Corporate Pet Stores

They hire people who don't know anything partially because they can pay them less than someone who is already an expert. I had a friend get fired from Petco because he kept bothering the manager about wanting to give medications to the sick fish. The manager would not treat fish that were sick because it was cheaper to just let them die. Those stores pay such a low price for the fish they get that it is not worth it to them to put a lot of money into keeping them healthy--it is cheaper to throw out the bad ones and buy more. It is sad, but to that kind of store, it really isn't about the pets; it's about the money.

But the problem is not only with corporate stores. I interviewed once at a small, locally owned fish and parrot store. I tried to impress the owner with how much I knew about the fish and the birds, and she thanked me very much and said she was looking for someone who didn't know anything because then she could train them without them questioning her methods. Which I found very questionable--she had a baby parrot in there once when I went in, and it had only one wing clipped so that it could only fly in circles, and it took a nose dive off the tall front counter and ended up breaking a wing and also needing stitches! All because it was off balance from the bad clip job and no one was watching it while it was loose. I was also told at that store that it is nearly impossible to keep angelfish alive, and that live plants are a waste of money because they always die. And when I bought some very expensive pieces of live rock from them for my salt tank, they pulled them out of the tank, wrapped them in newspaper, and sent me home with them dry! They assured me it was fine. When I got home, the nice mushroom corals on the rocks--the reason I bought them!--were of course dead. I started shopping elsewhere.

I think my favorite Petsmart experiance was a few years back. I stopped an employee about to sell a couple pangasius cats to a woman who was asking if they were a good addition to a 15 gallon tank. When I told the lady that they were a fish that easily hit a yard in length, the employee quickly pointed out the name tag tank on the tank which stated that they only got eight inches. I told here that was wrong they got much much bigger than that and that all the pangasius we had in the hobby were just overstock from food fish aquaculture farms. And then she it me with the funniest part, she stated very proudly that Petsmart had a special breeder that was producing ones that inly hit eight inches long, just as the sign said. That's when I mentioned I was the manager for a local tropical fish importer and asked her for the name of the breeder who produced the magical mini pangasius, because after dealing with nearly every tranship outfit and farm in the biz I'ld never heard of them. She got all redfaced and the customer walked away laughing after a gave her the name of a couple lfs that would sell her much more appropriate fish.

My favorite is Walmart. They'll sell you pangasius as a pet and if you walk across the store they'll sell it to you as dinner. If you've ever seen swai catfish for sale at your local grocery store, that's pangasius cat.

I've worked at Superpetz one summer. Believe me, fishes are not the only thing they rather let die and replace instead of medicating them!!!
The managers hired me as they actually liked that I knew so much about fishes and plants. It was basically a corporate decision that animals were left to die, didn't get the nutrition they needed etc. The employees knew better, but weren't allowed to do anything about it as it was "a waste of money".

Just last week I've been to Petsmart and the one store clerk didn't want to sell me the 4 Otos for my 16 gallon tank I asked for, as he was sure my algae problem couldn't be that bad. After I gave him a little "I don't have an algae problem, I know I need to supplement them with various foods w/ spirulina, cucumbers etc.", he was OK with it. So I thought he was fairly knowledgeable, but he couldn't catch a fish!! He squeezed them between net and glass, dropped one on the floor after he tried to detangle it from the net ("I don't want that one"), and probably squeezed several others to death or trapped under a huge rock they had sitting in the middle of the tank after he repeatedly lifted and dropped it trying to catch some Otos for me.

My Otos are doing great, but wow, many that are still left in that tank might not...

And at a huge local lfs here they have good quality fish, but they treat you depending on how much $$$ you buy, they don't guarantee their German Blue Rams or Otos and probably several other "delicate" fish and the equipment they sell is priced about 2-3x as high as any online offer!!

Well here´s a sad story. I´ve had aquariums since I was 10 (almost 30 years ago). Back then there were only LFS stores, small mom and pop places, with varying degrees of quality, but you could find great fish in healthy condition.

Almost 10 years ago a franchise of large pet stores called Maskota arrived to disrupt the whole market and take it over. They sell puppy mill pups at exhorbitant prices (the least is priced at around 800 dlls), they sell crappy sick fish (mostly genetically deffective swordtails, mollies, guppies, goldfish and angels). You can always be certain to find sick or dead fish in their tanks, and of course all the equipment and goodies for your pets at high prices.

After these guys took over the market almost all LFS went out of business because all newbies went to buy their fish there, probably just killing any enthusiasm a new hobbyist could have after their hideous fish die in a day or two, because the store clerks of course know nothing about how to correctly setup and aquarium and didn´t care to take the time to explain a newbie how to do it.

I got out of the hobby for over 5 years, tired of not being able to find quality fish, which I still am suffering. Quarantine tanks are indispensable this days and all fish I buy have to not only go through it but also be treated for hidden deseases. Whereas years ago i rarely ever lost a fish soon after buying it, now I always have to buy 2 or 3 more than what I want because I always end up loosing a couple no matter how much care you give them. I hate mega stores...