WWYD with a PetCo betta?

[mrsjoannh13]

Soooo... my attempt at buying a rare betta from a breeder of eBay failed miserably. Or actually USPS failed miserably. Unfortunately my pineapple betta spent 6 days in transit and was DOA. Sigh. Poor little pineapple.

I'm now a bit leery of buying from another breeder and trusting the shipping process. Or maybe just trusting USPS. At any rate, the PetCo in my area is actually pretty decent in terms of knowledgeable employees and decent looking fish. They also have tons of bettas. I've never seen one there dead (unlike my area PetSmart which is a train wreck, but I digress). The employees change out the betta water daily and I've always been impressed by the selection of bettas and how (outwardly) healthy they seem. So I'm considering getting a betta from PetCo this weekend. I know there is a school of thought that believes we shouldn't buy bettas from PetCo because it supports keeping them in tiny cups. I get that. But I also don't want to support another betta basically cooking to death for 6 days in a small baggie. So there's also that.

Getting to my point.... I do have a 10 gallon quarantine tank all set up and ready to go. If you were in my shoes and got your betta from PetCo, what would you do for it in the quarantine tank? Would you leave it be and just observe for 4 - 6 weeks before putting in the display tank? Proactively dose aquarium salt and keep the temp at 86? Go a step further and hit it up with API General Cure? Or do full blown trio of meds (ala Corey from Aquarium Co-op)?

Sorry for the long and rambling post. It's late, I'm tired, and I'm so sad and disappointed about my poor little pineapple betta. Thanks.

 

[Crunchycrouton]

Honestly, I have a very good Petco and I get my bettas from there. I say put them in the quarantine tank and leave it for a week. I've never had a problem.

 

[eatyourpeas]

I understand your concern and am sorry the little pineapple did not make it. If I were in your shoes I would:

- Not order fish online. Regardless of shipping companies best intentions, if you look at the delays caused by weather all over the country, the signs are your parcel will not arrive on time. Not worth risking a little critter’s life hoping for the best.

- If I have a quarantine tank, then I will put the fish in there and observe but not medicate unless necessary. They go through enough stress that if they can bounce into a healthy life in the care of a wonderful owner, they’ll probably do it on their own. If there are signs of parasites, then I can treat accordingly.

- If I see a fish who I connect with (never saw myself having a Betta, but this guy was so sad and kept staring at me at the LFS), by all means I will take it home and give it a better life if possible.

Follow your heart and do not get too caught up with pedigree or label. I have heard good and bad stories about big stores but at the end of the day, it is about a little fish who wants to go home with you.

 

[Circus]

I only ever had 1 sick betta (out of 8) and that was fin rot. It was around the beginning of pandemic shutdowns and the store was telling the employees to do bare minimum for care, and he was the last fish in the entire store. They usually change the water out every day.

 

[OliveFish05]

I don't have much experience with bettas, but I wanted to say I'm so sorry about your pineapple betta, that would be so sad and disappointing

 

[Utar]

I bought Max a few months ago from the Petsmart nearest me. The water in the cups was so murky I could barely see the Bettas. Max was the most expensive of all of the Bettas there that day because he is a double tail butterfly betta. So I was taking a chance since the water looked so bad. But he is loving his new home a 29 gallon with only a snail to keep him company.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

I understand your concern and am sorry the little pineapple did not make it. If I were in your shoes I would:

- Not order fish online. Regardless of shipping companies best intentions, if you look at the delays caused by weather all over the country, the signs are your parcel will not arrive on time. Not worth risking a little critter’s life hoping for the best.

- If I have a quarantine tank, then I will put the fish in there and observe but not medicate unless necessary. They go through enough stress that if they can bounce into a healthy life in the care of a wonderful owner, they’ll probably do it on their own. If there are signs of parasites, then I can treat accordingly.

- If I see a fish who I connect with (never saw myself having a Betta, but this guy was so sad and kept staring at me at the LFS), by all means I will take it home and give it a better life if possible.

Follow your heart and do not get too caught up with pedigree or label. I have heard good and bad stories about big stores but at the end of the day, it is about a little fish who wants to go home with you.

I had a wonderful experience getting my corys online. It was a larger company with a good reputation as an online shop. They shipped out one night and I had the corys by 9:30 am the next morning. I was very pleased. They are all still happy and healthy. But they guaranteed the overnight delivery. From now on I'll know better than to trust anything other than guaranteed overnight as a reliable option.

Unfortunately my LFS's do not have bettas. We have really decent shop to speak of. I went in there the other day and I'd say 30 - 40% of the bettas were dead in their containers. I've seen some good looking ones at PetCo and they have a lot of variety. Hard to believe PetCo wins out over my LFS but in this case, they do.

Thank you!

 

[mrsjoannh13]

I only ever had 1 sick betta (out of 8) and that was fin rot. It was around the beginning of pandemic shutdowns and the store was telling the employees to do bare minimum for care, and he was the last fish in the entire store. They usually change the water out every day.

I have been in PetCo a few times and seen them changing out the water each morning. I have 3 glofish tetras from PetCo in my daughter's tank and all 3 of them are doing fine. I bought the other the tetras from my LFS and 2 out of 3 of those died. So go figure.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

I don't have much experience with bettas, but I wanted to say I'm so sorry about your pineapple betta, that would be so sad and disappointing

Thank you. It really was a bummer.

 

[mrsjoannh13]

I bought Max a few months ago from the Petsmart nearest me. The water in the cups was so murky I could barely see the Bettas. Max was the most expensive of all of the Bettas there that day because he is a double tail butterfly betta. So I was taking a chance since the water looked so bad. But he is loving his new home a 29 gallon with only a snail to keep him company.

I enjoy seeing pictures and hearing your stories about Max. He's a luckily little guy.

 

[Circus]

I have been in PetCo a few times and seen them changing out the water each morning. I have 3 glofish tetras from PetCo in my daughter's tank and all 3 of them are doing fine. I bought the other the tetras from my LFS and 2 out of 3 of those died. So go figure.

I have noticed that the glofish from my lfs always look a little off and skinnier than the ones at petco. Maybe because at the lfs there is ONLY a blue light, whereas at petco they get plenty of light from the main store. I also have a glofish betta, who is one of my faves. They have orange ones now too...

 

[OliveFish05]

My LFS offers a three day guarantee on “all” fish over $3, but the Glofish, for some reason, are the only fish that the guarantee doesn’t apply to. It is odd

My sister and I got our betta, Kiana, (It’s my sisters betta, but she lives in my 10 gallon guppy’s tank, so I pretend it’s my betta too) from the PetCo near us. She is very healthy, and her colors are incredible after we had her for a while. It sounds like you have a really neat Petco near you!

 

[Utar]

I enjoy seeing pictures and hearing your stories about Max. He's a luckily little guy.

Thank You, Here is the link to a thread I have about Max, it is an old thread now, and he had grown a bit since then....Max the Betta