Furious With Pets @ Home

[matchstickman47]

I am bliming furious!! I went to pets at home today to cheer up my molly and buy her a few more friends... Anyway, when i was there every tank had a dead fish in it.. There gourami fish were rubbing against the bog wood.. in the same tank there was a head of a gourami, which the other fish fed from!

In another tank, a fish had decomposed against the bogwood!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so furious i demanded to speaak to the manager!! the dopey fish expert couldnt even sex out the mollies!! said he had to refer to the book. Apparently they check out the tanks every hr! When i asked to see there reports of who checked the tanks on the hr they dont have one.. no suprise.. Poor bloody fish are in a right mess.. One was rolling on it back and fighting it.. i mistaked it for dead The dopey idot said its not dead yet and laughed... My little girl was shouting out ewwww!! and the idiot told her to Shhh! I swear, he lucky im a lady or i be done for assault! lol

I taken some pictures but they not come out well... What should i do???

deal with it .. many shops are crap
the shop probably wont get much money if its bad
why should they have to check their tanks every hour......... do there fish like die that often what a s*** hole

 

[Lorraine1983]

The only time I ever bought from Pets @ Home was 2 Neon Dwarf Gouramis, 5 Black Phantom Tetras and 5 Silvertip Tetras.
At the time of purchase the Gourami tank was perfectly healthy looking to be fair to them.
However after a couple of days the Gouramis developed white spot and even with treatment died eventually.
I went back in afterwards and the Gourami tank was absolutely riddled with the stuff. Shame it doesn't have symptons straight away.
The Black Phantoms and Silvertips I have only lost two of though (Now with my Brother) so they did quite well.
My store in Exeter generally isn't that bad on cleanliness, they had a big Not For Sale sign on the infected Gourami tank after mine died and apart from that I've only ever seen one or two unhealthy fish and with the record fish have that is to be expected.
The main problem with Pets @ Home though is that either the fish attendent doesn't even know what a Barb is or they think that they are the Messiah of fish keeping and preach about how you can't keep certain fish together when they house Male Bettas with Neon Tetras.

But yeah generally Pets @ Home are c**p. I always buy from Bow Aquatics that runs out of Bernaville Nurseries in a place called Cowley, it's a longer drive but the standard of service, price and variety of fish is worth the extra petrol. My rule of thumb though is to only buy form specialist fish stockists.

Oh i completly agree... I only ever went to pets @ home for conveinence. Before i buy any fish, i always check it online and make sure i buy the right fish for my tank. So there advice isn't needed really but still many people ask for advice and don't know which fish to buy. I was so cheesed off when i heard them telling someone not to worry abt the size of a fish as it would take ages for it to grow full size! What she probably meant is, if bought at pets at home, chances is it wont survive a wk to give it a chance to grow lol

I am bliming furious!! I went to pets at home today to cheer up my molly and buy her a few more friends... Anyway, when i was there every tank had a dead fish in it.. There gourami fish were rubbing against the bog wood.. in the same tank there was a head of a gourami, which the other fish fed from!

In another tank, a fish had decomposed against the bogwood!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so furious i demanded to speaak to the manager!! the dopey fish expert couldnt even sex out the mollies!! said he had to refer to the book. Apparently they check out the tanks every hr! When i asked to see there reports of who checked the tanks on the hr they dont have one.. no suprise.. Poor bloody fish are in a right mess.. One was rolling on it back and fighting it.. i mistaked it for dead The dopey idot said its not dead yet and laughed... My little girl was shouting out ewwww!! and the idiot told her to Shhh! I swear, he lucky im a lady or i be done for assault! lol

I taken some pictures but they not come out well... What should i do???

deal with it .. many shops are crap
the shop probably wont get much money if its bad
why should they have to check their tanks every hour......... do there fish like die that often what a s*** hole

Well obviously i have by bringing it to there attention...

 

[matchstickman47]

its fairly obvious

 

[indigoj]

Our nearest P@H is pretty decent, they ask questions, show people the big plecs and at least try to make sure the fish are ok. They even order in oddfish - got 2 of my reedfish from them. reckon with P@H it is all down to if the senior staff are into fish or not.

 

[razer121]

glad im not the only one who noticed!! i wish i knew this before i bought my balloon molly and mollys mind, i have to say in nearly every tank i looked in there was a dead fish one tank had a good 6-9 plecs gobling on some decomposed fish, its pretty mank but what can i do, the fellow there was very rude and thought he knew everything and TBH i wanted to smack him, when i asked him about the fish he said that it happens all the time and they cant do anything about it untill the end of day or when the other fish leave the dead one alone!!! its a disgrace....

now though after reading alot about problems with fish bought from there you have got me worrying about my balloon molly. on her (im sure shes a she lol) anyway on her head she has a tiny brown mark....she seems ok but does acty very odd, like rubbing across the sand from one side to the other......on her side, and going up to the bridge in the tank and hitting the rail bits with her side...thats just normal right?? or should i be worried?

 

[shelaghfishface]

glad im not the only one who noticed!! i wish i knew this before i bought my balloon molly and mollys mind, i have to say in nearly every tank i looked in there was a dead fish one tank had a good 6-9 plecs gobling on some decomposed fish, its pretty mank but what can i do, the fellow there was very rude and thought he knew everything and TBH i wanted to smack him, when i asked him about the fish he said that it happens all the time and they cant do anything about it untill the end of day or when the other fish leave the dead one alone!!! its a disgrace....

now though after reading alot about problems with fish bought from there you have got me worrying about my balloon molly. on her (im sure shes a she lol) anyway on her head she has a tiny brown mark....she seems ok but does acty very odd, like rubbing across the sand from one side to the other......on her side, and going up to the bridge in the tank and hitting the rail bits with her side...thats just normal right?? or should i be worried?

if u can get a pic of her ( the mark) i would post in the emergency section, she may have some sort of fungal infection ,abcess -- but they will deffo help put your mind at ease and if she needs treating they`ll tell you how

 

[hunter001]

Just a quick thing to add, does anyone know if they actually quarentine/ let the fish settle after they've arrived instore? I know most other lfs do and wont put them on sale for at least a day but ive never seen this happen there, could that be another reason for so much stress and disease?

 

[Platygirl11]

RAR! Stories like that make me SERIOUSLY mad! I once went to this store where they had a fish SKELETON in this severely overcrowded fish tank, and several decomposing bodies in various other tanks. WHen I pointed out one of the bodies to them, they said "oh yeah, we better get rid of him." It was female. Some of those big chains just bug me.
In a different store, I was buying decorations. I passed the fish, and I saw one with very heavy breathing. 5 minutes later, when I checked back on it, it had died. The stores have no right to put fish through that kind of suffering!

 

[hunter001]

Have you recieved a reply to your email yet? Ive got one today a tad longer than 48hours i must say but it seems a semi positive reply, apparently the store manager was sorry to hear of my concerns blah blah blah and he would like my telephone number to get in touch. Im reluctant to as im not great on the phone but maybe i should Apparently the Store Manager, Regional Manager and Field Pet Manager have been informed and they will be looking into it further. I wont hold my breath its going to change over night but who knows. So i'd advise as many people with problems at there local stores to email the p@h customer services department rather than just telling everybody else on here how bad it is. If they dont know theres a problem they cant sort it out. I'll let everyone know how i get on on my next trip into store

BTW im not usually a complainer but i felt the need in this situation

 

[Platygirl11]

I have a new story...

I asked a LFS employee if there were any female platys in a tank and they said "Oh, I wouldn't know." Who WOULD??? WHY DO YOU GIVE ADVICE? It just bugs me sometimes. No one hires people who know about fish!

Any luck with that contact?

 

[jayde]

i went into my local pets at home the other day to get a birthing trap, the bloke i spoke to didnt know what 1 i wanted (im new so i dont have a clue either ) he had o go ask someone so we looked around at the fish. Like most people have said there was atleast 1 dead fish in every tank, and every time i go in there is always dead fish. When the bloke came back i asked some advise about my pregnant platy and he told me to phone another store as they would be able to help me. I have always said i would never buy any fish from there and i never have and never will they are a joke

 

[Ipswja]

After reading on this site im always careful where I buy my fish.

I would probably never shop at pets at home for fish because of the stories I have heard although I would look.

My lfs is brilliant all the fish seem happy and the tanks are clean and out of all the fish I have bought only one tiny tetra died so im pretty happy, I dont know if all stores do it but my lfs ask for your name and address on purchase which I like. The bloke in their seems to know what hes on about too

If anything Im glad i discovered this site before I started keeping fish its really helped and I think its made my first time fish keeping pleasant and emergency free so far

 

[oliesminis]

i had this problem at mine. when i bought some danios there that were diseased. wiped out my whole tank.

i now refuse to buy anything from there because i dont support the maltreatment of any animals.

my advice. dont buy anything from in there, tell anyone you know who goes there about it and write letters to them.

 

[WoodyAqua]

In there defense its not all Pets@home stores my local pets@home is great fish are well looked after and if you know who to talk to the guys in there give some good advice and have good experience, i suppose it all depend on the staff that are employed there and wether they have a genuine care for fish or not.

 

[gremlin]

i think that hme is the at pets home is the worst place to buy fish from as the fish are half dead when you buy them,
although i do buy my dog, ferret and fish food from there.