Pets At Home - Parkgate, Rotherham

[#1 Fish Fan]

I'm blessed with three large fish stores within a short drive. The closest is Pets at Home which has a relatively small fish section, but the fish I saw seemed healthy (or at least all alive). Further away is a World of Water which has a fantastic selection of fish but looks a bit dingy and has a poor reputation for fish care. Then not far away there's a wonderful branch of Maidenhead Aquatics which has by far the best display tanks and plant selection and seems to have the most experienced staff.

I'm a bit confused because each time the one with the most dead fish has been the MA store.

Last time I visited they had one dead fish in at least 5 tanks.

I've put it down to overstocking because they do seem to have more fish in their tanks, evidently they have a higher turnover than the other stores, but it puts me off buying fish from what otherwise seems to be the best shop in the area. Is there any excuse for a fish shop to have a dead fish in several tanks like that or should I shop elsewhere?

Maidenhead Aquatics is one of the best fish stores, always top of my list. I would say that it is probably due to overstocking but thats what fish stores do/have to do. When they order fish in they have to put them in a tank, if they have overstocked or not. They may of expected for that stock to be bought quicker but it wasn't. You never know...

 

[MBOU]

Truthfully, if you see dead fish, mention it to a member of staff, aim for the manager if you can pick them out, you will find the go do a death check right away!

All shops get dead fish and it may seem horrendous to people who only have a few fish but when there are thousands of fish, some days you lose none and other days you might lose 20 or 30 odd fish, it depends on so much! Mostly if you see dead fish, they are in tanks off sale already and a fish has died in between the regular checks. You can only check so often or you'll never get any other work done! If it takes you half an hour to unpack a delivery... thats half an hour they havent been checked....

But mostly, its simply human error! When you are scanning hundreds of tanks for dead fish, you end up going a little cross eyed and its easy to miss one! Especially if its floating or hidden behind something...

Fish can die for a lot of reasons... if they are recently imported... it might simply be stress or they didnt acclimatise very well, some fish just dont do well or maybe it got jostled on the journey or goodness knows what! Doesnt mean it was sick though... or fish bullying each other in the shop or worst of all... kids smacking the glass!!

I've had days when its been seriously busy and packed with people and i have had to take 30-40 fish out after kids repeatedly bashing tanks and spooking fish into crashing about the tanks...

There are so many variables so simply saying 'oh dont buy from a shop that has dead fish' is just silly, so is saying 'dont buy from a shop with sick fish'... dont actually buy the sick fish!! Just take a look and see if they are off sale our ask a member of staff if they are being treated! All fish get sick and EVERY shop deals with it. If they say they dont, they are clearly dying because all fish can get sick at any point and having more fish means you are more likely to see sick fish....

If the shop is responsible in its labeling and treating the fish, there is no need to avoid them...

And personally, if i see a dead fish and there is someone standing near it or there is kids, I will wait until they move away before dealing with it because no kid wants to see dead fish being scooped out and put in a black bag!

 

[daizeUK]

Thanks MBOU, I thought that might be the case. I suspect that with so many fish in the tanks one or two is bound to get bashed or bullied, and the shop is always busy so they can't check every 5 minutes.

Dead fish in tanks are usually made out to be one of the signs of a bad shop and it's harder for a novice like me to tell the difference between diseased fish versus the odd unfortunate death, so it helps to understand what it's like from somebody in the business.

There was one tank full of mollies or similar, one poor dead fish was being richocheted from fish to fish like a pinball with each taking a nibble out of it as it went past, it's not nice explaining when the kids notice and ask "why has that fish got bits missing?" Ewwww! but that's life I guess.

 

[#1 Fish Fan]

I once worked at a lfs for a year and there were always kids bashing the tanks. They went for the poor clownfish most of the time. Once the manager ordered too many fish and we ended up bagging some and giving them away for free! We had no room in the tanks. I took two home

 

[MBOU]

I once ordered 1/6 of a box worth of male siamese fighters because i wrote it wrong!! I wanted 1 x pack of 6 males >.< I ended up with 120 Male fighters!!

Thankfully I managed to transfer 60 to another shop but we had fighters EVERYWHERE!! Thankfully it was summer and we had all heaters turned off as shop was running at 28 degrees room temp so i managed to put fighters on the coldwater system too or we would have been in soooo much trouble as we had a lot of species that fighters couldnt go in with like all the barbs

 

[SELINA]

My local P@H (ipswich) has improved greatly the last few months, in fact I bought a pair of bronze corys from there an have had no problems with them. They settled in well and although the staff weren't that knowledgeable about them, asked me lots of questions to make sure my tank was established and large enough to house them.

I wish I could say the same for a shop across the retail park from them, called 'SeaPets'. I wrongly thought because it was a more specified species, dedicated to fish, it would be better. Oh no. Dead fish in at least half the tanks and massively overstocked with unhealthy fishes.
I left immediately, which is how I ended up in P@H.



Was sad about SeaPets, but very pleased to find P@H with lovely clean tanks with healthy fish.

 

[#1 Fish Fan]

MBOU, at least you didnt accidently order 150 mollies instead of 15

 

[Flute]

MBOU brought up some really good points that a lot of us with no retail experience might not necessarily think about, especially when it comes to the stress the fish must be put under from boisterous kids.

I think you can easily tell when there have been unfortunate but uncontrollable deaths, and when a shop just is not looking after it's stock. From personal experience the latter is much, much rarer. It's a case of common sense when buying fish in general, and as MBOU said simply asking about anything you're concerned about is the best course of action.

For example, when I bought my two new angels the other week, one of the other tanks on the same system was in quarantine. Because I have no way of quarantining fish at the moment, I was concious about infecting my main tank with anything. After asking one of the staff members on hand though she explained that it was a small African cichlid that had been beaten up by it's other tank mates, and had been moved to a quieter tank to give it a chance to pull through. I could tell the rest of the tanks were being well looked after, and so had no problem in buying the two angelfish

 

[Glitzy]

P@H Horsham had a medium sized silver shark that had such a large growth on its bottom lip (fungal?) I was surprised it could feed. The smaller silver sharks had so many black dots where there were scales missing it almost looked like a pattern (!).

Dead corys and plattys and the neons had white spot...

Got upset and left at that point and went elsewhere.

 

[Daveo026]

i have a friend that works for pets at home they now do body checks every 30 mins thats most likely why your arent seeing dead fish altho the one near me is reasonably good

 

[MBOU]

Once again, all I can say is if you have problems with a shop, dont tell everyone here because noone here can solve the problem!! You need to tell the shop!

You best bet is to make sure it is in writing, people forget to pass messages on (not always intentionally either ) but write to the shop and address the letter "FAO Store Manager" and you will find only the manager opens letters specified for their attention

And always remember to write and praise staff or shops too Takes you minutes to write a letter but can make someones job feel completely worthwhile to know they are appreciated!!

 

[bluemoon11]

P@H Isle of Man varies every time!! Always a few tanks in quarantine but better than selling sick fish!

When I bought my betta Nagini all the bettas were on the same filter system (6of them) he was the only healthy looking boy, the others looked dying or not far off. Lying on their sides on the bottom. Nagini was following my finger on the glass very quickly and dancing for me, had to take him home and he's very healthy!!

Our pets at home ask a lot of questions!! Size of tank, tank ages, cycling. Good in general and getting better xxx

 

[LaurenRhiain]

All their tanks do indeed share a filter system but if one tank comes down with illness, they close that tank off to the filter system to ensure no other tanks become contaminated. I have two branches near me and I am sad to say that one of them isn't very good at all. The tanks always seem to have at least 3 dead fish in them and others are loaded with Ich or Finrot. I tend to my a lot of my fish from reliable garden centres as the fish tend to be in MUCH better condition.

 

[khial]

Unfortunately i cant say the same,
I went in a couple of days ago and there was a fish sat in the tank...with no head...

Dont get me wrong I agree to some extent, the shop has improved so much over the last couple of years or so but the staff knowledge has been left completely,

I purchased 2 Bettas that day, what I thought was 2 females (after asking the lady working on the aqua department) she assured me that all fish in the tank were 100% females...
Well when I got home, popped them in my tank (in the bags of course) I was watching for a little while to see one of the Bettas flare up when approached by my Guarami....obviously I had been sold a MALE betta

luckily he calmed down and they all get on fine but anyway.. the point is not just that the shop needed to improve on its care for animals but now the staff know nothing except what they were taught on there induction day.

luckily I noticed and wasnt putting it in with Guppies or another male Betta!!!!