I’m glad that I have a local small fish store, petco and PetSmart near me. I know all of us have been guilty of impulsive fish buying. I’m so glad that RUclips is a thing because I have learned so much about fish keeping.
Yes, exactly this, I understand the need for a small store to maybe up the price a little but seriously, I'm not paying almost $8 or $9 for a fish that is $2 or $3 at my local Petco, lol true story, smh 😂 if I'm buying a schooling fish, there's no way I'm going to pay that much for 6 to 8 fish, snort.
I'm a PetSmart manager in Dallas, who's been fishkeeping for 40 years! I listen to your podcast every week while receiving/acclimating/stocking my fish truck! I work my butt off daily to provide the public with accurate and helpful information about our passion of fishkeeping!🐟💙💦 I love y'all❤
We have bought about 75% of our tanks from Petco. Recently the 60B, 75G and all open top tanks have been included in the 50% off sale. Our Petco has always been staffed with aquarists so the tanks are well taken care of. Since they sell a lot of aquatic life, they get to special order stuff. Freshwater livestock gets a 30 warranty but marine has no warranty. We have bought marine livestock from there with no issues whereas every fish that has ever gotten sick was from our LFS. We QT everything wet so it was dealt with before adding to the DT. In saltwater according to Ryan from BRS, 90% of the people who get a saltwater tank don't last a year. So getting the people starting up a new tank is a good money maker.
You're so right. Location, location. Some Petco sell saltwater fish, drift wood out of the tank, I have also seen a Petco sell live corals. I think Petco lets their managers sell what they want. My Petsmarts are basically the same store to store.
Listening to the audio stream, but had to come here to comment. You are both so spot on with the employees. There is a young guy at my local Petco that is incredible. I've stopped in to buy frozen food a few times, and he always takes his time to really explain fish care to people who are new to the hobby. He would definitely be on my shortlist to hire if I ever had an aquarium shop.
By me, all the stores are well kept, but the Petcos have horrible customer service regarding the employees in the store. I have stood at the tanks for 15 to 20 minutes without anyone coming around to ask if I need help, and more often than not, there's no one around to even ask. It's very frustrating. In contrast, the Petsmart store across the street has people asking me if I need any help within seconds of walking in the door.
I'm the opposite. I just want to look without people coming up to me constantly. I'll find them when I have questions or ready to check out. They seem less perturbed that way too.
I think it’s down to the folks working there. I go to a particular petco cause they carry the frozen foods I like and always have them in stock. The lady that runs the fish department knows her stuff. But there’s another one that’s the complete opposite.
@aburningbear3138 First of all, I shouldn't have to. Not when there are 3 customers in the store and none of us are being helped. Second, I have asked on the rare occasion I can find someone to ask, and it still takes them far too long to get over to me. It's for that reason alone that I do not buy fish at PetCo. I don't even look at them. I go there for their 50% off aquarium deals, and that's it. All my other business goes to PetSmart, because there, I don't have to ask or wait.
where I live the closest mom n pop fish store is 3 hours away. I have a Petco , a petsmart, and a pet supplies plus about an hour away. if it weren't for them I wouldn't be in the hobby. I currently have 17 aquariums and 6 ponds. when I started fish keeping in 84 I got all my fish at Walmart.
I recently visited a local Petco in the Sacramento Ca. area and was very surprised at how good the fish looked! Every tank seemed to have robust, healthy fish! Actually better looking fish than several aquarium shops that I have recently also visited! Very surprising!
Yeah, my local Petsmart in Sacramento had better looking and more varieties of guppies than my LFS - and better prices (even compared to EBay for similar guppies). My purchased fish have been in quarantine for 2 weeks and so far, so good!
Thanks fellas! I buy my tanks at the big box stores and fish at MLFS. Can't beat the knowledge of the folks at Moby Dick in Waterford, MI!! I will always pay a little more for that!
I remember seeing fish at Walmart for a long time. We now have a Petco, a PetSmart and a local fish store. I go to all of them, but if I’m serious about fish I travel 2 hours to another store.
The PetCo by us was just re-done and is amazing. Staff is really doing a great job keeping things neat and clean. They were excited to get all new set ups. Pet Smart is not so great by us.
The closest LFS is an hour away for me so petco is my only local convenient go to. Lucky for me the young lady who is in charge of the fish section is on point! She keeps clean tanks and stocks lots of awesome fish. She keeps all the standard saltwater fish plus anthias, tangs and several coral frags.
You’re spot on with all your points…both good and bad. It is very much a buyer-beware situation. However, a tremendous positive to bringing in new folks to the hobby or to expanding fish rooms are the dollar-per-gallon/50% off tanks sales. They deserve some credit for this.
20:00 I think the quarantine is really the biggest reason why LFS's seem to have healthier fish. I'd bet you have the same amount of die-off, but you dont see it at LFS's because they're not put directly in the buying area.
as an employee at one of these stores i will say it very much depends on the manager of the pet section, the corporations themselves have pretty decent policies on care of fish and maintenance of tanks but it depends on if the manager is enforcing policy, the one place i think these stores fail at is the "recommended" tank size for fish they can be misleading or flat out wrong and are usually the tank recommendation for one individual fish which a lot of the fish that we sell shouldnt be kept alone... also for the last few months at least my district has been getting sterbai corys in labelled as julii corys and have been selling them at the julii price so with my employee discount i been taking full advantage of that
Pre 2005 I could go to a dozen odd ball fish stores out in the middle of nowhere without any effort. There was always that family that had the odd discus shop in an old carpet store or a place that specialized in freshwater stingrays, or parrot fish or you name it. Literally shops everywhere. That came to a hard stop around the early 2000s in my area. The decline of the local pet store started before that though. Now, unless I want to order online and have it shipped or make a long drive to pick it up, big box stores are my option.
I've visited almost every single mom and pop fish store in the Atlanta area and the Petco near me (Duluth) has the best price, best selection, and best customer service. Not only do their tanks look good they even stock more fun fish like Discus, Rainbow fish, peacock gudgeons, and rams. I have also talked to all three of their Aquarium employees and they have all several tanks, know their stuff and respectfully respond to my stocking questions when the fish or plant doesn't fit my current set ups.
I also got a surrendered clown loach that is 8 inches at a mom and pop store, going there so often and knowing the staff, they sold it to me for 40$. I was so pumped!
When I started the hobby 5 years ago, I only really went to feeders supply or PetSmart. But now that I’m this into the hobby the ma and pa stores are the only stores I go to.
In a store that's part of a large chain (at least in the Chicagoland area) near Jason that shall remain un-named that has a pair of tanks that connects the fish area to the rest of the pet store. It sounds very similar to what you're talking about, John. Huge tanks, several feet over my head. Probably 8ft long each. I don't think they're as deep front to back as 6ft, though.
In my area, Petco is the only one close enough with anything aquarium or fish, some plants, fish foods, and anything else to do with the hobby, lol. I have no mom and pop stores that are near me, it would be a long trip (3 to 6 hours) to get to anything like that. I am happy to say, my Petco at least has people who keep fish and have hobby knowledge. I have ordered online for items and shrimp, food, but what I have near me, is Petco. That's it. The mom and pops near me have closed. I remember in the 80's and 90's, there was an amazing place on Cape Cod where I'm from, Cape Maid Farms, it was a mom and pop store, probably had been around since the 60s or 70s, had feed for livestock and pets and supplies, etc, but they had an incredibly amazing fresh and saltwater selection of fish and tanks, etc, with a guy who knew his stuff backwards and forewards and would also set up and maintain tanks for people as a side job. I used to just go there to look at all the fish 😂 then I got my first tanks and fish when I was an adult from them. They always had such healthy stock, and a very big selection of fresh and salt water species. I very much miss mom and pop stores, sigh. Even now, some I've checked out aren't really that attractive to me to make it a regular stop for my hobby needs, selection and health of fish is the top one, cost and a lack of hardscaping and plants another. And they're also not strictly fish hobby stores, most have a little bit of everything, so they are not dedicated fish stores. I'd have to pretty much get close to Boston to get into a store that is strictly aquarium, fresh and saltwater fish and everything you need in the hobby.
Really great podcast I enjoy it if I was to choose a big box store it would be Petco but I have bought fish from there quarantine them they were perfectly fine but I usually go to my local fish store because they deal with local breeders such as myself and you just simply get a better variety of fish
I have 3 petsmart and 1 petco in my area. Have bought tanks and supplies from both. Fish only from petsmart and LFS. Have had equal good and bad fish experiences with both
I live in a area in California were there are 6 main areas: Carmel, Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove, Monterey, Seaside, and Marina. In all of that area there are no fish stores except Pet Smart and Petco. For us fish enthusiast we have to travel over 100 mile.
Our problem here in the West Central coast of Florida is not the Big Box stores, we have plenty of them. It is the quality of the few remaining Mom & Pop fish stores around. Overall the tanks are far better maintained in the Big Box stores and it is now to the point where I won't buy fish from any of the local Mom & Pops except one. Without exception the Mom & Pop's have dirty tanks with multiple dead fish in them. The only really good Mom & Pop we had in the area closed up last year. The folks that owned it retired. So now its buy online for the most part.
Recently my hub helped me start a 10 gallon nano tank. He knew I wanted some chili rasbora and saw some marked as such at Petsmart. So he picked up a half dozen and they proceeded to hunt down my little shrimps! Turns out they were really bleeding fin tetras. Fortunately, they took the fish back.
Definitely peek out of the water for whether or not to support Petcos or Petsmarts, since despite the interest increased in aquariums these business still have practices that basically resign intelligent, social animals to hellscape owners just on a daily basis--sometimes very regularly when it comes to small mammals. Just because the fish business benefits you and some more fish in the long run doesn't mean these places aren't negligent and willfully so in their practices.
I have visited my local PetSmart a few times. The tanks and fish were looking great. I bought 9 guppies. only lost 1 guppy. A year later and I still have the original fish and a few more generations. The woman who helped me was telling me about how her home aquariums were doing. So I know she knew what she was talking about.
Guess I'm lucky from seeing other comments. My Petco and PetSmart are pretty awesome. A lot of this falls on who is hired and assigned to work the fish area of the stores. I developed a great relationship with a Petco fish employee over last couple years. Often he would call me on delivery day so I could be there before he put fish into the tanks. I literally bought several of my fish in the bag from distributor, which reduced one more catch/release cycle for them. Just depends on the store.
I work at Pet-smart, I agree with a lot of what they said, Pet-smart really was my only option growing up. In my area there are three of them and you can tell that the quality of the store really just depends on the local income level. (lol) I got a job at the nicest one in a busy part of town and it's definitely a higher quality than what a lot of stores further out of town are. Also most of those big box pet stores are understaffed, I work at the nice one and even then there will be 3 people including me running the whole store. That's the usual reason big stores often don't quarantine, because my store does, but when we're too busy doing the deep clean or assisting people we kinda just don't have the time. Most often the fish had already spread it's sickness by the time we pull it, so there's no point. By the time we cut them out of the bag 1 or 2 would already have fin-rot, and the rest had been sitting in that water during shipping. 🤷
Reading through the comments, I guess I'm lucky my Pecto has so much, lol. They have fresh and saltwater fish and shrimp, some corals and anemones, turtle's, freshwater shrimp, crayfish, the usual feeder fish and koi, shebunkens (sp?, lol) goldfish and pond stuff, some plants, good deals on tanks and equipment they run every month, they have frozen foods and lots of the chemicals you need, pretty much everything to set up a good tank. Plant section isn't very good, but since i started up my aquascaped tanks, they've been listening to my requests and have ordered more of a selection in. I'm definitely going to be buying my 50 or 75 gallon tank kit from them because price cannot be beat and the kit cost is cheaper than separate items. Of course I'll cut my cost ordering what suits my set up that costs less, but tank wise? Smh, Petco has decent tank prices for sure. So, I guess my Petco is darn decent!
A topic that would be cool to cover is temperature . I see many people recommend species that have different temperature requirements, so what should folks do? Are these for breeding only? Or is there more to it?
I have a LFS for freshwater fish and another that specializes in saltwater. However, after I tore a meniscus in my right knee, it's difficult to visit the fw LFS because it has a high, steep set of stairs. The saltwater one is open only two days with weird hours, so I find it difficult to go. The Petco here is better than Petsmart, but nothing spectacular. They're clean, but variety is not great. I've occasionally bought tetras at Petco, but mostly had to shop online for good corals and fish, both sw and fw in the last year. I buy food and other supplies from John and Lisa.
My only local pet store (that dealth with aquariums and fishes) was a PetSmart for over a decade. Went there as a child up until college. I will always appreciate it for what it offered me, but it really was poorly ran. The staffing wasn't great and the health of their fishes weren't great. Buying fishes from them was a huge gamble on whether or not they'll still be alive the next few days. Definitely a store ran by people who don't quite care about fishes and I assume also visited by people who aren't very knowledgable on the hobby. In recent years a Petco opened up nearby and it was so clean and well ran. I got to talk to the manager of the fish department there, he even showed me pictures of some of his tanks at home. Very knowledgable and well kept, even better kept than the only real LFS near me, almost an hour away. Hope they can maintain it, the only issue is that they don't have a large variety nor anything high quality. However, the manager did inform me that he could have a lot of fishes shipped in for me, not sure if thats is Petco policy or him helping out another hobbyist. Very cool!
True petco is one reason I'm in this fish plus I have three dogs and wild birds that I feed and a frog so it keeps this old lady busy I now have some zebra dino's love them theybare very busy little fish. I have wo many babies, so now I'm saving up for a 75 gal, "it just keeps on going' 😆
Petco is the only pet there is unless you want to drive 70 miles to Tulsa or to Oklahoma city to pets martial there no mom and pops in Oklahoma that I've seen😢😊
😂😂😂 same here!!! 6 Cats, a dog, now 4 fish tanks, it has everything I need, plus I do the points thing on my furry pets and I use my points on my aquarium needs and walk out of there only paying the tax on aquarium purchases over $100. My husband was shocked, lol. It's my best choice in the area for all my pet needs, and that gets expensive. They're trying to get a Veterinarian for their new office build as well, I'm going to switch to Petco for my vet needs, prices are unbelievable at other veterinary offices in my are. 😮
Speaking of big box stores I got my first fish from Walmart. Have been in and out of the hobby ever since. If it hadn't been for that i probably never would have gotten into fish. PetSmart and 1 tiny fish store is the only thing within 1hr
Never bought any fish from a BIGBOX Store. Only my 2 LFS and of course Dan’s Fish. Tanks at the 50% off sales. All equipment supplies and assorted food from whoever has the best price and highest quality foods. The Internet has many options and I have no issues buying from Amazon. 😊
The locations around me aren’t too great, nothing ABYSMAL, but nothing spectacular. I always feel an aura of “Yeah ok but I’m still gonna go do ten hours of research” whenever advised by an employee because I was steered wrong so many times when I was younger. They’re plenty nice but, you can’t expect them to be fish experts when they’re just trying to get the near-minimum-wage bag…honestly lol
The petcos and petsmarts in my area have healthy looking fish but they’re noticeably tiny compared to the fish that the mom n pop stores sell and are way too small for my liking. The selection is very small at those places too. I go into petco and petsmart for fish supplies here and there, but I get live fish and my fish food from local fish stores. Southern California has lots of local mom n pop fish stores and I feel blessed to have so many options. Local fish stores here seem to do a way better job at keeping the shelves stocked while petco seems to run out of things really quick or only keep one or two of an item on the shelf. As for pricing, I don’t notice much of a difference except with the tanks. A 125 gallon from PetSmart is quite a bit cheaper than the 125s my local fish stores sell.
I have been too a few petcos here in Arizona, tend to be pretty good except the one in Kingman, that one is trash. Haven’t had much luck with AZ petsmarts though
have to say pets at home the big box in the uk are pretty good they have a tablet for their Employees which has questions on their and will trow up red flags on compatibility of fish along with tank size and cycle etc .Bit mean of me but i tested the theory out and asked for a Betta to add to my tiger barb tank after a bit of tapping she came back i can not sell you long fin fish for your current setup .she did also offer solutions if i still wanted a Betta think they call it up selling which would involve buying a 5-6 gallon tank and keeping it solo . So Kudos to the company for giving their staff the tools to make sure any live stock transactions are safe .That said they only sell sort of starter fish .So it is back to the LFS for something a bit more exotic
In my opinion, I think it's good for beginners to get them in the hobby including myself. Then once they learn more(from watching videos 😉) they will start to support the LFS if they are serious about keeping fish.
Love/hate relationship with those two stores. Bad thing, I do believe their presence caused the death of a lot of great little mom and pop fish stores here in Portland. But, for equipment they are usually good places to go. And just this weekend, Petco was a lifesaver for me when the heater went out in my 60 gallon and needed a new heater ASAP. It was in the evening, too late to get same day delivery. But by late Saturday morning, Doordash brought my new heater to my door without the need for me to do any running. I would have ordered from Pet Mountain, but unfortunately I found out they do not have overnight shipping. As far as fish though, those two stores are not the greatest places to go at least not around here.
I have only been a customer for the supplies and TC plants and I have 20 Petco & PetSmart stores within a half hour drive , but I do drive fast here in the Twin cities and I will actually count the right # just to know so it might be 19 or 28 . Petco is moving in the direction of Aquascaping much faster than PS but both are 20 + years behind Asia and Europe and the stores in Germany and Holland , AMAZING selection with inventory that would completely make the CEO's realize just how pathetic the stores in America are compared to what they were 10 years ago , 5 years ago and whenever they were DEFINITELY GOING AFTER THE LOCAL LFS , guarantee that they knew what they would do when they sized up the easy ones , and that's usually the Dinosaur stores and the smoke qnd mirrors stores that wouldn't have been doing it for much longer.
I have a petco. petsmart, and a LFS within 20m of me. The best treated fish come from the Petco. I would love to support the LFS but every time I go there I see dead and dying fish in dirty tanks. The manager at the local Petco actually cares about fish and does a great job.
Big box stores are good for buying equipment and general supplies. I've never seen a aquarium store that is even competitive most equipment, especially tanks and stand. Everytime I go into my local aquarium store I'm blown away with how expensive their tanks and stands are. Everything else in my opinion you should buy from a aquarium store. Almost everytime I go into a petco or smart I see diseased fish and dead fish. If you buy a fish from petco you might aswell just pick up ick treatment aswell. Probably 3/4 of the times I've bought fish from petco/smart I ended up having to treat with ick medication. Imo, regardless of whether local or big box, if they have a filter for multiple tanks, then you should not buy from them.
From where I live petsmart and petco aren't great for the aquarium hobby. They both don't maintain products for fish and keeping fish and plants alive, everything is dying or dead. There is no more convenience of going to get something off the shelf because they are always low stocked or out of stock. It's a headache going to these stores thinking they'll have what I need but then end up finding nothing. Also these stores have inflated prices so much that people aren't getting into the hobby of keeping animals anymore, along with high rent prices. I ended up buying my supplies online at a lower price but at the cost of inconvenience in time and possibly getting lost in delivery.
I drive an hour to a a fish store. I probably pass 6 Pet* stores to get there. They just don't have the selection and expertise at the big box stores. Especially when it comes to plants.
I have to admit that my experience has been hit or miss. Some stores are great others not so much. These stores fill a need. I use them when they have a sale.
Im a fan of petco have 3 about an hour away. Petsmarts are everywhere (9 off top of my head abkut 40 minutes away)few of them are difficult to get fish just no caring people for aquatics. Don't particularly care for how petsmart locates thier stores they put locations about a block away from other pet and fish stores when they open to outcompete them.
I don't have time for an hour video about this but, I've found in each area they're a good place to get basics. In some areas co has a better plant selection than mart but in others that's reversed. Local stores are always your best bet but my locals don't have gobies and my Petco does soooo it's very hot and miss based on the breeders and hobby interests in your town/county/state/country. For instance, I couldn't find a bristle nosed pleco ANYWHERE in the riverside ca area but in Bakersfield CA they're at PetSmart but not Petco but I can't find oto's anywhere in Bakersfield but they're darn near a plague in Riverside. Shrimp, that's now an Amazon purchase because anyone else is unreliable or stupid expensive.
Personally I would not buy any fish from the bigger chain stores or even a general pet shop for that matter. The whole inferior fish thing may have some merit when it comes to the big box stores but for me this is not the reason and I think this is quite often unjustified. For me I actually just enjoy going to a dedicated Local Fish Shop, there is always much more variety and I do not know about anyone else but once you have bought fish from a reliable source you tend to keep going back. A trip to the LFS is a good day out, mine probably wishes more of my trips actually involved purchasing something. Admittedly I bought my first aquarium from Pets at Home and in fairness the person I dealt with that day did seem to know his stuff but I still do not think I would ever buy any fish there. There is just something more reassuring about going to the LFS. I think the average purchaser of fish from a big box store is someone buying some fish on a whI'm or for one of their children who has been pestering them for the past few months for a fish tank. Generally people who probably have never kept any fish or done much research into it. I think it is this lack of experience which often leads to the fish dying prematurely and not always a reflection of the quality of the fish on offer. Of course there are many well documented cases of fish neglect in such places with racks full of dead fish, notably Wallmart but I think it is a tad unfair to label all big box stores in that way. Do all so called experienced aquarists feel this way or are there any out there who would happily buy their fish from a big box store if the fish looked healthy enough? What do you all reckon?
In my area the petcos are great, clean store well stocked with healthy fish and knowledgeable staff, but the petsmarts is garbage, basically the exact opposite, except for the 2 next to the mall where its switched, I think it depends more on the individual aquatics/store manager than the chain themselves wether your local big box is good or not
I think both of them are ok fish stores. But the help there is hit and miss. The other problem is they will not Buy fish from hobbies. I will not spend my money in a shop that refuses to buy from hobbies. Just I rule I have.
Without Petsmart and Petland I probably wouldn't even be in the hobby as they are the only pet stores with fish in my city. Most of the pet stores are about cats and dogs.
Man. lol. I’d KILL to have even a Petco/PetSmart within an HOUR of where I live. I have to drive an hour just for target. Two to go to Petco/petsmart. My “local” fish store just closed today for good. I had to drive 2 hours to go there too. The saddest and most ironic thing though, the big stores had healthier fish (ESPECIALLY the bettas!😢). The ONE bonus to shopping at the local store was they carried the fish meds I prefer to keep on hand and I could special order fish through them. Sometimes. It was hit or miss whether I’d actually get a call saying my fish were actually in. My Petco/PetSmart have a quarantine row for any fish that doesn’t look healthy. My LFS tried to sell me golden rams that were so covered with ich you could barely see the color of the fish. Zero quarantine.
My daughter got a betta from petsmart, betta dies, I don't like seeing her sad so I start researching about fish, 27 tanks later I think that I can give PetSmart some credit. Most of those tanks from Petco but none of the fish. And yes my daughter got another betta and it's still alive. 😂
Honestly we dont have cheap aquariums here, you are lucky if you get a seapora 5.5 gallon under 40$. As for small pet stores, I don't see any difference because I use their stock when I started and if I was the type of person that gets attached to their fish or dislikes failure or misguidance I would have given up at the start. I was gathering shrimp from different places, did everything right on my side, but of course I had no room for quarantine. Then I go buy 20 shrimp from a small store that had so many reviews because of how much imported stock they sell, and they came with scuteleria and that green fungus which demolished my population fast. Since a lot of online info is so controversial, my only logical path was to trim all the sick ones out of the tank to save the healthy looking shrimp. Was it the best solution? For me yes, because just about anyone is allowed to put out info online for critical situations for which they have insufficient knowledge AND experience. As for big stores, we have one that sells a bunch of things which is focused around tropical stuff with those UVB lights and they had a light stock in aquarium, but at the time they had nothing interesting for me to spend an hour to go there after calling. I am often jealous of how insane the difference is between where I live and the USA, with stock availability in freshwater stock and saltwater stock. We barely have 1 % of the things I have seen there lol, if even that much. And I have lived in CA, SC, NY.
Consumers need to do their OWN research. Why would we rely on store employees? With RUclips, there is ZERO excuse - just find consistent advice and run with it.
The PetSmart nearest to me, in Madison Wisconsin, has a fish section that often has swirling masses of dead and dying fish. I've expressed my concerns to the manager and feel sorry for the position he's in. More than once I've considered reporting them to our tough local animal control/cruelty folks. What to do, what to do? I avoid the fish tanks as I guiltily walk to the cat food section. But these folks are providing ammunition to the PETA types who would happily put a stop to fishkeeping all together. Maybe we need to police ourselves better. I'd settle for fewer fish keepers if the result was a decrease in the misery and horrible deaths of the fish we love. So on a fundamental level I have to disagree with you guys.
Ya notice how humble Jason is, with all is schooling and experience, and yet does the least amount of talking. And then John, well takes forever to make a point, name drops and talks the most. You can learn things from an 18yr old, "Oh wait, we are good here..." how ARROGANT!!! Just my opinion.
Sounds about like where I live. I have to drive 30 minutes in any direction to get to a fish store. Population around 1000 in city limits more in the county.
I’m glad that I have a local small fish store, petco and PetSmart near me. I know all of us have been guilty of impulsive fish buying. I’m so glad that RUclips is a thing because I have learned so much about fish keeping.
Petco and petsmart are great for stocking schooling fish in my tanks. 1 neon tetra at petco is 2.49, while at the local fish store, they want 4.99.
Yes, exactly this, I understand the need for a small store to maybe up the price a little but seriously, I'm not paying almost $8 or $9 for a fish that is $2 or $3 at my local Petco, lol true story, smh 😂 if I'm buying a schooling fish, there's no way I'm going to pay that much for 6 to 8 fish, snort.
I'm a PetSmart manager in Dallas, who's been fishkeeping for 40 years! I listen to your podcast every week while receiving/acclimating/stocking my fish truck! I work my butt off daily to provide the public with accurate and helpful information about our passion of fishkeeping!🐟💙💦
I love y'all❤
Nice man !! The fish guy at the petco by me knows his stuff as well !
We have bought about 75% of our tanks from Petco. Recently the 60B, 75G and all open top tanks have been included in the 50% off sale. Our Petco has always been staffed with aquarists so the tanks are well taken care of. Since they sell a lot of aquatic life, they get to special order stuff. Freshwater livestock gets a 30 warranty but marine has no warranty. We have bought marine livestock from there with no issues whereas every fish that has ever gotten sick was from our LFS. We QT everything wet so it was dealt with before adding to the DT. In saltwater according to Ryan from BRS, 90% of the people who get a saltwater tank don't last a year. So getting the people starting up a new tank is a good money maker.
You're so right. Location, location. Some Petco sell saltwater fish, drift wood out of the tank, I have also seen a Petco sell live corals. I think Petco lets their managers sell what they want. My Petsmarts are basically the same store to store.
Listening to the audio stream, but had to come here to comment. You are both so spot on with the employees. There is a young guy at my local Petco that is incredible. I've stopped in to buy frozen food a few times, and he always takes his time to really explain fish care to people who are new to the hobby. He would definitely be on my shortlist to hire if I ever had an aquarium shop.
It's the Walmart effect. Big box comes to town. Drop the price, run the competition out of business, and then increase the prices.
By me, all the stores are well kept, but the Petcos have horrible customer service regarding the employees in the store. I have stood at the tanks for 15 to 20 minutes without anyone coming around to ask if I need help, and more often than not, there's no one around to even ask. It's very frustrating. In contrast, the Petsmart store across the street has people asking me if I need any help within seconds of walking in the door.
I'm the opposite. I just want to look without people coming up to me constantly. I'll find them when I have questions or ready to check out.
They seem less perturbed that way too.
I think it’s down to the folks working there. I go to a particular petco cause they carry the frozen foods I like and always have them in stock. The lady that runs the fish department knows her stuff. But there’s another one that’s the complete opposite.
Petco seems always understaffed
You do know you can ask someone for help right?
@aburningbear3138 First of all, I shouldn't have to. Not when there are 3 customers in the store and none of us are being helped. Second, I have asked on the rare occasion I can find someone to ask, and it still takes them far too long to get over to me. It's for that reason alone that I do not buy fish at PetCo. I don't even look at them. I go there for their 50% off aquarium deals, and that's it. All my other business goes to PetSmart, because there, I don't have to ask or wait.
where I live the closest mom n pop fish store is 3 hours away. I have a Petco , a petsmart, and a pet supplies plus about an hour away.
if it weren't for them I wouldn't be in the hobby.
I currently have 17 aquariums and 6 ponds.
when I started fish keeping in 84 I got all my fish at Walmart.
I recently visited a local Petco in the Sacramento Ca. area and was very surprised at how good the fish looked! Every tank seemed to have robust, healthy fish! Actually better looking fish than several aquarium shops that I have recently also visited! Very surprising!
Yeah, my local Petsmart in Sacramento had better looking and more varieties of guppies than my LFS - and better prices (even compared to EBay for similar guppies). My purchased fish have been in quarantine for 2 weeks and so far, so good!
Thanks fellas! I buy my tanks at the big box stores and fish at MLFS. Can't beat the knowledge of the folks at Moby Dick in Waterford, MI!! I will always pay a little more for that!
Petco was in California in the early 90s and they had a huge African cichlid display, pond style aquarium
The big box pet stores are good for the hobby .Because the get what entry level started
Woke up this morning and did not find your podcast...I look forward to your podcast every week. Please keep this going.
Sorry about that! It's totally my fault, I scheduled it for the wrong time. Jason should totally fire me!!!
I remember seeing fish at Walmart for a long time. We now have a Petco, a PetSmart and a local fish store. I go to all of them, but if I’m serious about fish I travel 2 hours to another store.
Sooooo the three of us are bald with beards?? Love it. 🐟 🐠
The PetCo by us was just re-done and is amazing. Staff is really doing a great job keeping things neat and clean. They were excited to get all new set ups. Pet Smart is not so great by us.
The closest LFS is an hour away for me so petco is my only local convenient go to. Lucky for me the young lady who is in charge of the fish section is on point! She keeps clean tanks and stocks lots of awesome fish. She keeps all the standard saltwater fish plus anthias, tangs and several coral frags.
Whew! I was starting to get worried!!! 😮 All better now. Withdrawal symptoms have abated 😂
In my neck of the woods in Florida the LFS are usually busy. I don’t see them going anywhere.
Thank you!
Petco in Laplata, So. Md rocks Kevin is the go-to for fish
You’re spot on with all your points…both good and bad. It is very much a buyer-beware situation. However, a tremendous positive to bringing in new folks to the hobby or to expanding fish rooms are the dollar-per-gallon/50% off tanks sales. They deserve some credit for this.
20:00 I think the quarantine is really the biggest reason why LFS's seem to have healthier fish. I'd bet you have the same amount of die-off, but you dont see it at LFS's because they're not put directly in the buying area.
as an employee at one of these stores i will say it very much depends on the manager of the pet section, the corporations themselves have pretty decent policies on care of fish and maintenance of tanks but it depends on if the manager is enforcing policy, the one place i think these stores fail at is the "recommended" tank size for fish they can be misleading or flat out wrong and are usually the tank recommendation for one individual fish which a lot of the fish that we sell shouldnt be kept alone... also for the last few months at least my district has been getting sterbai corys in labelled as julii corys and have been selling them at the julii price so with my employee discount i been taking full advantage of that
27:00 You should see if you could do a video at that Petco near you. It sounds interesting!
Pre 2005 I could go to a dozen odd ball fish stores out in the middle of nowhere without any effort. There was always that family that had the odd discus shop in an old carpet store or a place that specialized in freshwater stingrays, or parrot fish or you name it. Literally shops everywhere. That came to a hard stop around the early 2000s in my area. The decline of the local pet store started before that though. Now, unless I want to order online and have it shipped or make a long drive to pick it up, big box stores are my option.
Great talk.
I've visited almost every single mom and pop fish store in the Atlanta area and the Petco near me (Duluth) has the best price, best selection, and best customer service. Not only do their tanks look good they even stock more fun fish like Discus, Rainbow fish, peacock gudgeons, and rams. I have also talked to all three of their Aquarium employees and they have all several tanks, know their stuff and respectfully respond to my stocking questions when the fish or plant doesn't fit my current set ups.
I’m lucky and have a great LFS where I live - Advanced Aquarium Systems in Green Bay WI. And another in Appleton - Wild Habitats.
I also got a surrendered clown loach that is 8 inches at a mom and pop store, going there so often and knowing the staff, they sold it to me for 40$. I was so pumped!
When I started the hobby 5 years ago, I only really went to feeders supply or PetSmart.
But now that I’m this into the hobby the ma and pa stores are the only stores I go to.
In a store that's part of a large chain (at least in the Chicagoland area) near Jason that shall remain un-named that has a pair of tanks that connects the fish area to the rest of the pet store. It sounds very similar to what you're talking about, John. Huge tanks, several feet over my head. Probably 8ft long each. I don't think they're as deep front to back as 6ft, though.
So true petco is 15minz away. Fish aquarium store it's over a hour away fishhut in NJ I'm in upstate ny
In my area, Petco is the only one close enough with anything aquarium or fish, some plants, fish foods, and anything else to do with the hobby, lol. I have no mom and pop stores that are near me, it would be a long trip (3 to 6 hours) to get to anything like that. I am happy to say, my Petco at least has people who keep fish and have hobby knowledge. I have ordered online for items and shrimp, food, but what I have near me, is Petco. That's it. The mom and pops near me have closed. I remember in the 80's and 90's, there was an amazing place on Cape Cod where I'm from, Cape Maid Farms, it was a mom and pop store, probably had been around since the 60s or 70s, had feed for livestock and pets and supplies, etc, but they had an incredibly amazing fresh and saltwater selection of fish and tanks, etc, with a guy who knew his stuff backwards and forewards and would also set up and maintain tanks for people as a side job. I used to just go there to look at all the fish 😂 then I got my first tanks and fish when I was an adult from them. They always had such healthy stock, and a very big selection of fresh and salt water species. I very much miss mom and pop stores, sigh. Even now, some I've checked out aren't really that attractive to me to make it a regular stop for my hobby needs, selection and health of fish is the top one, cost and a lack of hardscaping and plants another. And they're also not strictly fish hobby stores, most have a little bit of everything, so they are not dedicated fish stores. I'd have to pretty much get close to Boston to get into a store that is strictly aquarium, fresh and saltwater fish and everything you need in the hobby.
I know PetSmart was around in 1995 because there was one in the same lot where I worked.
Both the Petco in my area are getting a major overhaul. I think they are upping their game overall.
Londontown Tropicals ❤❤❤❤ and Petco upper Marlboro
Just in time for my commute! Thank you!!!
Really great podcast I enjoy it if I was to choose a big box store it would be Petco but I have bought fish from there quarantine them they were perfectly fine but I usually go to my local fish store because they deal with local breeders such as myself and you just simply get a better variety of fish
I have 3 petsmart and 1 petco in my area. Have bought tanks and supplies from both. Fish only from petsmart and LFS. Have had equal good and bad fish experiences with both
I live in a area in California were there are 6 main areas: Carmel, Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove, Monterey, Seaside, and Marina. In all of that area there are no fish stores except Pet Smart and Petco. For us fish enthusiast we have to travel over 100 mile.
Our problem here in the West Central coast of Florida is not the Big Box stores, we have plenty of them. It is the quality of the few remaining Mom & Pop fish stores around. Overall the tanks are far better maintained in the Big Box stores and it is now to the point where I won't buy fish from any of the local Mom & Pops except one. Without exception the Mom & Pop's have dirty tanks with multiple dead fish in them. The only really good Mom & Pop we had in the area closed up last year. The folks that owned it retired. So now its buy online for the most part.
I actually place my saltwater fish and corals orders from Wyane the manager for Petco Union Square
Recently my hub helped me start a 10 gallon nano tank. He knew I wanted some chili rasbora and saw some marked as such at Petsmart. So he picked up a half dozen and they proceeded to hunt down my little shrimps! Turns out they were really bleeding fin tetras. Fortunately, they took the fish back.
Definitely peek out of the water for whether or not to support Petcos or Petsmarts, since despite the interest increased in aquariums these business still have practices that basically resign intelligent, social animals to hellscape owners just on a daily basis--sometimes very regularly when it comes to small mammals. Just because the fish business benefits you and some more fish in the long run doesn't mean these places aren't negligent and willfully so in their practices.
I have visited my local PetSmart a few times. The tanks and fish were looking great. I bought 9 guppies. only lost 1 guppy. A year later and I still have the original fish and a few more generations.
The woman who helped me was telling me about how her home aquariums were doing. So I know she knew what she was talking about.
Guess I'm lucky from seeing other comments. My Petco and PetSmart are pretty awesome. A lot of this falls on who is hired and assigned to work the fish area of the stores. I developed a great relationship with a Petco fish employee over last couple years. Often he would call me on delivery day so I could be there before he put fish into the tanks. I literally bought several of my fish in the bag from distributor, which reduced one more catch/release cycle for them. Just depends on the store.
I work at Pet-smart, I agree with a lot of what they said, Pet-smart really was my only option growing up. In my area there are three of them and you can tell that the quality of the store really just depends on the local income level. (lol) I got a job at the nicest one in a busy part of town and it's definitely a higher quality than what a lot of stores further out of town are. Also most of those big box pet stores are understaffed, I work at the nice one and even then there will be 3 people including me running the whole store. That's the usual reason big stores often don't quarantine, because my store does, but when we're too busy doing the deep clean or assisting people we kinda just don't have the time. Most often the fish had already spread it's sickness by the time we pull it, so there's no point. By the time we cut them out of the bag 1 or 2 would already have fin-rot, and the rest had been sitting in that water during shipping. 🤷
Reading through the comments, I guess I'm lucky my Pecto has so much, lol. They have fresh and saltwater fish and shrimp, some corals and anemones, turtle's, freshwater shrimp, crayfish, the usual feeder fish and koi, shebunkens (sp?, lol) goldfish and pond stuff, some plants, good deals on tanks and equipment they run every month, they have frozen foods and lots of the chemicals you need, pretty much everything to set up a good tank. Plant section isn't very good, but since i started up my aquascaped tanks, they've been listening to my requests and have ordered more of a selection in. I'm definitely going to be buying my 50 or 75 gallon tank kit from them because price cannot be beat and the kit cost is cheaper than separate items. Of course I'll cut my cost ordering what suits my set up that costs less, but tank wise? Smh, Petco has decent tank prices for sure. So, I guess my Petco is darn decent!
When I save on stuff from Amazon I can buy Moore fish and plants from my small local fish store.
A topic that would be cool to cover is temperature . I see many people recommend species that have different temperature requirements, so what should folks do? Are these for breeding only? Or is there more to it?
I have a LFS for freshwater fish and another that specializes in saltwater. However, after I tore a meniscus in my right knee, it's difficult to visit the fw LFS because it has a high, steep set of stairs. The saltwater one is open only two days with weird hours, so I find it difficult to go. The Petco here is better than Petsmart, but nothing spectacular. They're clean, but variety is not great. I've occasionally bought tetras at Petco, but mostly had to shop online for good corals and fish, both sw and fw in the last year. I buy food and other supplies from John and Lisa.
Definitely
Accessibility
My only local pet store (that dealth with aquariums and fishes) was a PetSmart for over a decade. Went there as a child up until college. I will always appreciate it for what it offered me, but it really was poorly ran. The staffing wasn't great and the health of their fishes weren't great. Buying fishes from them was a huge gamble on whether or not they'll still be alive the next few days. Definitely a store ran by people who don't quite care about fishes and I assume also visited by people who aren't very knowledgable on the hobby.
In recent years a Petco opened up nearby and it was so clean and well ran. I got to talk to the manager of the fish department there, he even showed me pictures of some of his tanks at home. Very knowledgable and well kept, even better kept than the only real LFS near me, almost an hour away. Hope they can maintain it, the only issue is that they don't have a large variety nor anything high quality. However, the manager did inform me that he could have a lot of fishes shipped in for me, not sure if thats is Petco policy or him helping out another hobbyist. Very cool!
True petco is one reason I'm in this fish plus I have three dogs and wild birds that I feed and a frog so it keeps this old lady busy I now have some zebra dino's love them theybare very busy little fish. I have wo many babies, so now I'm saving up for a 75 gal, "it just keeps on going' 😆
Petco is the only pet there is unless you want to drive 70 miles to Tulsa or to Oklahoma city to pets martial there no mom and pops in Oklahoma that I've seen😢😊
Oops can't type right lol😂😅
I have learned so much now I go into petco and they ask me ??? 😅❤ I feel like a real fish keeper 😊 now❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
😂😂😂 same here!!! 6 Cats, a dog, now 4 fish tanks, it has everything I need, plus I do the points thing on my furry pets and I use my points on my aquarium needs and walk out of there only paying the tax on aquarium purchases over $100. My husband was shocked, lol. It's my best choice in the area for all my pet needs, and that gets expensive. They're trying to get a Veterinarian for their new office build as well, I'm going to switch to Petco for my vet needs, prices are unbelievable at other veterinary offices in my are. 😮
Speaking of big box stores I got my first fish from Walmart. Have been in and out of the hobby ever since. If it hadn't been for that i probably never would have gotten into fish. PetSmart and 1 tiny fish store is the only thing within 1hr
Never bought any fish from a BIGBOX Store. Only my 2 LFS and of course Dan’s Fish. Tanks at the 50% off sales. All equipment supplies and assorted food from whoever has the best price and highest quality foods. The Internet has many options and I have no issues buying from Amazon. 😊
I like visiting Petco and Petsmart so I can snicker then go to my local aquarium store to have a conversation with ahem coffee (Irish) 😊
I'm realizing that John's experience with target vs Walmart is very different than my own
The locations around me aren’t too great, nothing ABYSMAL, but nothing spectacular.
I always feel an aura of “Yeah ok but I’m still gonna go do ten hours of research” whenever advised by an employee because I was steered wrong so many times when I was younger.
They’re plenty nice but, you can’t expect them to be fish experts when they’re just trying to get the near-minimum-wage bag…honestly lol
If I had to choose one it would be PetSmart. All around better experience on average
The petcos and petsmarts in my area have healthy looking fish but they’re noticeably tiny compared to the fish that the mom n pop stores sell and are way too small for my liking. The selection is very small at those places too. I go into petco and petsmart for fish supplies here and there, but I get live fish and my fish food from local fish stores. Southern California has lots of local mom n pop fish stores and I feel blessed to have so many options. Local fish stores here seem to do a way better job at keeping the shelves stocked while petco seems to run out of things really quick or only keep one or two of an item on the shelf. As for pricing, I don’t notice much of a difference except with the tanks. A 125 gallon from PetSmart is quite a bit cheaper than the 125s my local fish stores sell.
I have been too a few petcos here in Arizona, tend to be pretty good except the one in Kingman, that one is trash. Haven’t had much luck with AZ petsmarts though
have to say pets at home the big box in the uk are pretty good they have a tablet for their Employees which has questions on their and will trow up red flags on compatibility of fish along with tank size and cycle etc .Bit mean of me but i tested the theory out and asked for a Betta to add to my tiger barb tank after a bit of tapping she came back i can not sell you long fin fish for your current setup .she did also offer solutions if i still wanted a Betta think they call it up selling which would involve buying a 5-6 gallon tank and keeping it solo . So Kudos to the company for giving their staff the tools to make sure any live stock transactions are safe .That said they only sell sort of starter fish .So it is back to the LFS for something a bit more exotic
Tyler here 🙋🏻♂️ lol
Lucky that I live in Florida there is 5 mom and pop fish places within 30 minutes
In my opinion, I think it's good for beginners to get them in the hobby including myself. Then once they learn more(from watching videos 😉) they will start to support the LFS if they are serious about keeping fish.
Love/hate relationship with those two stores. Bad thing, I do believe their presence caused the death of a lot of great little mom and pop fish stores here in Portland. But, for equipment they are usually good places to go. And just this weekend, Petco was a lifesaver for me when the heater went out in my 60 gallon and needed a new heater ASAP. It was in the evening, too late to get same day delivery. But by late Saturday morning, Doordash brought my new heater to my door without the need for me to do any running. I would have ordered from Pet Mountain, but unfortunately I found out they do not have overnight shipping. As far as fish though, those two stores are not the greatest places to go at least not around here.
Great podcast 😊 Detroit
I have only been a customer for the supplies and TC plants and I have 20 Petco & PetSmart stores within a half hour drive , but I do drive fast here in the Twin cities and I will actually count the right # just to know so it might be 19 or 28 . Petco is moving in the direction of Aquascaping much faster than PS but both are 20 + years behind Asia and Europe and the stores in Germany and Holland , AMAZING selection with inventory that would completely make the CEO's realize just how pathetic the stores in America are compared to what they were 10 years ago , 5 years ago and whenever they were DEFINITELY GOING AFTER THE LOCAL LFS , guarantee that they knew what they would do when they sized up the easy ones , and that's usually the Dinosaur stores and the smoke qnd mirrors stores that wouldn't have been doing it for much longer.
I have a petco. petsmart, and a LFS within 20m of me. The best treated fish come from the Petco. I would love to support the LFS but every time I go there I see dead and dying fish in dirty tanks. The manager at the local Petco actually cares about fish and does a great job.
20 metre or 20 miles?
Big box stores are good for buying equipment and general supplies. I've never seen a aquarium store that is even competitive most equipment, especially tanks and stand. Everytime I go into my local aquarium store I'm blown away with how expensive their tanks and stands are. Everything else in my opinion you should buy from a aquarium store. Almost everytime I go into a petco or smart I see diseased fish and dead fish. If you buy a fish from petco you might aswell just pick up ick treatment aswell. Probably 3/4 of the times I've bought fish from petco/smart I ended up having to treat with ick medication. Imo, regardless of whether local or big box, if they have a filter for multiple tanks, then you should not buy from them.
Nice
From where I live petsmart and petco aren't great for the aquarium hobby. They both don't maintain products for fish and keeping fish and plants alive, everything is dying or dead. There is no more convenience of going to get something off the shelf because they are always low stocked or out of stock. It's a headache going to these stores thinking they'll have what I need but then end up finding nothing. Also these stores have inflated prices so much that people aren't getting into the hobby of keeping animals anymore, along with high rent prices. I ended up buying my supplies online at a lower price but at the cost of inconvenience in time and possibly getting lost in delivery.
I drive an hour to a a fish store. I probably pass 6 Pet* stores to get there. They just don't have the selection and expertise at the big box stores. Especially when it comes to plants.
I have to admit that my experience has been hit or miss. Some stores are great others not so much. These stores fill a need. I use them when they have a sale.
Im a fan of petco have 3 about an hour away. Petsmarts are everywhere (9 off top of my head abkut 40 minutes away)few of them are difficult to get fish just no caring people for aquatics. Don't particularly care for how petsmart locates thier stores they put locations about a block away from other pet and fish stores when they open to outcompete them.
I don't have time for an hour video about this but, I've found in each area they're a good place to get basics. In some areas co has a better plant selection than mart but in others that's reversed. Local stores are always your best bet but my locals don't have gobies and my Petco does soooo it's very hot and miss based on the breeders and hobby interests in your town/county/state/country. For instance, I couldn't find a bristle nosed pleco ANYWHERE in the riverside ca area but in Bakersfield CA they're at PetSmart but not Petco but I can't find oto's anywhere in Bakersfield but they're darn near a plague in Riverside. Shrimp, that's now an Amazon purchase because anyone else is unreliable or stupid expensive.
I wanted to get a job at a pet store, strictly to learn everything I could, but decided to do other work.
King George thats my back yard
Personally I would not buy any fish from the bigger chain stores or even a general pet shop for that matter. The whole inferior fish thing may have some merit when it comes to the big box stores but for me this is not the reason and I think this is quite often unjustified. For me I actually just enjoy going to a dedicated Local Fish Shop, there is always much more variety and I do not know about anyone else but once you have bought fish from a reliable source you tend to keep going back. A trip to the LFS is a good day out, mine probably wishes more of my trips actually involved purchasing something.
Admittedly I bought my first aquarium from Pets at Home and in fairness the person I dealt with that day did seem to know his stuff but I still do not think I would ever buy any fish there. There is just something more reassuring about going to the LFS. I think the average purchaser of fish from a big box store is someone buying some fish on a whI'm or for one of their children who has been pestering them for the past few months for a fish tank. Generally people who probably have never kept any fish or done much research into it. I think it is this lack of experience which often leads to the fish dying prematurely and not always a reflection of the quality of the fish on offer. Of course there are many well documented cases of fish neglect in such places with racks full of dead fish, notably Wallmart but I think it is a tad unfair to label all big box stores in that way.
Do all so called experienced aquarists feel this way or are there any out there who would happily buy their fish from a big box store if the fish looked healthy enough? What do you all reckon?
In my area the petcos are great, clean store well stocked with healthy fish and knowledgeable staff, but the petsmarts is garbage, basically the exact opposite, except for the 2 next to the mall where its switched, I think it depends more on the individual aquatics/store manager than the chain themselves wether your local big box is good or not
I have several petco and pet smart near me, yet I drive 40 minutes to a local store.
I think both of them are ok fish stores. But the help there is hit and miss. The other problem is they will not Buy fish from hobbies. I will not spend my money in a shop that refuses to buy from hobbies. Just I rule I have.
Without Petsmart and Petland I probably wouldn't even be in the hobby as they are the only pet stores with fish in my city. Most of the pet stores are about cats and dogs.
Man. lol. I’d KILL to have even a Petco/PetSmart within an HOUR of where I live. I have to drive an hour just for target. Two to go to Petco/petsmart. My “local” fish store just closed today for good. I had to drive 2 hours to go there too. The saddest and most ironic thing though, the big stores had healthier fish (ESPECIALLY the bettas!😢). The ONE bonus to shopping at the local store was they carried the fish meds I prefer to keep on hand and I could special order fish through them. Sometimes. It was hit or miss whether I’d actually get a call saying my fish were actually in.
My Petco/PetSmart have a quarantine row for any fish that doesn’t look healthy. My LFS tried to sell me golden rams that were so covered with ich you could barely see the color of the fish. Zero quarantine.
My daughter got a betta from petsmart, betta dies, I don't like seeing her sad so I start researching about fish, 27 tanks later I think that I can give PetSmart some credit. Most of those tanks from Petco but none of the fish. And yes my daughter got another betta and it's still alive. 😂
Honestly we dont have cheap aquariums here, you are lucky if you get a seapora 5.5 gallon under 40$. As for small pet stores, I don't see any difference because I use their stock when I started and if I was the type of person that gets attached to their fish or dislikes failure or misguidance I would have given up at the start. I was gathering shrimp from different places, did everything right on my side, but of course I had no room for quarantine. Then I go buy 20 shrimp from a small store that had so many reviews because of how much imported stock they sell, and they came with scuteleria and that green fungus which demolished my population fast. Since a lot of online info is so controversial, my only logical path was to trim all the sick ones out of the tank to save the healthy looking shrimp. Was it the best solution? For me yes, because just about anyone is allowed to put out info online for critical situations for which they have insufficient knowledge AND experience. As for big stores, we have one that sells a bunch of things which is focused around tropical stuff with those UVB lights and they had a light stock in aquarium, but at the time they had nothing interesting for me to spend an hour to go there after calling. I am often jealous of how insane the difference is between where I live and the USA, with stock availability in freshwater stock and saltwater stock. We barely have 1 % of the things I have seen there lol, if even that much. And I have lived in CA, SC, NY.
For reptile 🦎 stuff yes. Or fake fish decorations or tanks. I go less than two times a year if that. Never fish or no cat and dog stuff.
Consumers need to do their OWN research. Why would we rely on store employees? With RUclips, there is ZERO excuse - just find consistent advice and run with it.
Everything is too expensive in Petco and Petsmart, so I buy all my fish stuff on Amazon.
The PetSmart nearest to me, in Madison Wisconsin, has a fish section that often has swirling masses of dead and dying fish. I've expressed my concerns to the manager and feel sorry for the position he's in.
More than once I've considered reporting them to our tough local animal control/cruelty folks. What to do, what to do? I avoid the fish tanks as I guiltily walk to the cat food section.
But these folks are providing ammunition to the PETA types who would happily put a stop to fishkeeping all together. Maybe we need to police ourselves better. I'd settle for fewer fish keepers if the result was a decrease in the misery and horrible deaths of the fish we love. So on a fundamental level I have to disagree with you guys.
Almost every petco in the Chicago land area I live around is horrible in a lot of ways.
Ya notice how humble Jason is, with all is schooling and experience, and yet does the least amount of talking. And then John, well takes forever to make a point, name drops and talks the most. You can learn things from an 18yr old, "Oh wait, we are good here..." how ARROGANT!!! Just my opinion.
Nope. Sure didn't.
big box is it for me unless i wanna drive an hour 🤷♂️
First Comment!! Thanks for the awesome podcasts!
Ha!!! The population of MY home town is 1060 as of 2023. That's a small town 😂
Sounds about like where I live. I have to drive 30 minutes in any direction to get to a fish store. Population around 1000 in city limits more in the county.
In my experience it ALL depends on the management and quality of employees at each store.
Petsmart opened its first two stores in 1987 according to the Google Machine.