do we really NEED another reason...

[jacblades]

petsmart and petco are right next to each other so when i go to petsmart for something, i alwyas go into petco just to look. well of course half of their bettas were dying and were in filthy water. so i got the manager and asked if they gave a discount for sick fish. he said, "we dont sell sick fish." i wanted to burst out laughin and yell, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?" but i held back. just about every fish at pecto is sick and they seem to have no problem selling them. i took him over to the bettas and pointed out many that were floating or turned upside down. guess what he did! HE SHOOK ALL OF THE CUPS! i guess he was trying to "wake them uo" or something. i gave him a dirty look which he didnt see. i aksed how often they changed the water and he said "ONCE A WEEK!" once a week in a 6 ounce cup-they should be changed twice a day!i asked if they gave them medicine. he said yes. i asked what kind? and he said that it depended on what they were sick with. i told him that bettaMAX is a good all-around medicine and i suggested it since they have it. he took abot 5 of the cups with the nastiest looking water over to the sink and pulled some bettaFIX off of the shelf. apparently petco is too cheap to use medicines that actually work! he went in the back and i continued to pull cups with sick fish and dirty water and place them at the sink. i dont htink he appreciated it. i stood around for a while but he never got around to changing the water while i was there. i had picked up a few things and acted like i was going to buy them and then angrily slammed them down and left.

please please please DO NOT BUY BETTAS FROM PETCO! DONT BUY ANYTHING FROM PETCO!
IF YOU BUY BETTAS FROM PETCO, YOU ARE SUPPORTING THE AWFUL CONDITIONS THE BETTAS ARE KEPT IN!
GO TO THE WEBSITE ON MY SIG AND FIND OUT OTHER REASONS WHY PETCO SHOULD NOT BE SUPPORTED!

 

[slamster17]

the petco i go to in warminster every once inawhile is perfectly fine bettas r ok only 2 tanks w/ mixed we don't sell sick fish and like 2 or 3 dead. i walk into petsmart and the bettas r in blue water the feeder fish are extremely over crowded and there r piles of dead fish and the tank glass is dirty with algea and god nows wut. petsmart looks nicer but has bad stuff inside petco looks grungy but has good stuff inside.

 

[endparenthesis]

Where I am the Petco is the nice one and the Petsmart kills the bettas.

Every store is different. It's not like Petco has some secret company policy that says "Treat bettas worse than other pet stores".

 

[wrs]

i love my petco. Its the best place to buy fish around me. Its so nice and clean and Ive never seen a dead fish in their tanks yet. And they have really good prices as well.

 

[MAM]

once again, people need to keep in mind when posting things such as this, that petsmart and petco, while a chain, are independently managed. each store buys its own stock of fish and plants, and take care of their stock differently. i can go to one store and their tanks are appalling and their staff are daft, but i can go two miles to another and the tanks are always pristine, the fish healthy, and the staff knowledgeable. not all stores are the same.......................

 

[jacblades]

the "blue water" is methylene blue. the BETTER petstores actually put bettas in that. every petsmart i know of uses meth. blue.
wrs-if you think petco has great prices-youd be shocked if you looked online. petco has the highest prices out of all the pet stores in my city. i have only bought someththing there once-becasue i was forced to. they were theonly lfs that had bettaMAX. now i get it online without supporting them or paying their riddiculous prices.
just go to the website and check out the history petco has in animal abuse. i dont think theres anything there about bettas but certainly enough to make anyone who is even slightly compassionate-NOT WANT TO SHOP THERE.

of course each store is individually managed-but that doesnt change the fact that petco has certain company policies that are appauling. like killing the offspring of animals that reproduce while in the store or freezing sick mammals.
they have had many lawsuits against them and have been forced to change some of their policies but they have refused to stop selling animals-as they should.
of course there are other pet stores out there that treat animals badly but none ive seen or heard that are as awful as petco.

petcocruelty.com.

 

[rollntider]

Jac where is petco at? I havent been to it, I have only seen the petsmart. I think superpetz is not that great either.....

 

[rollntider]

also where can you find the bettamax online? I havent found it online seems like everyone is out of stock....

 

[Auratus]

My petsmart is GREAT. But the petco sucks.

Every non-betta fish I buy from there dies or out of 5 tetras, 1 lives. Even in my wal-mart buying experiences more fish have lived.

I went to petco 2 days ago and there were 2 dead bettas, and there weren't many bettas. I think next day was their shipment.

But when your in California where crowntails are vertually non-existant and you see that ct sitting there on the shelf, that one ct, you just got to buy him, you have to!

I'm one of those stupid people who think of it more as "rescueing" then supporting abuse.

 

[wrs]

yeah, petco usually does have high prices, mine used to be really expensive, but the area were it is kinda went down hill, and the store area got all money dontated to them so they could make them all look nice. So everythings really cheap. They sell betta max for $5 while at all others its $10-11. And the staff at mine really cares about the animals. Most lfs, except for the one in the mall, and one walmart are really good. I did get a fish from petco that died on the way home, but I think that was because of the time it took to get home from the store and the bad an buppy roads knocking the bags over alot. So I think it depends on which store you go to. the other one like 45mins aways from me is really good as well.

 

[jacblades]

roll-petco is in brook highland-just past petsmart.
yeah-superpetz is awful but their employees know a lot more than the petco employees...
the superpetz managers arent complete poopooheads like the ones at petco...

auratus-i know its hard to just leave the bettas there but you are saving future bettas from the same fate. sometimes i do fall into the trap of "rescueing" them but usually i just buy them online. (i did buy a betta from walmart yesterday. i rationalized it to myself by saying walmart had bigger cups and the water wasnt completely yellow. )

anyways, the less bettas, people buy from there, the less they order next time. the less have to sit on petco shelves and suffer.
keep in mind-most people that buy bettas arent "rescueing" them like us. most people buy them on impulse because they are cheap and they end up killing them. everytime i am in a pet store and i see someone buying a betta, i ask them all sorts of questions to see if they know what they are doing. i would say 75% of the people dont know what they are doing and often times when i tell them all of the equipment they need, they decide not to buy the betta. some do it anyways and skip all of the equipment. their betta probably die the next day.

ok i used to get bettamax from here but it says they are soldout. i doubt they will be getting anymore since aquatronics is oob
i looked it up on google and you can get it here and here and here and many other places. just google it

 

[jacblades]

a car ride is not going to kill a fish. that fish was sick beforehand...

 

[wrs]

well it was upsidown when I got home. All the others from the tank are fine though. I think was either stress or swimbladder, but I dont know if that would make it turn over.

 

[jacblades]

you never know with petco...they find new ways to kill fish all of the time...

 

[wrs]

i dont see though why would they kill off fish that they are selling? Thats really stupid ya know.