Petco Rescue

[reefs4life]

Hey guys, so I thought this would be a bit of a fun thread. So I hope I'm not the only one that does this but if I ever pass by a Petco I always wonder if they have a saltwater department and I always get the urge to check. Well in my area I know that the Mt Vernon store and the Yonkers store on Central Ave have one. Anyways, whenever I walk in I always find myself looking at the saltwater livestock and wondering which animal I can rescue and if they have a sale it just makes the decision that much easier. So pretty much what I am asking of this thread is, what Petco coral/fish/invert did you rescue and is surprisingly doing well in your tank? Looking forward to pictures...have fun!

 

[reefs4life]

Here are some pics of a nice pair of Spotcinctus clowns that were on sale last week:

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Czynot]

My local petco have no saltwater and a very small section of fresh water only. Never gotten a fish from them.

 

[Sheek714/salt]

Gateway mall have some.. Not everything but Nick nacs.. I have 5 from there doing good ...

 

[albano]

I got a Petco story... I stopped by the Petco in Danbury last month and was looking at their coral frag tank.,, there was a nice size neon leather coral that i was not familiar with and it had no price tag ... when I asked for info on it, I was told that they had no idea and there was no price because it was only available for adoption!
Apparently someone was closing their tank and asked them to take it because he had drained his tank... Petco does not allow their stores to resell ‘trade ins’, so they will only allow someone with a ‘Rewards Card’ to adopt it (for free)...
it looks great in my tank!

 

[Donewiththisplace]

I've often considered buying from them, since now I started a quarantine tank and everything goes through there first.

They do usually have a decent inventory and variety...and more often then not the price is alot cheaper then you'd find in the LFS. The workers also usually have little to no knowledge about SW livestock either and often mis-label and mis-price the fish...so good chance of scoring a good deal.

But no way I would introduce anything from there into my display tank without a few weeks of PraziPro and copper. Went down that road years ago with fish from Petco..and luckily the rest of the livestock in the tank were strong enough to fight off the ich they came with.

 

[A4edwin]

Percula clowns, scooter blennie, and yellow tang doing great! Second one I’ve gotten from there. rego park usually gets triggers and a variety of gangs. but their tanks look grimy all the time. Got a powder brown tang from there and after I got him I lost all the fish in my tank after a week. Did not quarantine! Learned my lesson.

 

[Poseidon87]

So I don't know how true it is but the reason why recently Petco's SW section has high end fish now is because they bought out LiveAquaria. I was just there(Petco in Staten Island on Veterans Road) a few hours ago because I do the same thing as "reefs4life." They had a naso tang, a bunch of yellow tangs, a blue throat trigger, some high end clowns, a bunch of bleached nems smh, and a few other things I was looking at. but it amazes me how they have all these high end fish in these little ass tanks makes me want to take them all and save them. I did it once they had a blue spotted puffer and they actually miss labeled him and I paid about half of what he was worth and did wind up getting ich but beat it so I was happy but its just sad. I could only imagine how many fish they loose :-(

 

[Donewiththisplace]

I stopped by yesterday at my local petco...had a blue Spotted rabbit fish labeled as a small blue Spotted grouper and were asking $49.99 for it.

It must have been delivery day..as all the tanks had new fish floating in bags but it was hard to see what they had.

 

[A4edwin]

They actually bought live aquaria a while ago. But. Each location is hit or miss.

 

[nano1908]

I got a Petco story... I stopped by the Petco in Danbury last month and was looking at their coral frag tank.,, there was a nice size neon leather coral that i was not familiar with and it had no price tag ... when I asked for info on it, I was told that they had no idea and there was no price because it was only available for adoption!
Apparently someone was closing their tank and asked them to take it because he had drained his tank... Petco does not allow their stores to resell ‘trade ins’, so they will only allow someone with a ‘Rewards Card’ to adopt it (for free)...
it looks great in my tank!

That's awesome!

 

[Donewiththisplace]

So I literally just left one of the north Jersey Petcos...stopped in just to see if they have anything good.

As I'm trying to stock a 125 fowlr and have a quarantine tank set up to treat all new livestock I figured if they got something decent and it's not half dead I'll give it a shot.

Well..I gotta say I left there very disheartened. All of the fish in their tanks are in various stages of diseases. Rapid breathing, skin lesions, fin rot, ich, velvet. One long nose Butterfly in particular was completely covered in velvet...from mouth to tail. It would appear that each store is not even set up to treat any kind of disease...I woulda asked the guy working the fish area to confirm that, but he was too busy talking to his buddy about his "4th trip to applebees this week."

Disheartened and disgusted is more like it...because I'm pretty sure that most of us in this hobby are in it to promote sustainability of the reefs and its inhabitants. Yet Petco is single handily wiping out thousands of fish and corals.

Addiionally, they have the balls to write on the front of their frag tank to "save the reefs and buy aquacultured corals". 75% of the "corals" in that tank were dead skeletons of various lps... but ironically the lawnmower blenny and wrasse in that tank were the only 2 fish that didn't seem to have any visible disease. Most likely because their in a separate system from the tanks on the wall.

Could these fish possibly be saved if medicated and properly cared for? Maybe. But is it worth that gamble? Paying a premium price for a fish that you know is near death on a slim chance that it can pull through...

Petco tanks are a cesspool of disease that have a continuous flow of fresh victims into them every week when the delivery truck shows up.

I'll be reaching out to petco, however futile it may be, to voice my concerns about this issue. In fact, I cant believe that the larger environmentalists groups havent jumped on this bandwagon already and put some pressure on the corporations to step up their game in quality and care of their aquatic livestock.

Sorry for the long rant but as a longtime hobbyist that would like to remain a hobbyist for years to come...I cant sit idle without at least saying my peace.

 

[albano]

Pretty sure that it is Petco Corp. policy that their retail stores may NOT treat any of their livestock. Some of their stores will discount sick fish if you’re a ‘rewards’ member.

 

[BloopFish]

Anyone have any idea if any of the Petcos in Manhattan is any good? Haven't really checked any of them out because of their reputation, but I am curious.

 

[Timbo]

Stopped for dog food the other night and took a stroll through the saltwater section. All fish were tiny and all looked sickly. Sad state for sure.

 

[ErikT]

Guilty! Bought these zoas about six months ago here in Brooklyn NY

 

[ErikT]

Anyone have any idea if any of the Petcos in Manhattan is any good? Haven't really checked any of them out because of their reputation, but I am curious.

Union Square has juvenile decent fish, rarely but they do.