Pets At Home

[tom130691]

this is a brand new store so they would have just done the training ect so should no about this kind of thing yes they are useful for supplys but most no nothing about fish
the other i have been to all the tanks are green and on tank will be full of tetras then one guppy when there is a tank of guppys next to it, sort it out !
end of the day they do not no alot about keeping fish they are there to make money set you tank up leave it for a week then you can have fish (advise from them) also i bourt 2 dwarf neon rainbows no advice of the ment to be in a school ect
in both stores they are usless tbh you have to go find help if you need it no one is set to look after and serve fish.
ill stick to special aquatic shops much better advice and fish tbh

the store i started the thread about had a welfare officer in today when the assistant told the manager who was working till serving me. her response was oh crap go check everything is ok and basically panicked,
i did get me 3 filter medias and a 12" air stone for a fiver though

 

[chesterscot]

i agree you cant make sweeping statements and my p@h is excellent for livestock just not advice
apparently they have trained staff well maybe some employees have mental blocks regarding good husbandry or they just forget or treat it just as a job and make it up as they go along
as stated before by someone earlier in the thread if i was visited my setups are not perfect at all then again i dont deal with the public
lead by example springs to mind as people new to the hobby will see fish and think oh they live together ill do that........

then they end up here ranting just a thought
regards scot

 

[CrystalClear16]

I have never seen any dead fish at ours, or anything to make me suspicious. But I prefer to shop at Swallows Aquatics because they have much more variety.

Also, my local P@H doesn't have live food.

 

[Laura.p]

pets@home in Hull needs shutting down and the staff re trained in how not be a thick b*s***d!!!

Just my honest opnion

Ooh I'm from Hull. =)

Which shop are you speaking of, Stoneferry or St Andrews?

 

[mr130gallon]

I guess you could say that our Pets at Home equivelent here in the U.S. would be Petco, or Petsmart. I will never buy fish from either one again, but they have some awesome deals on hardware, plants, food, chemicals, ect. ect.

my equivilent to those stores is Petland, and its the opposite, the fish are pretty great, just has dead fish on the days that the fish get shipped in, but the stress does that, and the hardware, and chemicals are expensive, which sorta sucks lol.

 

[boost]

our local p@h is top notch

 

[K-Holed]

Funny this should come up. I was buying some crickets in my loacal P@H today and overheard two conversations between staff and customers. In one case the memeber of staff was talling the customer that the 14 litre plastic tank they were buying at the same time as the fish, would be fine for 2 fancy goldfish and in the other case a member of staff was non-invasivly enquiring about a customers current stocking levels and setup time etc.

So even within one store, you can't always tar them all with the same brush.

 

[hunter001]

If you think the stores bad complain to there head office, emails on there webpage. I did it with my local one due to the tanks not being in the best state, lots of algae, plenty of dead fish (i dont mind seeing a couple as it does happen) but there was more than a couple. Bettas in with.... tetras if i remember rightly and various other bits. Within 48hours roughly got an email back saying sorry i felt this way etc and it would be reported and sorted out very soon. Sure enough i popped in the next day, there must of been 5 people scrubbing tanks in the fish department. Someone getting rid of all the dead plants in the plant bit, i was amazed. Been in since and although its not "perfect" its much better than it was before. So like i say if your that worried use the energy your wasting telling all of us on here and put it to good use. If you go about it the right way and dont just email them saying there retarded im sure you'll get a great responce.

 

[chesterscot]

i agree with the above
my friend bought two fancy goldfish and when i went to look they where covered in fish lice
i dutifully rang the head office and they told me how to get rid off them....................
she could exchange them or pick them off by hand now thats customer service lol
my point is it depends who takes the call or receives the mail at head office as like there stores customer service is sporadic then again so is BT haha
but this is the same with all big chains customer service can only be taught not enforced 100% of the time
scot

 

[tom130691]

i agree you cant make sweeping statements and my p@h is excellent for livestock just not advice
apparently they have trained staff well maybe some employees have mental blocks regarding good husbandry or they just forget or treat it just as a job and make it up as they go along
as stated before by someone earlier in the thread if i was visited my setups are not perfect at all then again i dont deal with the public
lead by example springs to mind as people new to the hobby will see fish and think oh they live together ill do that........

then they end up here ranting just a thought
regards scot

you could say everyone's set-up is too small as its nowhere near the size of their natural habitat

 

[boost]

i think each store is different and it depends on the staff, i know at ours its the same 3/4 people dealing with the fish, they have there maintance rota pinned to the bagging aera so i had a little nosie the other day, quite amazing the work they put in tbh

 

[Ben M]

pets@home in Hull needs shutting down and the staff re trained in how not be a thick b*s***d!!!

Just my honest opnion

Ooh I'm from Hull. =)

Which shop are you speaking of, Stoneferry or St Andrews?

don't think they mean stoneferry, they have improved loads now. used to be rubbish, but now they are very good.

 

[GrubbyGirl]

Funny this should come up. I was buying some crickets in my loacal P@H today and overheard two conversations between staff and customers. In one case the memeber of staff was talling the customer that the 14 litre plastic tank they were buying at the same time as the fish, would be fine for 2 fancy goldfish

This isn't uncommon for any fish shop, not just pets at home. I have heard some terrible advice given to newbies from dedicated fish shops who also have a good reputation. Just the other day I heard one member of staff in my lfs ask the potential purchaser of an MBU puffer how big his tank was. I was impressed until the purchaser said 200l to which the reply was "that will be fine". I'm afraid if I hear crap advice being given I don't keep quiet, I say something. I presume you said something when you heard that rubbish advice? If you didn't then you're just as culpable, in fact probably more so. Places like pets at home often have part time staff who are not experts, with just one or two people who are more knowledgable. If you hear something bad, you have a moral obligation to say something, don't you think?

My pets at home it great, they don't have anything unusual so I have rarely bought from them, the only criticism I would have of my local store is the fact that they mislable fish sometimes and sometimes they have inappropriate fish together, but the times I have pointed it out they have always doen something about it!

 

[razer121]

man i wish i had a decent pets at home...some staff in there are ok, they do ask about tanks and such and wont let you take a fish if its to cold outside and your not driving was very impressed when i heard this...but there tanks are really bad, parasites and lots of dead fish, fish who shouldnt be together aswell due to overcrowding...but otherwise there alright i guess...the tanks are crystal clear so i cannot fault them there either, i think with my pets at home its down to who is in the shop, there is 1 chap who knows alot about the fish and really treats them well, but when he is not in thats when the problems start as no one else in the store has any idea what the fish are or how to look after them...hm

 

[K-Holed]

I presume you said something when you heard that rubbish advice? If you didn't then you're just as culpable, in fact probably more so. Places like pets at home often have part time staff who are not experts, with just one or two people who are more knowledgable. If you hear something bad, you have a moral obligation to say something, don't you think?

Hmmm ... a fair point in some ways. No I didn't say anything at the time and I don't think it was my place to. It would be wrong of my to undermine a member of their staff infront of a customer (especially after only hearing what was a snippet of a conversation). I guess if I'd been ultra conscientious I might have struck up a conversation with the member of staff afterwards.