A Behind The Scenes Look At Petsmart

All of our angels are young, but decent-sized - the smallest ones are between a quarter and half dollar. Interestingly enough, I've only ever fished out one dead angel. Ours do pretty well, but that might be due to our specific supplier, or perhaps our water is just favorable to these particular fish.

I don't have exact ages on the fish we get in, of course, but I'd say they range from JUST BARELY off of fry food/fry care to mid-sized juveniles, depending on the particular species of fish we're talking about. I do think that shipping fish larger (and fatter) would probably help them acclimate to our water, but I don't think that's the biggest reason for die-off during/just after shipping. It's probably up there in the top 5, but we can definitely find better things to fix, first. Here are a few:

More air in the shipping bags. Right now, it's between 50-75% water, and probably the rest air or maybe pure oxygen. Great, but that's for ALL fish - even if it's a bag with like 4 cichlids. If more care was taken to optimize each bag's air:water ratio, I think you might see less bags of completely dead fish.

Ship smaller numbers to a bag, or at least even it out. It's not uncommon to order 40 red wag platies, and have one bag with 35 of them and another bag with 5 of them - and they're the same size bag. Unsurprisingly, the bag with more fish in it tends to have more dead. If they shipped them in relatively even numbers, we might have more success.

Buy fewer fish, and take better care of the ones we get. Honestly, I know that this is fairly unrealistic for something like Petsmart to do, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while. Petsmart brings in a variety of fish, some of which sell very well, and others of which will sit in tanks for weeks or even months before getting sold. Variety is good from a hobbyist standpoint, but perhaps it's not in the best interest for chain store's profits and for the health of the fish. Here's an example:

Let's say that we order 100 neon tetras, and they all sell out within a week. That's pretty realistic, as they're a super popular fish, and people tend to buy quite a few at a time, especially with proper guidance. Now, in the same order, we might bring in 40 female fancy guppies. Those females will probably sit in that tank for weeks or months. Not because they're lesser fish, but to the kind of fishkeeper that Petsmart will cater to, females are subjectively less desirable. We consistently sell out of male guppies (or have entire shipments die, as certain shipments just do AWFUL for us for some reason, possibly due to coming in brackish/high PH water?), but we're lucky to sell 1-2 females a day. What if we were to stop bringing female guppies, and shift our focus to the fish that are selling well, and making sure they're thriving? Honestly, I'd guess that we lose a notable percentage of the fish we bring in, and I'd also guess that we could GREATLY decrease that number by decreasing the load on our filtration system, educating our Pet Care employees more thoroughly, and decreasing the amount of fish/animals we have to take care of, so it's easier to spot a problem early-on before it wipes out an entire rack of fish. Not that that's something that happens often, but it makes one think. Now, I obviously don't have access to sales records and such, but it's an idea I'll be formulating in my head to see if I can't try and have a serious talk with my manager at some point, because to me (as a relatively uneducated person on the subject), it seems like a win-win. Bring in more fish that are selling better, have less die, and stop having to feed and keep fish that never sell.

This is another pet peeve of mine. All of the females we bring in are tiny. Like, I'd consider a lot of them to be older fry, but not ready to be sold. Their colors aren't finalized, their finnage is short (even for a female), and more often than not, they die much quicker than the older fish. Plus, most people end up not buying them anyway, opting for males or older females who have more color, so why not try to bring in far more males OR try to make a deal with the farm to only send females of a certain age? There's probably a lot more hoops to jump through than I'm imagining, but it could be a fairly rewarding venture for the company.

 

I been wanting to work at a pet-store. I just have a feeling it would be very difficult for me to work at one knowing I may be selling animals to people who really shouldn't be owning animals.

Wish you luck!

 

All of our angels are young, but decent-sized - the smallest ones are between a quarter and half dollar. Interestingly enough, I've only ever fished out one dead angel. Ours do pretty well, but that might be due to our specific supplier, or perhaps our water is just favorable to these particular fish.

I don't have exact ages on the fish we get in, of course, but I'd say they range from JUST BARELY off of fry food/fry care to mid-sized juveniles, depending on the particular species of fish we're talking about. I do think that shipping fish larger (and fatter) would probably help them acclimate to our water, but I don't think that's the biggest reason for die-off during/just after shipping. It's probably up there in the top 5, but we can definitely find better things to fix, first. Here are a few:

More air in the shipping bags. Right now, it's between 50-75% water, and probably the rest air or maybe pure oxygen. Great, but that's for ALL fish - even if it's a bag with like 4 cichlids. If more care was taken to optimize each bag's air:water ratio, I think you might see less bags of completely dead fish.

Ship smaller numbers to a bag, or at least even it out. It's not uncommon to order 40 red wag platies, and have one bag with 35 of them and another bag with 5 of them - and they're the same size bag. Unsurprisingly, the bag with more fish in it tends to have more dead. If they shipped them in relatively even numbers, we might have more success.

Buy fewer fish, and take better care of the ones we get. Honestly, I know that this is fairly unrealistic for something like Petsmart to do, but it's something I've been thinking about for a while. Petsmart brings in a variety of fish, some of which sell very well, and others of which will sit in tanks for weeks or even months before getting sold. Variety is good from a hobbyist standpoint, but perhaps it's not in the best interest for chain store's profits and for the health of the fish. Here's an example:

Let's say that we order 100 neon tetras, and they all sell out within a week. That's pretty realistic, as they're a super popular fish, and people tend to buy quite a few at a time, especially with proper guidance. Now, in the same order, we might bring in 40 female fancy guppies. Those females will probably sit in that tank for weeks or months. Not because they're lesser fish, but to the kind of fishkeeper that Petsmart will cater to, females are subjectively less desirable. We consistently sell out of male guppies (or have entire shipments die, as certain shipments just do AWFUL for us for some reason, possibly due to coming in brackish/high PH water?), but we're lucky to sell 1-2 females a day. What if we were to stop bringing female guppies, and shift our focus to the fish that are selling well, and making sure they're thriving? Honestly, I'd guess that we lose a notable percentage of the fish we bring in, and I'd also guess that we could GREATLY decrease that number by decreasing the load on our filtration system, educating our Pet Care employees more thoroughly, and decreasing the amount of fish/animals we have to take care of, so it's easier to spot a problem early-on before it wipes out an entire rack of fish. Not that that's something that happens often, but it makes one think. Now, I obviously don't have access to sales records and such, but it's an idea I'll be formulating in my head to see if I can't try and have a serious talk with my manager at some point, because to me (as a relatively uneducated person on the subject), it seems like a win-win. Bring in more fish that are selling better, have less die, and stop having to feed and keep fish that never sell.

This is another pet peeve of mine. All of the females we bring in are tiny. Like, I'd consider a lot of them to be older fry, but not ready to be sold. Their colors aren't finalized, their finnage is short (even for a female), and more often than not, they die much quicker than the older fish. Plus, most people end up not buying them anyway, opting for males or older females who have more color, so why not try to bring in far more males OR try to make a deal with the farm to only send females of a certain age? There's probably a lot more hoops to jump through than I'm imagining, but it could be a fairly rewarding venture for the company.

A bit surprising to me the angelfish and the female guppies...
Also, why float them for 30 minutes? Do they not let you do ph acclimation?
Also just wanted to know how the Mandarinfish is?

 

Also, why float them for 30 minutes? Do they not let you do ph acclimation?

Most likely because fish don't actually adjust to PH and hardness within a few hours or days. It takes a few weeks depending on how different the water is.

 

Most likely because fish don't actually adjust to PH and hardness within a few hours or days. It takes a few weeks depending on how different the water is.

Well, you learn something new every day...
Also please help me my PC mouse is dying... The touchpad is giving support...

 

Even if we did decide to drip the fish (which, in freshwater is pretty futile... even saltwater fish are fine with a basic temp acclimation, as long as the SG they're coming from is pretty normal saltwater (1.023-1.027)), there'd still be the problem of it already taking 5-6 hours to get all of the fish into tanks. There's no good way to add fish to the tanks, help customers, allow easy access to tanks AND actually get them a good acclimation. By the time we'd finish, they'd have been in the bags/an uncycled bucket for far too long anyway.

The mandarin is doing okay-ish - I'll update the thread here in an hour or so! Just spent an hour decapsulating brine shrimp for the little bugger

 

Wait, does your petsmart do saltwater fish too?

 

Nope! Just included the saltwater bit as a comparison. The mandarin was mentioned as I "rescued" one from a store who couldn't feed it.

 

Yeah, I was looking around and bizaliz3 had about 100 fry and only 4 survived.

??????
Are you referring to the very beginning of my breeding journal? From years ago? The low survival rate was because I knew nothing about raising newborn angels. That's different...

My survival rate now is well over 90%. Sometimes close to 100%.

Angels can be sensitive to changes in water chemistry. So they should be acclimated properly. As long as that is done and the water quality itself is good, there shouldn't be issues.

If there are a lot of people returning dead angels...its either because the fish keepers added them to a poor environment, or the quality of the fish is bad.

My lack of breeding success at the beginning does not imply angelfish are so weak and sensitive that keeping juveniles alive should be that difficult. I was dealing with newborn angels, not juveniles, and I had zero knowledge on how to raise them. So it's really not a good comparison.

I just want to add...I do feel dime sized angels should NOT be in the stores...but I do feel quarter sized is quite appropriate actually.

 

??????
Are you referring to the very beginning of my breeding journal? From years ago? The low survival rate was because I knew nothing about raising newborn angels. That's different...

My survival rate now is well over 90%. Sometimes close to 100%.

Angels can be sensitive to changes in water chemistry. So they should be acclimated properly. As long as that is done and the water quality itself is good, there shouldn't be issues.

If there are a lot of people returning dead angels...its either because the fish keepers added them to a poor environment, or the quality of the fish is bad.

My lack of breeding success at the beginning does not imply angelfish are so weak and sensitive that keeping juveniles alive should be that difficult. I was dealing with newborn angels, not juveniles, and I had zero knowledge on how to raise them. So it's really not a good comparison.

Oh wow really? Nice to hear that it has gone good! How do you acclimate these and how long?

 

Oh wow really? Nice to hear that it has gone good! How do you acclimate these and how long?

Thanks!!
I drip acclimate. Or sometimes just add my tank water a cup at a time. But I spend about 20 mintues doing it. Then I keep the light off for a while. To let them settle in.

 

Thanks!!
I drip acclimate. Or sometimes just add my tank water a cup at a time. But I spend about 20 mintues doing it. Then I keep the light off for a while. To let them settle in.

Ah I see, does that mean I took to long acclimating my ABF for an hour? I usually do about 30 - 60 minutes of acclimating with cups.

 

Thanks for all the kind words! I'll answer a few questions, and then move onto today's activities.

We do absolutely no QT - when the fish come in (Wednesdays, at my particular store), they're floated for 30 minutes, poured into a net, and released into display tanks. We do dose ALL of the aquariums with some meds, but they're all invert-safe. I'm not sure of the particular cocktail that we use, but I might be able to find out when we get the next shipment in.

When I remove dead fish from tanks at work, or have bought them in the past from Petsmarts, I don't usually find that diseases are a huge problem. I think that most deaths are from poor conditions at the farm, a somewhat stressful environment in the store, and all the stress caused by transportation.

Today was Saturday, which means that the store was pretty busy. Lots of people browsing, asking for help, and asking questions. Because of that, I only got to water change a few bettas today. I got through all of the ones that I didn't get to yesterday, so all of them have been waterchanged in the past day or so. When I was digging pretty far back into the betta cups, I found several that had probably been dead for a week or two - some were just soup in the cups. When my manager saw that, we had a talk, and she basically put me in charge of ensuring that the bettas are getting fed the right amounts and are getting adequate water changes. I'll be feeding them myself, and ensuring that they all get water changes every other day. I plan to probably feed 1-2 small pellets a day for 5 days a week, and to fast them for the other 2 days. We scrubbed down a lot of the tanks - why in the WORLD did Petsmart decide to use blue backgrounds and side for their tanks? Sure, it looks cheery, but every splotch of diatoms that grow stick out like a sore thumb. We had a gerbil fall pretty ill today - I'm not too proud of it, either. There were 3-4 of us in Pet Care all day, and we all failed to notice the ailing gerbil till a customer pointed him out. He probably won't make it through the night. We force-fed him some water and food, and put him into a sick room. In the future, I'll try to be more attentive to that area of the store, as I admit that I never thought about checking that area other than for food and water all day. I really didn't sell a ton of problematic fish today - I steered a couple people away from buying oscars and cichlids for their tanks, and helped a few set up what I think will be successful tanks. One woman came in and wanted to know why her "waterfall filter" was so loud. Basically, she had been running an Aqueon HOB on her 10 gallon with the water level REALLY low. I told her to just fill it up to dampen the trickling noise, but she didn't seem to believe me and wanted a solution right then and there. She ended up buying a Top Fin Internal filter, and I talked her into buying an aquarium siphon to use as well, as it doesn't seem like she's been doing water changes... at all. A family came in and asked to see a Red Eared Slider, and my associate unlocked the enclosure and got one out for them. As she was handing the child the turtle to hold, he lashed out and bit her hand. He didn't break the skin, but it'll definitely bruise. They didn't buy the turtle. Oh, I also had a Tortoise poop on me. That was fun.

Turtle squirt

 

Today was fish shipment day. Got a ton of stuff in - had around 15-20 DOA's, which is about average. Not terrible when you consider we probably brought in 400-500 fish. The biggest lost was an entire bag of male sunset dwarf gourami... all 6 DOA. One was gasping when we got the bag out of the box, but was dead by the time we got to the tank. All in all, it was a decent shipment. Not as many bettas got WC'd as usual due to the extra work caused by the shipment, but I still got through around 15-20 of them, as well as water changing all the new arrivals. We got in some NICE bettas this time... there were some black orchids and dumbos that blew my mind. I ended up taking home a basic blue female crowntail, for one single reason... I dropped her into the Trash Can O' Death by accident! She jumped out of the net when I was water changing her, and ended up in the medicated ammonia slurry below. I took her home, and she'll live out her days in a cycled 10 gallon. Tank only runs at 75, and is inhabited by some rosy red minnows, but I think it'll be a good home for her. So far, she's seeming to enjoy it. I honestly didn't sell a lot fish today - I went through quite a few feeders, a few Glofish, and a few basic community fish, but no sales were really mind-blowing. There was someone who came in and had like 8 fancy goldfish in a 36 bowfront along with some platies and a dwarf frog, and was wanting to add a couple cory cats... I refused that sale, for sure. I spent part of my day in the Sick Room, and ended up having two "experiences" in there... for one, we brought in a koi that's had his bottom jaw bitten off at some point. Do koi lock lips? This guy seems okay, but has a bloodied lip and is completely missing his bottom jaw. We put him into a sick tank and will try our best to adopt him out to a home once he's healed. We also had a guinea pig die today... basically, I was checking all the animals, giving them their medicines, making sure they had food and water, and when I opened his bin, he was laying there, gasping every few seconds. He was in the sick room for a simple infection, and had been healing - even this morning, he was given a clean bill of health, and was probably going out onto the floor to sell pretty soon. If I had to guess, he either had an underlying issue, or it's possible that someone overdosed him this morning on his medicine... BUT, the person who did the sick rooms this morning is one of the most competent people in the store, and was originally going to college to be a Vet. People do make mistakes, but he'd have had to give the poor thing like 50 times the regular dose to kill him, and the syringes we use don't even hold that much liquid.

 

Poor koi....if it is his whole bottom jaw I doubt it will regenerate

 

and is completely missing his bottom jaw.

probably best to euthanize, how is it going to eat?

 

Thanks for all the kind words! I'll answer a few questions, and then move onto today's activities.

snip

As she was handing the child the turtle to hold, he lashed out and bit her hand. He didn't break the skin, but it'll definitely bruise. They didn't buy the turtle. Oh, I also had a Tortoise poop on me. That was fun.

I think this idea is a bad one. For this site and for your employer. And potentially for you. Daily defamation won't last long.

WHY are associates handing turtles to children to "hold"? You guys don't know about salmonella?

 

I agree with both of you on the koi - but no one is sure of the exact extent of the injury. To me, it looks shattered or completely missing. The other fish guy thinks it's broken and just needs time to heal. I guess we'll find out - it's not our decision to euthanize him, anyway.

Who am I slandering here? I'm giving an honest account of working at Petsmart - nothing I've said in this thread is trying to give them a bad reputation. In fact, I'd say I'm doing my best to try and change people's bad view of chain stores, within reason. The entire purpose of this thread is to show people what happens in a chain store - why they might not see they some outward level of "perfection" you might see in a local store, etc. Honestly, I've seen local stores that are way, way worse than what my store is, and if anything, I find it impressive that Petsmart can handle so many animals and maintain a relatively decent reputation with the general public.

We're perfectly aware of salmonella - we might just be employees, but we're not idiots. If a customer is truly interested in buying an animal, we generally allow them to hold/handle that animal to ensure that they aren't terrified of it. The only exceptions are particularly aggressive snakes, and spiders/scorpions, of course. The turtle should have been more carefully handled, I agree, but the risks of holding the animal are explained as soon as they ask to see one. As for Salmonella, there are hand sanitizer dispensers all along the reptile wall, and we always recommend that people wash their hands after holding any animal.

 

I think this idea is a bad one. For this site and for your employer. And potentially for you. Daily defamation won't last long.

WHY are associates handing turtles to children to "hold"? You guys don't know about salmonella?

I respectfully disagree. So far this person has said nothing defamatory. On the contrary, I have a much better opinion of this particular chain as a whole. Sure, not every store is going to have people that care as much as this person but this thread is showing that this store cares about its livestock and is doing everything they can to improve the customer experience and more importantly the animals. I had no idea they had a vet on staff, did you? I also didn't think that betta water was ever changed because there are so many of them but apparently it is. I also didnt know they had training for their staff. I think that's amazing. I've gone into other stores and realized in the first few seconds that I was going to be the one educating the employee instead of the employee telling me what I need to know.

This is nothing more than a "friend" coming home to tell us about their day. The only difference is that this friend happens to be on the internet.

As for the turtle, hands can be washed/sanitized.

 

2) If someone asks a question that I refuse to answer, don't push it. I didn't sign anything that says I can't talk about the details of my job, but if I feel like saying something could put my job at risk, I won't put that out here. I can't imagine something like that ever coming up, but I want to make that clear now rather than later.

While you didn't sign anything I would be careful with this one. Anything written online is public and could come back to haunt you in the future. I've known a few that have posted issues about work on FB and have been given the ultimatum of being fired if they didn't cease. Just something to think about.

 

If the koi is able to eat I would see if it can heal, but if not I would put it down so it doesn't starve to death.

 

Please let us know how the koi does! Here's hoping he heals up

 

Assume that if I ever get told to stop doing this, I'm going to stop. I'm enjoying sharing all of this with you guys, but honestly, my job is truly more important. So if this thread ever simply stops, or if it's suddenly closed/deleted, you guys can probably figure out why. That said, I truly don't see it being an issue - but, if it does, my own security comes first.

The koi is doing fine today. I didn't see if it could eat or not, but it's pecking at the bottom glass and at the decor in the tank. If he's able to eat, we'll keep him around and adopt him out to someone with a pond who can take care of him (preferably without a ton of other koi to compete with). If not, we'll euthanize him to stop him from starving. I think he'll be okay - I'll see if I can get him to eat tomorrow night, after close.

Today was long, but not necessarily bad. I sold some fish, but I actually ended up selling way more hamsters, gerbils, and reptiles. None of those sales were particularly interesting, but I did learn something kinda cool. We sell regular bearded dragons, and "fancy" bearded dragons. The only difference is the coloration and the price tag, if we're being honest. Usually, they're shipped to us in separate containers, and we display them in two separate tanks. However, it seems that any fancy bearded dragon that has a "flaw" is sold as a normal bearded dragon. One that I sold today had all the fancy markings, but seemed to be missing a toe - and he was placed into the regular tank. That's not the first time I've seen this, either. There was one a few days back that was fancy, but had a small scar on his side. He was sold as a normal beardy. The only super interesting fish sale ended up being an angelfish and a 37 gallon tank. A couple came in with their kids, and basically just had me pick out everything for them. They had a lot of questions, a lot interesting insight, and seemed to be very accepting of ideas that most people seem to usually not be a fan of - I.E., taking it slow. They picked up the 37 gallon kit (filter, heater, tank), a bunch of black gravel, some silly decorations for their kids, and a single angel. They were starting from scratch, so I sold them a bottle of Stability as well as some Prime to help with ammonia. Hopefully they'll follow my advice and do water changes pretty often, but I guess time will tell. They said they'd be back in a week to pick up a school of neons, and will pick up another schooling fish and a few snails a week or two after that. I spent over an hour talking to them, and am hoping they're as successful as they seemed to want to be. Oh, and yesterday's shipment came out pretty good, overall. The male guppies, again, didn't do too well, and we only got four of them. But death rates are pretty low for this particular shipment, and I actually only saw 4 dead fish the entire day. I'm sure there might have been a couple I couldn't find, despite moving around the decor, but I'd call 4 fish in a day pretty good, considering it's the day after a shipment coming in. No dead bettas, today, either!

I do want to take an opportunity to say this, to whoever might be upset about how I'm doing this: I'm doing this knowingly - I understand the risks, and I am perfectly willing to stop the moment that something isn't right. I don't think I can change Petsmart policy as a whole, and that's not necessarily my goal. I'm trying to let people on here give me advice on how to improve, I'm trying to let people know that some of us are pretty well-versed with the animals that we sell, and I'm trying to let people know that accidents do happen. I'm not trying to hide that. Just today, while doing a water change on a betta, he hopped out of my net and hit the floor. He seemed okay, but he could be dead from the fall tomorrow morning. But it was just that - an accident. I was being careful, and that's the first time I've had a betta jump out of such a deep net. The guinea pig that I told you guys about last night? Yeah, he was gone this morning. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't human error somewhere in there - maybe someone gave him too much medicine, or maybe the vet missed something. No one knows, and we'll probably never find out. But again, accidents happen. In this job, sometimes accidents mean things dying, and of course we don't want that. We do our best to ensure that these things DON'T happen. But sometimes our best isn't enough. We're human, after all, and while that doesn't excuse our mistakes, it should be a good enough explanation, as long as people are doing their best to not let those things happen again.

All that said, I do want to hear constructive negative criticism as well. If you disagree with a stocking recommendation, a decision I make, or something I say on here, let me know. If you make a good point, more than likely I'll do my best to correct myself in the future or explain why what you're asking of me isn't quite feasible. But even then, it's always possible that we can find a middle-ground. I'm trying to improve myself, both at my job and as a hobbyist.

 

The past couple of days have been super busy.

Friday was pretty terrible - I got stuck in Pet Care by myself, was super busy, and basically ended up just getting overwhelmed by the amount of people that were there. It was a pretty poor decision to leave me back there by myself on the busiest night of the week, but we got through it without anything terrible happening. If I had any cool stories from this day, I'd tell them, but honestly, I was too busy to make note of many things. Almost no bettas got water changed on that day.

Saturday was our reptile expo - which was cool, but made for another very busy day. We had several large reptiles in the store, and sold quite a few animals - a Banana Ball Python, a bunch of Bearded Dragons, and of course, tons of fish. We basically sold our entire stock of popular fish, and only have the less popular semi-aggressive/aggressive and larger community fish in stock. I got to change all the betta water that day, but just barely. We ended up losing 4-5 fish where I didn't have time to change it the day before. Funny how just one day can mean the difference between losing 1-2 and 4-5.

Today was another busy day, but nothing like the past two. I spent a fair amount of time helping people set up a tank for a Bearded Dragon, which was fun. I probably talked to them for over an hour in total. A lady came in and was flipping her lid over some Guinea Pigs not having water - I walked over there to check it out, as I had just checked their water an hour or so earlier, and whaddya know. It was half full. There were 3-4 of them crowded around it, all trying to get to it, but they most definitely had water, and were "taking turns". Normally I wouldn't have minded fixing the issue. I understand that people get concerned over that kind of thing... but they had enough water to last them through the day, and when people come in and exaggerate problems like this, it's the associate (the regular workers) who get shafted. On a less busy day, cool, whatever. Today, it got us all a speech and disrupted the flow of the entire section. When you hear people who work in pet stores complain about this sort of thing, most of the time we're not trying to be unreasonable - it's just that there are SO MANY other things that are SO MUCH higher up on our list of priorities, and while we always appreciate you letting us know when one of our animals are needing something (food or water, whatever it is), when you go up to a manager and start talking about how terrible the store is and how we need to do our jobs better, all you're doing is making the experience worse for everyone. Assuming there's no real problem... if there is one, go for it. But exaggeration helps no one.

Bah, sorry. This is why I haven't posted the past few days. I'm frustrated, tired, and am having trouble keeping my viewpoint reasonable. None of this is a huge deal, I guess, it's just sorta hard to explain. Do I want animals to have to be pushing each other to get to their water bottle? Of course not. But when I have a line of 6 people I have to get through, dead fish I need to get out of the tanks, bettas I need to water change, a list of things I need to get done throughout the day, people asking me questions left and right, and people are demanding that I get over to the guinea pigs IMMEDIATELY to add a second water bottle to the enclosure (when they already have enough water to do them for the day), and a manager that pulls me aside to tell me I need to be watching things more closely, maybe you guys can see why I'm feeling the way I am.

 

I wonder why they were all at it at once? Makes me wonder if the ball bearing was stuck or something.

 

I don't think so - when I shooed the guinea pigs away and took it out, I got some water on my hands from it. If I had to guess, it was because they had all gotten brought out onto the show floor this morning from the new arrivals room, so they had been hiding in the huts for a few hours and none had adventured out until around 2-3 o'clock. That's just a guess, though.

 

The past couple of days have been super busy.

Friday was pretty terrible - I got stuck in Pet Care by myself, was super busy, and basically ended up just getting overwhelmed by the amount of people that were there. It was a pretty poor decision to leave me back there by myself on the busiest night of the week, but we got through it without anything terrible happening. If I had any cool stories from this day, I'd tell them, but honestly, I was too busy to make note of many things. Almost no bettas got water changed on that day.

Saturday was our reptile expo - which was cool, but made for another very busy day. We had several large reptiles in the store, and sold quite a few animals - a Banana Ball Python, a bunch of Bearded Dragons, and of course, tons of fish. We basically sold our entire stock of popular fish, and only have the less popular semi-aggressive/aggressive and larger community fish in stock. I got to change all the betta water that day, but just barely. We ended up losing 4-5 fish where I didn't have time to change it the day before. Funny how just one day can mean the difference between losing 1-2 and 4-5.

Today was another busy day, but nothing like the past two. I spent a fair amount of time helping people set up a tank for a Bearded Dragon, which was fun. I probably talked to them for over an hour in total. A lady came in and was flipping her lid over some Guinea Pigs not having water - I walked over there to check it out, as I had just checked their water an hour or so earlier, and whaddya know. It was half full. There were 3-4 of them crowded around it, all trying to get to it, but they most definitely had water, and were "taking turns". Normally I wouldn't have minded fixing the issue. I understand that people get concerned over that kind of thing... but they had enough water to last them through the day, and when people come in and exaggerate problems like this, it's the associate (the regular workers) who get shafted. On a less busy day, cool, whatever. Today, it got us all a speech and disrupted the flow of the entire section. When you hear people who work in pet stores complain about this sort of thing, most of the time we're not trying to be unreasonable - it's just that there are SO MANY other things that are SO MUCH higher up on our list of priorities, and while we always appreciate you letting us know when one of our animals are needing something (food or water, whatever it is), when you go up to a manager and start talking about how terrible the store is and how we need to do our jobs better, all you're doing is making the experience worse for everyone. Assuming there's no real problem... if there is one, go for it. But exaggeration helps no one.

Bah, sorry. This is why I haven't posted the past few days. I'm frustrated, tired, and am having trouble keeping my viewpoint reasonable. None of this is a huge deal, I guess, it's just sorta hard to explain. Do I want animals to have to be pushing each other to get to their water bottle? Of course not. But when I have a line of 6 people I have to get through, dead fish I need to get out of the tanks, bettas I need to water change, a list of things I need to get done throughout the day, people asking me questions left and right, and people are demanding that I get over to the guinea pigs IMMEDIATELY to add a second water bottle to the enclosure (when they already have enough water to do them for the day), and a manager that pulls me aside to tell me I need to be watching things more closely, maybe you guys can see why I'm feeling the way I am.

I once walked into a PetSmart and noticed a hamster was visibly dehydrated and was desperately trying to get water from the bottle. It was clear that there was no water coming (as water passes out the bottle air passes in so you can see an air bubble rise into the bottle) he had been at it for 15 minutes trying to get water so we called an employee to fix it. He probably wasn’t from the hamster dept since he didn’t seem to think there was a problem but to rest my concern he took out the bottle and tilted it. Immediately air bubbles rushed into it so whatever pressure was preventing water from coming through had been released. When he placed the bottle back it was clear from the hamsters immediate behavior change he was getting water.

Animals not being able to get water due to taking turns is perfectly fine, there’s not much you can do when you have an entire shipment of multiple Guinea pigs and only 1 place for them. Unless the animal is dehydrated, where health of the animal is at risk, then that’s a problem. By making sure animals have water on the daily you’re doing your job; people can’t expect miracles at a Petsmart.

 

Sorry I haven't been keeping this updated - I've been busy.

I spent about an hour talking to some people about Red Claw Crabs and how to set up the tank and care for them. It was fun - that's a tank that we rarely sell anything out of, especially once we tell the customer that they're brackish crabs. I need to find a place for one of them - they're cool animals. We got in some very small (1") Jack Dempseys and had to separate them out from the parrots and convicts, because they were getting chased so much. No damage done, but it was pretty insane. We can't keep fancy goldfish in stock, and the biggest problem we're having isn't that people are buying them - it's that they're buying them, killing them, and then coming back for a refund. We have a 14 day guarantee on our fish - bring the body and receipt to the store, and we'll either give you money back or replace the fish. That's great, but the same few people are repeatedly coming back for these poor fish. We've begun turning some away, and asked for water samples - which we never receive. Here's a fantastic example of the bind that stores are put into when trying to provide the best care for their animals: We see that someone is obviously not taking care of their animals, and we see that any advice we're giving to them is being completely and totally ignored. We can refuse sale, sure; but most of the people we have to refuse sale to are the people that like to make big ruckuses. Bad reviews, taking to social media, throwing a fit in the store, etc... We can't have that, for obvious reasons. Most of you guys would know that if someone is complaining about not being able to buy fish, it's probably for a reason. A higher-up supervisor or an average customer might not understand that. Things are never as easy as they appear, right?

I've decided that I really, really, really want a chinchilla. I mean, not really - I'm not going to buy one. But there are two in the store right now, and one's pretty skittish, but the other is almost like a dog. Very curious, very bold, and very active. Very intelligent, too. I don't have the time to care for one (and I feel as if most people don't), but they're awesome. They'd be great for someone who's disabled/getting older and has a lot of time on their hands, want's company, but doesn't want a dog or a cat. They stink like all rodents, but it's not nearly as bad, IMO.

Oh, and the sick koi is alive! I did a water change on his tank today. He's eating, but he definitely couldn't compete with other koi. I'm hoping to find someone that has a smaller pond that would be fine with just the one fish to take him in and take care of him.

 

This is awesome that you are posting this! I think it’s super interesting and have often wonder about some of this stuff. I must say that I will be sourly disappointed if this thread gets closed. Thanks for putting this content up here!

 

Try putting some crushed up koi food right in its mouth, in other words hand feed it. That way it only has to swallow.

 

Fisker , keep up the good work, both at continuing with the posts and the work you're doing at the store.

 

Fisker How're things going? We all miss your thread updates!

 

Oof, sorry guys! It's been an incredibly busy few weeks. Sorry for the lack of updates!

Basically, I'm in the middle of starting college and dealing with adjusting to some new stuff at work, and it's been quite a bit to keep with. I'm all good, just don't have a ton of extra time to be on a forum!

All that said, I guess all I've got to say today (well, I've got a lot to say, I'm just too tired to say it) is that my Petsmart got a first today - fancy shrimp. Never had them in before. By "fancy shrimp", I'm talking a mix of neocardinia. Cherry shrimp, Snowballs, Midnight Blues, and Gold-backed. Pretty cool, and we're charging $4.99 a piece - high for the cherries, I know, but for some of the other varieties, it's a steal. Didn't have a single one die during acclimation, either... although, I'll see how many are left on Saturday, the next day I work. Needless to say, they're an animal we can easily refuse sale with. The manager gave us full permission to deny sale to anyone who seems less-than informed, or not willing to learn how to care for them.

I just had to take some home, so I picked up a 0.5 gallon glass tank (Top Fin "Calm" tank), a piece of bamboo (I've always wanted to try it), a few torn up mossballs, some dying Cardinalis, a few chunks of Anacharis, a piece of driftwood, and 3 cherry shrimp. Pretty sure I picked out 1 male and 2 females, but I'm not 100% sure. That said, I'm not necessarily looking for a ton of breeding anyway... it's a tiny tank, and while I'd love to eventually have a massive shrimp-only tank, that's in the future.

The driftwood was over-priced and isn't waterlogged, but it has a lot of character, fits the tank, and I really like it. I've got it soaking in some water now, and I'll add it in as soon as it sinks. So, the tank you're seeing is basically unfinished, but I'm already enjoying it, if for no other reason than knowing that Petsmart is selling some seemingly healthy shrimp. I might eventually add my pom-pom crab into here, if I ever upgrade into a slightly large tank, which is a strong possibility once I move out on my own.

Oh, and I've started forming relationships with a lot of customers who come in, which mean I've gotten quite a few fish dumped in my lap... I currently have 8 rosy red minnows, 3 guppies, 2 endlers, a female betta, 9 ghost shrimp, a bamboo shrimp, and a pom-pom crab shoved into a 10 gallon tank. It's INSANE! I'll be rehoming these guys as I find people willing to take them... I'm probably going to end up just acclimating the guppies and maybe the endlers to saltwater so I can add them to another tank, and that solves most of the problem. The Rosy Reds are definitely staying, and so is the betta - I only brought her home because I dropped her into the bucket of dead fish by accident while I was changing her water, and I felt bad. I'm strongly considering just directing people towards a shop in town when they need to get rid of fish, because I'm FULL.

Anyway, I'm already really enjoying this little shrimp tank. People never realize how much can be done with these guys, because they're so tiny and so hard to see in stores. Once you get them home into a smaller tank where they can thrive, I find them to be just as interesting as most fish.

 

Looks good and those moss balls have really helped you . Lots of stuff for them for the shrimp to eat. Some info on shrimp they really need an established tank to starting. They eat algae and micro-film. So an established tank is needed. Also if you can get a small sponge filter for the tank that would be great. As the sponge collects waste the shrimp will start eating off it. Good luck.

 

I appreciate the advice!

The sand was well-established - taken from a tank that's been up for about a year. The moss ball sat our feeder tank for about a year as well. The rest of the plants were all in a tank for between a couple weeks and a couple months, so there's probably at least some build up of biofilm and such for the shrimp.

As for the filter, in tanks like this, I tend to avoid them. They're certainly not harmful, just not needed IMO, and not what I'm going for with this tank. I've kept a few small tanks like this with shrimp before, so I think these guys will do well. Regardless, I'll keep an eye on water parameters and will a feed a bit the day before water changes.