Pets @ Home

[Kribster]

Went in to get some dog food and as usual i had a look about the tropical fish section..

There where bronze corys at £2.99 which is fair enough (even though most other lfs near me sell them at £1)

Now the lost the plot part is when i came across some albino corys, they where 1" in lengh and just normal nothing special common ones.

There was no price on them and while i was there, thought ok il buy a couple, and to my amazment, when i asked the lady how much they was, she said £15 each.. i said are u sure that cant be right surely, she got the manager and he checked in the book and yes it was correct, £15, what are they thinking?

There is 3 other lfs near me and 2/3 do them at £1 each and the 3rd do them at £1.99, how can pets@ home sell them at £15 each?

Crazy

K that is VERY wrong.
I work at PAH, and our bronze, peppered & albino corys are all the same price - 2.99.
Julli are 4.99 and panda corys 3.99

Which PAH was it? IE where?

5teady - thats more like it, THATS pets at home for you.

I keep trying 2 say, we arn't all bad lol, and we do try...

 

[Dogson]

The one in York I visited on the weekend had been refurbed and looked brilliant! The staff were all filling out questionaires with customers asking how mature tanks were etc. I would buy fish from there!
Pets @ home being a chain seem to be getting a rough ride on here so thought I would add something positive about them.
The topic title should include the location of the store to single the store out not the company as a whole!
I don't work for them just think its slightly biased and unfair IMO

 

[BecciMac1987]

Fossilised thread guys x

 

[Hawkins]

I like to think that I know my stuff pretty well and I quite enjoy going into my local P@H, especially now they have refurbed and started to do marine (including frogfish).

well I think you're obviously thick for shopping there

seriously though, they do seem to be refurbing a few of the stores and although none by me have been refurb'd so i can't comment on the new ones, feedback on the forum has been generally fairly good. so lets all hope they're cleaning up their act.

Yes one near me is being refurbed, i went in to get some fish and saw the "no fish for 3-4 weeks" sign and was like "nooooo" i had just driven 20 miles to get there.

 

[crazychris]

K that is VERY wrong.
I work at PAH, and our bronze, peppered & albino corys are all the same price - 2.99.
Julli are 4.99 and panda corys 3.99

Which PAH was it? IE where?

5teady - thats more like it, THATS pets at home for you.

I keep trying 2 say, we arn't all bad lol, and we do try...

Our PAH only has the main three Corys. I've never seen any panda or Julii ones there.

 

[Kady]

I never buy from Pets at Home anymore... my local one doesn't even quarantine fish when they're received!! They arrive in the morning, they chuck the bags straight into the display tanks to acclimatize... then, they're on sale in the afternoon! Seriously... no-go. Not my favourite shop.
My local aquatics quarantines new fish for 3 days before sale. They have notices saying when they will go on sale if they're not already. Much more reassuring.

 

[indigoj]

3 days is no better than 3 hours really - proper quarentine should be at least 2 weeks or it is worthless.

 

[jmkgreen]

On the subject of quarantine within stores - surely those tanks should be on a separate water system to the rest of the store? I only ask because I've seen stores with quarantine tanks directly below fish on sale with no evidence of a separate set of pipework/filtration.

 

[CTlovesKS]

Bloody hell thats a rip off and a half... How could they get away with something that over prices. The person I order my plants and fish off done the same size ablino corys for about 2 pound each but 15 thats bad !

Which Pet @ Home was this ?

 

[keenonfish]

I never buy from Pets at Home anymore... my local one doesn't even quarantine fish when they're received!! They arrive in the morning, they chuck the bags straight into the display tanks to acclimatize... then, they're on sale in the afternoon! Seriously... no-go. Not my favourite shop.
My local aquatics quarantines new fish for 3 days before sale. They have notices saying when they will go on sale if they're not already. Much more reassuring.

New look Stockport does just that! I had to tell one of the staff members a fish had mouth fungus the other week Other day there was a decomposing carcass at bottom of the tank (there for a good few hours) and some fish didn't look great!

TBF things have improved slightly, but...

NEW LOOK - SAME OLD P@H

 

[rabbut]

This is getting a lot of attention to say it's over a year old...

3 days is no better than 3 hours really - proper quarentine should be at least 2 weeks or it is worthless.

Erm, no, 4-6 weeks is the length you should quarantine for if you are going to bother. 2 weeks will stop fin-rot from being a problem, but internal parasites, most external parasites and internal bacterial infections take at least 3 weeks (as that's in a warm tank) to show... Basically, if you aren't QT'ing for 4 weeks, either increase the length you QT for, or don't bother with QT...

All the best
Rabbut

 

[Sarah5098]

I dont like p@h fish as in most stores i have been to the fish dont seem 100% healthy. I went into p@h at hudds today and in three or four of the tanks, fish were hanging at the bottom and just not right. A few fish in the display tank clearly had white spot.
I also noticed that the 'up for adoption' hamsters and gerbils had no water! I alerted staff and this was altered immediately. I know this isnt usual for them as i am a regular shopper , but i found this really shocking. Things like water are essentials and there are clearly management problems...

 

[crazychris]

My LFS doesn't quarantine as he says "they're already quarantined" He gets fish from different wholesalers though and some direct from the Far East, Malaysia, Singapore etc. Can't think they've all been quarantined.

 

[Forestpisces]

IME the quality of fish care at pet@home varies increadably. Ive been to the one in huddersfield and wasnt impressed but the one here in halifax isnt so bad . They quarantine the tanks they house the bettas in barracks and i havnt seen a sick fish for sale yet. They also refuse to sell fish to people without filters and wont sell fish the same day as purchase of the tank( they dont inform about cycleing but hey it's better than nothing). They also do inform people about how big fish will get and have a display tank full of full grown fancy goldie to show people how big they can and do get. All in all there not too bad.

 

[hunter001]

Ive been thinking about this whole quarantine thing with pets at home, there is the possibility there quaratined elsewhere before they come into the stores. BUT, surely it would still make sense to acclimatise the fish to the tanks there in for a day or so just for the fact the fish have probably been on a fairly stressful journey from wherever they've come from. It cant be good for them to be put into the shops tank in the morning, start acclimatising to that tank then being sold, transported and put into another environment to aclimatise to. Potentialy being in 3 seperate lots of water in a space of 24 hours all of which with different ph's etc. One of my lfs's had ram's in which they refused to sell until all there fins had healed (Was told they have a habit of pulling each other to bits when there in transit together) That makes much more sense to me, that way they know that 99% of the fish there selling are in tip top condition. Although my dad did purchase a yellow lab from there which was missing most of his side fin, but you cant get it right 100% of the time. Its never grown back so we presumed he was actually born that way, my bro and sis named him nemo

But back to the point, i'd recomend anyone with problems to email them. The more people that do the more chance we have of them actually taking any notice. Ive emailed them this week via there site, im not expecting a reply to be honest but the more there inboxes get full of complaints the more annoying its going to be for them and who knows they might even sort the problems out......... unlikely but you never know