Expanding To Full Aquaria / Marine

[jenny6165]

well working i hear all sorts of things. but said that they are selecting a few stores to convert into a two storey building and having the second floor as an aquatics place with marine fish as well.

 

[dwarfgourami]

the stuff of nightmares, if you ask me. it's the marine bit that's really scary. still, the experiment is likely to be shortlived- buying up marine stock isn't going to come cheap even for them and then when they die after 5 minutes, that will probably be the end of marines@home.

 

[DoyouWantsum]

What i cant understand is that they are a big company so why cant they invest a bit of money into staff training.
It just makes no sense that they keep building on there bad reputation.
With a bit of staff training and thought they could easly turn that reputation around and become a leeder in aquaria in the uk.

 

[Underwurlde]

Fingers crossed then that they will get their fingers burnt and hopefully go bust.

 

[jkrekord]

i was in pets at home before came home with 4 corys but OMG there was a staff member there and he was just chatting complete ****. he convinced a lady she needed aquatic salt with neon tetras, told another man angelfish would eat anything smaller than a pirhana and that platy's werent right for his tank because the water would be to hard for them,.

 

[my fat fish]

thers a few like that thers a store near me who told me that normal plecs were bn plecs 0_o well acualy didnt tell me i just overheard and intruded in the convo. needless to say they buyer looked shocked at the bad advice and left the store what wernt that good 4 me as i wanted to buy some non living things from ther but i felt compelled to leave aswell lol

 

[mikster]

Yeah i bought some fish from there in a past and they all died, i even asked them what the ph of there water was and the woman just looked at me like i was speaking in a foreign language. Wont buy anything living from them again but they do have good prices on equipment and stuff. Going marines is going to be seriously bad for them unless they do alot of research and training.

 

[goldencomet]

I do go to pets at home if I know what I want ( like a filter or pump) but if i'm looking for advice or live stock I go to my lfs who have good advice. A marine section at pets at home is a disaster waiting to happen, unless they get some people in that know what their talking about

 

[Neal]

As a matter of fact, I was in Pets @ Home today, and all their tanks looked fine. There was only two problems I noticed.
1 - They were selling a 2" Gar, I mean, have you seen the size these grow too? (Saying that, it usually has on the label "please be aware, this fish will grow (blahdy blah size)", but I didn't look.
1 - They labelled their plecs, just as "plecostamus", I mean, I knew they were common plecs, but it doesn't mean everyone does.
All tanks were clean, and looked healthy (apart for some shabby looking plants). The other week they even closed the fish section to let the new fish settle in.

Neal

 

[SuperColey1]

I often look around Pets at home in Lincoln to 'waste' away my dinnerhour.

I find that although they have a good range of 'basic' fish there are the following problems with their aquatic section:

1) There are some specialist fish (as in people with seriously big tanks arent gonna go to them for Arrowana or Stingrays)

2) There are always signs of distress and disease

3) The descriptive labels that give sizes are scarce to the point that there are loads of typed labels with the name price and a measurement (Small, Medium, Large and this is their current size i.e. Balla Shark Medium when it is 4 inches in the tank and Mollies would say small 2 inches)

4) The labels are never above the tank that the applicable fish are in

5) They but a load of aggressive fish like sharks in together and all you see is them chasing each other

6) They label fish like livebearer as male and female seperately in different tanks when there is always a male or two in the female tank (not such a problem, but the female or two in the male tank look awfully tired)

7) They just put pea gravel in all the tanks and never the appropriate substrate for the type of fish in the tanks.

8) The plants are infested with snails and god knows what else.

9) The staff think they are knowledgable when they're not and I heard a man say the othere day that you couldn't but black mollies in with a male betta!!! I have this very same combination in my tank and at one point while the male black mollie was sick from the Pets at home free contagious disease they gave me with the shark (see point below) the female black mollie and male betta were like lovers for 2 weeks swimming together and never apart until the male black mollie got better.

I could go on forever but I bought a red tailed black shark from there in October (died 8 days later within 1 hour of showing symptoms) and I am still treating the tank for all the illnesses that have appeared since that insane moment when I bought it.

Over all I would say the prices are good but only buy equipment or meds.

Oh one other thing
Why do they sell Melafix on its own and not Pimafix as well?? I though for some symptoms you were supposed to use Pimafix first and then after the Melafix.

I'll stop ranting now I think go that off my chest. waiting for the lawyers to ring now. lol

 

[sharkbaitwoohaha]

till youve worked for them, dont comment on the amount of training. we have a lot of people who comment on ourshop as we were the first to get the mezzanine floor. it works better cos we are all geting oata training who will be working upstairs and it enables you to spend more time reading up and more time on maintainence rather than having to go and srve a hamster or something. i dont agree with marine tank however because its not somewere where most people would think o get marines from. before i worked for them i was part of the anti PAH. but please dont give all shops and staff a bad name cos its not right. some of us are dimonds in the rough.
1. i can only speak for us, but we wouldnt sell the arrowanas or stingrays to inappropraite tanks. (and we have the man from the supplier comes and tells us the best things t do)
2. i dont know if ive ever been in a fish shop where there are no signs of stress or disease
3. the size under the price simply refers to the pricing. for eg. bala shark 5cm -2.9 bala shark xl- 14.99. n the detailed description at the side of these tickets it gives the max size.
4.they are for us
5. RTB and albino redfin are in together whn about 2 to 3 inches. how about local madenhead aquatics keeping full grown ones together (6 or 7 to a tank?)
6. because they are different prices eg male female guppys 1.99 to 1.49. crap happens and thats how they end up mixedup but we check all the time to make sure.
7.we have a finer substrate, buti do admit this isnt always the case
8. snails. big whoop.
9. ok, i understand that not everyone is knowledgeable but i dont reccomend bettas for communty tanks anyways but not specifics like that. but mayb thats what he meant.
you get a garantee for the fishes that actually lasts fo as long as the fish is cared for properly but usually valid for 2 weeks. as long as your cooperative in the shop they should allow you to return it if your not happy.

agree about the melafix/pimafix thing!

but to be fair, although its probably not that hard. we ha a visit by the directors last week and were told we have the best aquatics secton in the company

 

[jamespond]

I can only comment on my local Pets @ Home.


Although I find it good for deals on accessories, i also find their staff cluless on fish and fish matters. I've asked 3 times for advice on stuff to do with my tropical tank and on every occasion i've had the same puzzled look from their staff. At my local shop, they simply do not know anything about keeping tropical fish

 

[andywg]

It's not just large chains that have clueless staff though, or bad tanks.

Even the large Swallows at Rayleigh tried to tell me that a frogfish (Antennarius hispidus) is poisonous or venomous and I have heard the staff there give out some pretty bad advice on stocking and keeping fish too.

The problem is that for some reason many people feel an lfs employee should provide entirely impartial expert advice while being retained for around £5/hour.

I for one don't tend to trust that many people to advise me on fish, but then I wouldn't trust a BMW salesman to give me a true and accurate description of the car he is trying to sell me and how it compares to other vehicles available. I would do my own research first and once I am happy with my knowledge I will look to buy. There will always be people who trust a salesman, and they will always be given biased, or imperfect advice. C'est la vie.

I have seldom seen anything that massively wrong with the P@H, the only reason I don't buy from there is they only stock community fish that don't interest me.

 

[SuperColey1]

I didn't mean to offend anyone who works there. You have to work with what you are given to work with and if you use your knowledge and interest to better your section then all the better.

I did put at the top Pets at Home in Lincoln and that is the only one I can comment on.

As for the labels I mean that there are some labels with descriptions of the fish price, potential size, feeding habits, picture and all.

These are about 25-40% of the labels. Then there are lots of hand typed labels that say:

African Cichlid
Medium 4-5cm
£2.99

There is not a detailed descriptive label on any other tanks for these sort of items and there are a lot.

(I have to admit I've never overheard anyone trying to buy these so I can't suggest that people are mislead but there is nothing anywhere to tell them what type of Cichlid it is or how big it will grow, and it aint gonna be 4-5cm for very long)

As for plants why dont they just introduce some sort of copper to the water to kill the snails, so they don't infest their customer's tanks or is this a policy to sell more anti snail medication. (It certainly works)

Sorry to offend you and keep up the good work in maidenhead. Hopefully they'll get better down here soon, except today I saw 3 tanks with dead angels in them.

I didn't mean to say that Pet Shops are any better, but normally and I use this term very loosely a dedicated fish shop will have almost zero problems apart from the terrible layout in mine.

I go to 'The Aquarium' in Lincoln (last time was 2 weeks ago) where he has just setup his new shop and there was not one diseased fish, not 1 'off colour' fish. Not a snail in any tanks (except the snail tanks) Females and Males all seperate, Every tank labelled, and staff that knew what I was talking and what they were talking about.

We do all tend to tar all with the same brush but I can only speak from my experience of the Lincoln Pets at Homes (both of them)

Many Apologies for any offence taken

 

[Larry_the_lobster]

My lfs doesnt have tags with the max size of fish and it doesnt bother me. I support my small independant lfs so this post is far from laying praise on the pets at home chain stores but surely its partly upto the person keeping fish to research their stuff before they purchase a pet. you wouldnt buy a car or any other object without at least reading about it first?