Pets At Home - Parkgate, Rotherham

[Sharpy1987]

I have been to this shop several times over the years and each time i have been disappointed. There always seemed to be at least 1 or 2 fish left dead in the tank, white spot on most of the fish and the tanks always looked dirty.

however, i have been twice recently, once in November and once last weekend. Both times i went in i had a quick look at the fish and i was amazed. No dead fish in any, no white spot and the tanks looked very clean. There was even a member of staff scrubbing the glass to ensure there was no algae build up. All the tanks had live plants in them and most even had rocks and wood.

All the fish looked in good condition.

Has anyone else noticed a difference? is it just this shop or have they been slapped on the wrist?

 

[the_lock_man]

Ooooooooooh, careful......

 

[basboi85]

probably new head of that department,

the one by me i have to say always have 1 or 2 dead fish in the tanks and half always have thick algae and nearly half the tanks are under quarantine,

i had a moan to the manager on my last visit and he must've had a word with someone as 2 of the staff instantly started cleaning the tanks

 

[DrRob]

Positive, specific comments, we like those.

As usual, keep it that way and we'll stay happy with the thread.

My local branch is generally quite good. Heavy on the bread and butter fish, which is the main reason I don't buy from them as I don't need any of those at the moment, but generally clean and appropriately quarantined, plus I have a good LFS that's about as far away who I know the staff of quite well.

 

[Sharpy1987]

I was quite impressed with the selection of fish.

They had 3 tanks of different rams - bolivian, gold and blue, they even had Krib's in stock. I haven't come across these in a mainstream shop before. Loads of gourami's of different types and sizes...

There was also something which i have never seen before in any fish shop. Pieces of wood with plants attached with suckers on the ends so they stuck to the glass. There was a tank that had several of these and it made some really interesting levels. Was a pretty cool feature.

 

[KCB]

My local Pets at Home has greatly improved as well. When it first opened a few years ago, the conditions were terrible! Much like you have described. But over the past few months they have improved vastly and I'm actually happy to purchase from them now (I still quarantine though ).

It might have something to do with the bad publicity they've been getting. A watchdog tv show was done on them recently too, which couldn't have helped business. Maybe they're getting a much needed kick up the jacksy .

 

[DrSlackBladder]

The three or four P@H stores around the Chester/Wrexham area are mixed; generally the always busy stores in retail parks tend to be playing catch up, with slippery floors, messy tanks, one or two dead fish, mislabelled tanks, poor staff knowledge, etc. But the calmer stores have been very impressive recently, with a good selection of seemingly happy, healthy fish in good conditions and even some fish-educated staff. I've had all my recent stock from one of these calmer stores and have had no losses or illness (touch wood!). Even the shrimp have been in great condition!

 

[DrRob]

OK, as has been said. If I have to remove any more generalised negative comments about a whole chain then I'll be locking this thread.

 

[LucyB]

My local pets at homes (Clifton moor and Foss islands, York) have improved greatly over the last few months, I've been quite impressed recently!

 

[CezzaXV]

My local Pets at Home has gotten terrible lately!

It's the Newton Abbot branch (so this is not a general negative comment).

Went in there the other day. Three tanks had notices on them saying the fish were in quarantine and not for sale (and there weren't a lot of fish in those tanks, so it wasn't a case that they had just come in and were acclimatising). They did have some beautiful dwarf gouramis and I've been on the lookout for "the one" for a while now since my last one died. I almost bought one until I knelt down to look into the back of the tank. Lo and behold two DG's covered in ich and looking incredibly sorry for themselves. Euch!

I also know this isn't as much of an issue, but the plant tank also had a fair bit of algae in and I could only just see the plants inside.

I can forgive the occasional dead fish as these things happen. I've seen a dead fish in my local MA once, and they're fantastic. This was just too much for me.

I don't visit the Torquay branch very often but couldn't fault them when I went in there last week.

 

[MBOU]

Just because there is few fish in a tank, doesn't mean they have just come in, nothing to say it was a bad batch that they lost a lot of... or in P@Hs case, they can order fish by however many they want, depending on the shops budget for the week (depending on how much they sold the week before....) they might only have ordered a few fish...

More to the point... I would rather see a shop with fish off sale signs than a shop that knowingly has sick fish still on sale...

 

[#1 Fish Fan]

I agree with MBOU.

If I ever owned a LFS and I selled a sick fish knowingly.....I would have that guilty feeling with me forever!

 

[zain611]

The commen Pets@Home i go to in Enfield is fine to me. Havent seen a dead fish instead of one snail and have some good fish like corys, red tail shark, bala shark, mollies, gouramis etc. theres 2 more branches i know near seven sisters and on the high road but i only went there once because my parents wanted to go the shops near it for the house

 

[Flute]

Been to the Bangor branch in North Wales today and was impressed enough to buy two large angels

 

[Royston]

I bought 4 albino corys at the Woking branch and within four hours 2 of them are dead on the sand the other two seem fine at the moment. they are not open untill the day after Boxing Day for me to complain......
And my water is fine