Had A Bit Of An Argument In Pets@home

[@ombomb]

I never buy fish or plants there, but they are the closest fish shop to me and stock API tests so I went in there for a new ammonia test kit at the weekend. I got the test and my girlfriend and I had our usual look round the tanks and saw amongst other things a v/t Betta in a tank full of Danios, showing clear signs of being nipped and distress. Also spotted tanks full of platties with fin rot, dead fish, mollies covered in parasites and CAEs snacking on some Gouramis, which unfortunately is pretty much par for the course.

I'd explained why the Betta shouldn't be in with the Danios ro my girlfriend as we were walking round and she mentioned this to the lad behind the checkout as I was paying for the kit, and he explained to her "no no it's fine as long as the other fish are not brightly coloured", I explained the situation at which point he claimed they never had ANY problems with their fish... Apparently the fin rot, parasites and dead fish are due to "stress"... yes stress caused by crap conditions and poor care I said and walked out. Last time I EVER buy anything from those morons.

Sorry about the rant, but still pissed off that not only are they negligent but also the blasé attitude of the staff.

 

[*Lucifer*]

i agree totally with u, in the pets @ home in norwich they also keep bettas with naios, all the bettas seem to do is hide from them, its horrible to see, we actually went in over the weekend for some stuff for my chinchilla and i think they had more dead fish than live ones.

 

[blitztidus]

I would say the same, but my lfs is good about taking care of there fish, when a tank get ich, they treat it right away. I have been to places where it just makes me mad, like a pet store a town away, they had, when I was looking, about 15+ dead fish in their fish section, I just wanted to tell them to clean those dead fish out of there NOW

 

[BigIan]

No matter how good the LFS there will be occasions that fish die in the pet shop. thats where calling in regularly to various LFS will give you an idea of the general health and upkeep at the shop and so you know where to go buying...

My first tank ever is currently cycling but every weekend for the past 3-4 weeks i`ve been going round all the local LFS checking them out aswell as buying supplies,

i now know where i will and won`t buy fish from...

Pets at home whilst crap for fish or anything else alive is good for products such as the various chems and meds aswells as the hard ware its pretty cheep compaired with other LFS

i`d never buy fish or plants from there but i would do buy other things from there i bout 2 pices of mopanii from there at 4.50 each when it was priced up at 14 pounds a piece at one lfs

 

[*Lucifer*]

i admit to that they are very cheap with most things, i think it is jus that the people that work there arent very well informed about fish keeping. i got my chinchilla from a pets at home and hes fine i get all his supplies from there!

the best lfs shop i go to has to be Swallow Equatics, East harling in norfolk, jus outside norwich, they are brilliant!!!!

Lucifer x

 

[Dubby]

Pets @ home are not great at keeping fish. Sometimes they have big batches of fishes which are unhealthy and sometimes they are in good condition. Like in most supermarkets, their staff have been trained to look after all parts of the store and they are not specialists and dont know much about the fish.

I was once sold a CAE in the name of an Otto

 

[juliehainsworth]

Pets @ home should remain a pet supplies store only IMO, I dont think they should sell any animals as most of the staff haven't a clue when it comes down to it! Perhaps if we all wrote to them expressing our concerns instead of constantly complaining then they might do something! Especially if we tell them about this site and let them see for themselves how other people rate them! At least that way it will give them a chance to change how they go about these things!

 

[mark7616]

Wehave just had a pets at home store open up over here and there crap the tanks are full of white spot and the guy proceeded to tell me clown loaches have white spots i explained that they dont and guess what his 2 at home have white spots and they dont have the disease also they only grow to about 4" i laughed at him. I then asked him why he was keeping oscars and sevrums with gouramis apparently they all get on fine apart from the one dead one and the one suffering and oscars about 10 of them they dont even sell tanks big enough for them yet i saw a woman leaving with 2 and i know she had no idea as she was also leaving with 2 angels and neons. They give no advise and i seem to spend all my time in the arguing with the staff so i stay well clear.

 

[pieman]

I wrote a letter, do the same, when they realise lots of people are complaining and taking their business elsewere they will soon change their attitude.

 

[jarcher1390]

ive been going to to my lfs for years know they are very well keeped clean good water quality i also worked there for a week on work experince and saw how it was fun great shop this shop name is
NORTH LAKE AQATICS in penrith cumbria if your in the area well worth the look in

 

[bex1]

Hey,
the other week i was in one of the pets at home stores, the fish were all crammed in tiny dirty tanks, with dead fish etc...
but the worst thing was that there was this old lady looking for an algae eater to go in her tiny 5 gallon tank, the shop assistant showed her an albino common pleco that was tiny 1cm (baby) and said they stay that small and will do fine in her tank, she was about to buy 2 of them when i just had to step in and tell her that they grow pretty big and will not be able to live in such a small tank. she was very greatful and left the shop with nothing, as did i! wont be going there ever again!!!

 

[mikebig]

I went into pets@home in Telford looking for a few female bettas (now i know they dont sell them) however saw one betta with very small fins and asked an assistant for a closer look. When the guy came over he got his net and i saw it was a really badly hurt male. They were only keeping two males in the same tank! I told the guy and he didn't even believe me they would fight!!!! Crazy some that someone is alloud to give fish advice but cant even tell you bettas will fight!

 

[Die_Grinder]

IMO pets at home store are only as good as the staff that work in them. my local one employs people that know about the animals, so they are in fairly good condition (not perfect but who is ;D ) and the other one in lincoln only has 1 guy that knows about the fish, the rest of them are students that dont know S*^T. You guys moan about how many dead fish they have? how do you know that you LFS does not have the same ammount? but they can take them out as they are less busy as they only sell fish
i know this will start the arguement that P@H should take the dead ones out and their staff dont know S&^T but what do you expect from a chain company?
most of you will not know how hard it is to run a pet store, its much harder to look after many animals than it is to just look after fish.

most of the public dont know S&^T about fish keeping, they still think its ok to get a bowl and dump 5 goldfish in it but you guys are right the P@H staff should advide them right and not just go after sales . i have seen it tho when staff members have told them to come back for fish in 2-3weeks and most of the general public get rather pissed off about this, then i have seen them in other stores buying the fish anyways, not good.

i have said it before and i will say it again, YES THEY ARE BAD! BUT I HAVE SEEN SOME LFS THAT ARE MUCH WORSE!

so if you find a good LFS get your fish from there and buy your supplies from P@H

could you guys say what stores you went to? so i can check them out? its kinda part of my job

 

[pieman]

@ Die Grinder

At Pier Aquatics in Wigan, the shop has a heck of alot more fish than any Pets At Home what i've seen, and I spent a long time looking around the tanks, and looking at all the fish, the quality of the water, even the marine section which I have little/no knowlage about, all the tank were algae free, fish were healthy and kept with suitable mates for the tank, I didn't manage to spot even one dead fish. I think it's a great shop, loved the stingrays Also this shop has alot of people in it all the time, and whilst I was there I caught the shop owner taking a water test.

Now the Pets At Home that I went to in Wigan at Robin Park was pathetic dead fish, diseased fish, inappropriate tank mates, it's more a case of spot the healthy fish, the plants, are in a completly unacceptable state, they arn't labled, some of them are just floating around, the tropical plants share the same light as the coldwater, they have little/no lighting, the plant tanks are full of algae and plants which are long gone.

Just curious, what is your job as the pets at home near me isn't of a good quality, I would love to go work there and help sort out the tanks.

 

[Die_Grinder]

my main occupation is to set up till systems for many companys, including pets at home. so when we go there if we see somthing we dont like we can add it to our report of the store. i myslef have a advanced oata fish keeping cert, so what i put down on the paper their head office has to take a look at think they are scared of being reported to oata, they take pride in the fact they are a oata recomended store so if you want to make a diffrence write to oata aswell as P@H and tell P@H you have written to oata and that they are going to "investigate" it. that will scare them into sorting it out!