. They wouldn't give us the warranty, no big deal at a couple bucks a pop. 8 months later and all is well, we have two new puffers and a couple more otos and amanos and they are now in a mostly planted 25 gallon. Being a newbie though, I understand that their job is to help people setup a successful tank that is easy to care for. They never mentioned cycling though even though they knew we were new to the hobby. I bet my girlfriend is kicking herself now though, since I saw their planted tanks I decided I must make one... and now that I have discovered aquascaping:rock: it is quite literally consuming all my extra cash. It was her idea to get the puffers.

 

[oregon aqua]

The problem with puffers is they look so cool! (except that one that looks like a floating pooh.)

I wonder if the tank bred puffers that are becoming more common are more docile then the ones from a couple of years ago? I remember a couple of years ago if you could get some figure 8, or dwarf puffers to survive the tank they would start to go after everything including their brothers and sisters.
they are fin nippers. thats why i think nature made them so they can trim fins in the wild, and they also love snails to grind the beaks and shrimp. If they are being nice in your tank then cool, I to have had puffers that where not following the rules, i forget the names of them, but the smallest was 3 inches long and i had 2 in the 55g. I was told and read they would kill each other but they didn't, they also didn't get any fins, they did eat all the small fish though. After a long time they found my large bicher and started to mess with him then they did get his large side fin, so they had to go. I traded them in to the wet spot and they where shocked i had them both in the same tank. One was still their a couple of months ago as the retail on them is around $60 for a small 2 inch one.

you should see the one in back in their sitting room, if you haven't already its a monster (nile?) puffer.
They should have mentioned cycling the tank! I can't believe they would sell puffers to you with out mentioning it.

 

[Ravenous]

Haha I know exactly which one you are talking about. I didn't even realize it was there, I thought it was a ugly piece of driftwood at first.

I think the thing about puffers in general is that for the novice they are tricky to care for and there fo aren't really "common fish". Everybody knows that male betas are aggressive, because they are super common and that is the rule of thumb. If all fahaka puffers are killers, that doesn't necessarily mean that all other puffers are. A pitbull can kill almost any other animal, but not all of them do. That also doesn't mean that a chihuahua will kill a kitten just because a pitbull will. Can it? Absolutely. Will it? Probably not. I think when something is unknown then the "knowledgeable resources" will err on the side of caution or what they know. Will a DP kill oto's or shrimp... It could and other puffers do, so yes it will. I think that people are just now experimenting with what they can get away with. Some people are killers, we all could be, but we usually aren't. I don't know if that makes sense. I think you are right though, I think we are slowly breeding out some of the more aggresive traits. Wild caught creatures will try what they know to stay alive, this means hunting and predation. If all your food has always dropped from the heavens then you might not try to look elsewhere for it. Just some thoughts and some thread jacking I guess :-#

They told us to wait a week and come back so that our tank could run for a week, i figured it was just to age the water and let everything balance. I knew nothing of the nitrogen cycle at that point. I have seen their Fahaka Puffer in the back, we usually visit it every time we go in. To me puffers just seem like they have a little more going on in their brains than other fish. Thats what draws me to them.

 

[oregon aqua]

Just some thoughts and some thread jacking I guess

NP! Their are a couple of other stores that are so/so Animal house in oregon city is ok, they used to be better! Then their is a store in Beaverton I cant remember name at moment but i here they are very good. In fact im going to go through my threads see if i can find it

 

[Ravenous]

So I went to Walmart looking for a small aquarium, 5 gallon or so and stopped to check on the puffers. Three of them were floating dead, one with what appeared to be some internal parasite judging from the odd bulge in it's stomach. Anyway I am going to write a letter to corporate, I am sure it will go on the wayside. Maybe I should act like I am an angry parent because my kids were emotionally distraught by the experience. I am not a parent but it was disturbing enough to me.

Did you ever figure out what the name of the place in Beaverton is?

Went to The Wet Spot last night to get that nano I was looking for at walmart, walked out with an ADA Cube Garden 30C instead :whoo: ... damn them. Must say that while it is cool to own one, they are not as amazing as I thought they would be. Still use silicon, and there is still excess, it just isn't smeared all over the place. The beveled edges are nice. What was the glass shop that you went to when you were planning your 1ft cube? I think I have an idea on how to improve the silicon beyond the ada tanks but I still want beveled edges otherwise I would cut it myself.

 

[Six]

PerSmart's systems are actually really top notch. They don't always use them as such but when you pay people min. wage they are bound to be uneducated about science and technology.

 

[Zenzi]

The store in Beaverton is called The World of Wet Pets. It's a nice store and actually had more of the kind of fish that I was looking for in stock than the Wet Spot even though they have less tanks. They also had more of a plant selection more often. I have found the the wet spot is hit or miss. For instance, I went in one day and they had lots of gorgeous plants for sale in about 4 or 5 tanks. I bought some, went back about a week later and they only had about 3 or 4 ugly looking straggler plants left. Each time that I've been to the world of wet pets, they have had a decent plant supply. I think the wet spot just has so much more traffic that it's hard for them to keep a nice stock on everything...it was the same thing with driftwood. I went in one day and they had 2 or 3 pieces of driftwood...the next week, they had bins and bins and bins of it. The guy at the wet pet in Beaverton (maybe the owner?), is knowledgeable and helpful, but not all that "friendly". He definitely doesn't like kids and sometimes acts like you're asking him a question that he thinks is particularly stupid or that he's probably answered a bazillion times. I usually just feel like I'm totally disturbing him if I have questions.

As for the petsmarts, petcos, walmarts, etc...why bother? Don't even go there or look at the fish. It will only make you mental. Don't buy things from them. We are lucky that we have some nice local shops to support and don't need to step foot in those hell holes.

 

[gasteriaphile]

PETSMARTs in Spokane

Actually the two PetsMarts in Spokane are OK. The one out north is run by some young women who know very little but are enthusiastic and their tanks are as nice as the one out in the Valley east. The latter store is run by Miles who is very knowledgeable and is a former fish wholesaler. He is hampered by dumb corporate decisions (or lack thereof) such as having 40 gal. breeder tanks but no light hoods to fit them. The tanks the fish are in are in top notch conditions, clean as whistles. Nice selection too.

The two Petcos in town are, however, the epitome of dumbness. They are the ones who sell tropical houseplants as aquatics. I mentioned this to the manager of the one nearest me and he said he knew that was wrong, but nothing he could do about it as corporate headquarters tells him to sell them. I just couldn't live with that hypocrisy myself.

By the way, I get paid minimum wage where I work in a used book store and I am glad to have the job and work hard. I am also learning the store's ins and outs which is a challenge.