Pets At Home

[Gill]

TBH i have just had to involve Animal Welfare in a complaint that resulted in them viisting the store and forcing them to remove all infected fish from sale and return to their suppliers. even though they had been told they were selling fish infected with Camallanus Nematodes, more than once (after my wife bought them not knowing they were heavily infected). the disease treatment meds are only available from a vet.
I am negiotiating compensation with customer services ATM as Animal Welfare have told them to pay me it as i lost alot of fish because of this infection.

 

[oddball_lover]

Sorry, I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one

RTBS are territory forming species - whereas silver sharks are shoaling nomadic species which does not lay claim to territories - therefore are not innately territorial. Of course, if kept incorrectly (i.e. in small numbers in small tanks) then friction will occur, as it would with many other types of fish including barbs and tetras. But nowhere near the levels exhibited by the RTBS. Single silver sharks are more likely to be shy and skittish rather than openly aggressive.

 

[Genesis]

Ahh, I'm sorry.

I just noticed that the Bala Shark (Balantiocheilos melanopterus) is not in the same genus as the Red Tailed Black Shark and the Rainbow Shark (Epalzeorhynchos bicolor & Epalzeorhynchos frenatus respectively).

My mistake


Basically the epalzeorhynchos sp. (often referred to as sharks) are the territorial and agressive type.





Plus, this is all very confusing because Sharks (Selachimorpha sp.) are actually marine fish and FW sharks are not sharks at all

 

[oddball_lover]

Ah no worries, common names can be so confusing sometimes!

 

[SuperColey1]

True there are stores that are shockingly ran and also there are exceptional ones; same can be said for any independant or mid sized chain - dobbies, maidenhead etc.

Never been to a dobbies but I think you'll find that there are a higher % of good maidenheads than there are % of good fish sections at P@H

What P@H do bring is stores to areas that may not have that well stocked\immaculate LFS and make the hobby accessible to more people - often overlooked.

This is utter rubbish. P@H open in areas where they can get the most feet through the door wether the area has good fish shops or not.

There are 2 in Lincoln, One on the main entry into the city (where it is the only petshop around) and one in another retail park next to 2 council estates and within ½ mile of 2 LFS which are sparklingly clean and healthy but will have to close because the P@H gets all the trade being more visible.

Oh and its impossible to never have a dead fish in a tank at some point in a day; a check every hour is a more realistic approach.

I'll remember that when looking at my fish tanks!!!!

 

[Genesis]

Oh and its impossible to never have a dead fish in a tank at some point in a day; a check every hour is a more realistic approach.

I'll remember that when looking at my fish tanks!!!!

No offence, but if you add 50-100 fish at a time to your tank, I'd like to see you escape with no casualities

 

[SuperColey1]

I'm sorry. I was just using the 'generalised' statement in the post where he doesn't say anything about fish being new, added, quantities etc. just 'its impossible to never have a dead fish in a tank at some point in a day'

Silly of me but if someone wants to make a statement of defence they should really have added the vital words. lol

Andy

 

[shroob]

My local P@H isn't good, granted I havn't been in to buy fish for well over a year but I remember I stopped going there due to the quality and advice I was offered. I now only go there if I have to, and I do look at the fish out of interest and some of the information they come with is just bogus. Max growth of texas 10cm, max growth of TSN 40cm (Last time I said this someone asked if they had mistaken cm for inches, but I asked them about 2 weeks ago - when I needed some dry goods and they said they hadn't) I told them they were mistaken but I really don't think they believed me.

EDIT: This one was at drake house.

I'm sure that there are good P@H, and knowledgable staff, but this should be the norm not the exception really.

 

[sharkbaitwoohaha]

hey. i work for p@h also. our shop is on a split level so we tend to have less clueless staff as we have a dedicated team of fishies. including me, who you have to fight with to buy any form of cold water fish from because most people buy a 5l bowl and expect about 12 goldfish in it. ive been called allkinds buy people who just dont think and "well if it dies ill buy another one" attitude does not go down well at all. if im not happy with your tank conditions then no fish will leave the store.
not all p@h are like this admittedly and with over 90 tanks, its hard to keep a check on dead ones, but i try
unfortunately things bad happen (like 2 oscars for a 90l on monday.... which i sorted yesterday.
oh, and the guarantees you get do not go to a timescale. they are open ended and dont let anyone tell you differently. just read the article in 'retail week'

 

[angelmouse]

I have seen good and bad PAH, as with any fish store they are only as good as the the people who run that particular store, if the managers and staff are well educated in fishkeeping it makes for a good store, but i have been in a couple of stores where saturday staff are not intrested and havent a clue and seem not to have any training or the brains to ask a more experienced member of staff to help customers if they cant and a total disintrest that some of their tanks have floating fish and other PAH where the tanks are spotless, fish healthy, staff knowledgeable about basic fishkeeping and usually one member of staff to help with anything that requires more advice.
. I suppose to round it off its down to individual bad manageral skills, poor training,and poor choice of staff that some of the stores arent good and others with great managers, good staff and basic training are fantastic
Angel

 

[targa66]

Funny, I just got home from a trip to P@H in Aintree. Went there for a cat scratching post and had to check out the fishies. I will say, the tanks were clean and I only saw one dead fish (not good, but for about 20 or so tanks, that's not horrendous) -- but the fish looked pretty bad. There were a few tanks of swordtails and platies and they were just hanging at the surface with fins and tails clamped. There was no obvious cause but they just looked like they would all be dead within the week. I know fish will be stressed in that environment, but when I go to Maidenhead in Appley Bridge, they don't look like that.

On the other hand, they have a big adoption scheme for unwanted pets - not just cats & dogs - that seems like a good thing.

So - good for mammals, bad for fish?

 

[SuperColey1]

If I were to go to a P@H and someone asked me about my freshwater tropical tank conditions and I told them:

I add Nitrate and metals to the tank.
I pump CO2 in
I don't do waterchanges
I have almost no media in my filter
When I top up evaporated water I use pond dechlor
I have nearly 2" fish per gallon

What do you think they would say?

Andy

 

[tibby25731]

My local Pets at Home is in Ashton Under Lyne. I have sworn never to return after my last visit. I only went in to buy a replacement heater as I was paranoid there was a problem with my current one (well there was, but that was down to a dodgy fuse it turned out!) and as I bought tank complete with filter and heater from them, that is where I went for my replacement. And, of course, they don't stock it... lol. So I decided to look in on the fish. Ususal, quite a few dead fish, being eaten by other fish. But then I saw a guppy that was obviously ill, couldn't swim upright at all, he was vertical and struggling. And there were some other fish in the guppy tank, some sort of cat I think, and they kept swooping at him to bite him. BAsically, he was being eaten alive and I was horrified. So I called over an assistant and showed him, and he said well, in the wild he would get eaten anyway. And I said, yeah maybe, but this is a pet sotre and surely you need to euthanize that fish, and also remove him from the tank to stop any infection taking hold with the others, and he just shrugged and walked off. I was almost in tears, i couldn't believe anyone working in a pet store could be so callous. And I swear down that i will never shop there again, not even for basics like food. I would rather go out of my way to another store than pay them another penny.

 

[MarkByrom]

"My lfs i usually go to all have undergravel filters and are waterchanged and cleaned by 2 people that work thereand they have over 100 tanks in the shop... i take my hat off to them, and know that when i buy from there, im getting good stuff"


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I may know minimal regards fish, however, busioness in my forte. Pets at home is a generalist, and as generalists go are pretty awsome, you need to remember that people such as myself who have no idea of tropical fish (brand new to the scene) need all the advice they can get. To be honest, pets at home train their staff in aquatics, and as a result is still better than going to a garden centre and getting flogged a red tail shove nose for a 200 litre tank (Becuase you trust them), This happened to me yesterday.

So pets at home get my good knowledge (for the beginner) free leaflets, nice selection of easy to care for pretty fish (that my little boy loves) and you can buy a few rabbits at the same time

Good store!

 

[littlest]

I may know minimal regards fish, however, busioness in my forte. Pets at home is a generalist, and as generalists go are pretty awsome, you need to remember that people such as myself who have no idea of tropical fish (brand new to the scene) need all the advice they can get. To be honest, pets at home train their staff in aquatics, and as a result is still better than going to a garden centre and getting flogged a red tail shove nose for a 200 litre tank (Becuase you trust them), This happened to me yesterday.

So pets at home get my good knowledge (for the beginner) free leaflets, nice selection of easy to care for pretty fish (that my little boy loves) and you can buy a few rabbits at the same time

Good store!

The thing is with Pets at Home, they have advice leaflets and they give advice, but the advice isn't always very good, and in some cases can be very bad.

I know on their leaflet about setting up at tank it says to fill it and let the filter run for seven days, then you are ready to add fish. Leaving it seven days will do absolutely nothing to prepare the tank for fish.
They also had a leaflet that said one goldfish could be kept in a bowl as long as it was filtered.

When I got into fish I went to Pets at Home. They gave me advice, telling me I could keep two goldfish in a ten gallon tank after leaving it a week. They sold me a pathetic filter. When my fish started bottom-sitting they told me I needed to use medications. They didn't mention testing the water or water changes. When my fish had a louse (argulus) they tried to sell me a med for internal bacteria. Luckily I found out my mistakes quite quickly, but the advice Pets at Home gave me cost me a lot of money and caused my fish a lot of hardship.

Like others have said, a lot depends on the staff who work there. Maybe the staff are very knowledgeable where you go and know what they are talking about, but the store's standard advice in leaflets isn't up to much and the advice I've heard at my local store is awful.

After the mistakes I've made, and the others I've heard other people making, I think it is a good rule of thumb to do your own research. Always check an employee's advice (regardless of the shop) before buying fish.