Pets At Home - Grrr

[OohFeeshy]

Yeah, I only shop there for food, dechlor etc. as its the nearest place... I can't buy fish on my own there either, I'm not 16 yet The only fish I'd buy are bettas, and only if they were nice/looked like they needed a good home. I've only ever bought one fish from there, on a whim, a BN plec that, TBH, they were selling far too small (like 1cm), which predictably didn't last the night. What I find stupid, though, is how they didn't ask for a water sample before they gave me a refund, just asked me to bring in the fish....

 

[sylvia]

I go to Pets At Home occaionaly for hardware and food. Last time I was there, as all the tanks share a single filtration system (well the tropicals and coldwater are seperated but they are otherwise connected), all the tropical fish (except the cories) had ich. It was terrible. Actualy, I also got into a light argument with one employee... I heard her talking about 'fish growing to the size of the tank' so I asked her afterwards how many of this fish (pointing at some young three-spot gouramies) she'd put in a 20 gallon. She asked me what I had already and I made something up. She says '3'. 'Ok' I say - 'what about these?' (pointing at three-spots in a larger tank that were older). 'None' she says. 'Why? They are the same species aren't they?'... 'Yes' she says 'but the small ones here won't grow as big as those because fish only grow to the size of the tank'. I tried to explain this wasn't true and why this myth exists to begin with but I think she took offense and ignored what I told her. She started saying something about her having 'qualifications' and whether I do Anyway, that's just the most recent incident - I'm always hearing them giving very stupid advice and, occasionaly, i bother to correct them. it's hopeless though realy. I've also seen some horrible cases of disease in their tanks as well as some mis-labelled fish. Anyway, you can't expect much more from pet chain stores. At least they are relatively cheap when it comes to equipment.

 

[Fishkeeper2004]

I go to Pets At Home occaionaly for hardware and food. Last time I was there, as all the tanks share a single filtration system (well the tropicals and coldwater are seperated but they are otherwise connected), all the tropical fish (except the cories) had ich. It was terrible. Actualy, I also got into a light argument with one employee... I heard her talking about 'fish growing to the size of the tank' so I asked her afterwards how many of this fish (pointing at some young three-spot gouramies) she'd put in a 20 gallon. She asked me what I had already and I made something up. She says '3'. 'Ok' I say - 'what about these?' (pointing at three-spots in a larger tank that were older). 'None' she says. 'Why? They are the same species aren't they?'... 'Yes' she says 'but the small ones here won't grow as big as those because fish only grow to the size of the tank'. I tried to explain this wasn't true and why this myth exists to begin with but I think she took offense and ignored what I told her. She started saying something about her having 'qualifications' and whether I do Anyway, that's just the most recent incident - I'm always hearing them giving very stupid advice and, occasionaly, i bother to correct them. it's hopeless though realy. I've also seen some horrible cases of disease in their tanks as well as some mis-labelled fish. Anyway, you can't expect much more from pet chain stores. At least they are relatively cheap when it comes to equipment.

Exactly. I will still go there for plants, and maybe some equipment and breeding tanks, but I definately won't be buying any livestock. I have convinced my mum to drive me the 28 miles to wharf aquatics today, so ill keep you updated with what I buy when I get back.

Does anyone know how good there prices are compared to other stores?

 

[prankster705]

Lucky for me there's no pets@home for about a 1000miles here...
But we do have a big chain pet store that sucks: They got 10 silver arowanas (20 cm long) and they put em in with young oscars (5 cm long) and they said to a lady that 3 will happily live in a 50gal. I tried to save the fish by telling the lady and the seller about how much space 3 adult arowanas need, but they yust ignored me and the seller told the lady, how anoying teenage pranksters doing bed stuff to their good shop...

 

[gr00ver]

I don't like pets at home.
Their tanks in my local shop always have diseased fish, uneaten food, half eaten fish and a bad selection.
I have stopped buying fish from there but when I did they asked lots of questions such as how big is your tank, how long has it been set up for and how many fish do you have.
When asking them if fish were male of female they don't usually know. They also were not good at telling which fish are compatible with others.

All it would take is for them to have quarantine tanks out of sight, gravel cleaning and removal of dead fish and then I might be fooled into buying fish from them. Mind you, if they had quarantine tanks out of sight then they would only have the odd goldfish for sale out front.
If you are tempted to buy a fish then I would strongly recommend a quarantine tank at home.
I found this out the hard way.
I haven't had disease in my tanks since I stopped buying from them.
They did however replace my fish when I had the cheek to take my £1.99 guppie back to the shop after it died for no apparent reason. It was kinda embarrasing but I did it out of principle