Felt sorry and sad for fishys at petco

Stopped by a Petco today to get turtle pellets. While there thought I would browse the fish tanks been looking for a few more leopard cories and couple of Glofish Tetras I don't have yet. Thought I would see if they had ones I was looking for. First thing I noticed was how inactive all the fish in the tanks where. They did not swim around and look happy like the fish in my tanks or like some of the mom and pop stores across the river. The fish just hovered there floating. I found a tank with leopard cories they had them labeled as Julie cories (they where leopards) most of them was just sitting on bottom and a couple looked dead. Now cories will lay about when resting but they are some of their most active fish swimming around like crazy. I tapped on tank (Yes I know not to do this) was wanting to see them move to evaluate them turns out 3 of them that was laying oddly where dead. I noticed in far corner a Cory half eaten being pecked on by another Cory. That's 4 dead fish in one tank. I felt sorry for the fish and was tempted to get all the live ones just to try and save them, but I don't have a quarantine tank to keep my other fish safe. As I looked around I noticed other tanks had some dead fish also that have been in tanks for awhile these fish just didn't recently die. Needless to say I was disappointed in the conditions they where keeping the fish in and it bothered me to see all the unhappy little guys. My fish got some extra treats when I got home like to see them swimming happily . Even the colors of all the fish where dull and lacking. Not sure if I complained to corporate if it would do any good consider corporate dictates employee hours available and obviously they either don't give store enough hours to maintain fish or management does a poor job keeping an eye on employees that are supposed to maintain the fish. If I would have thought about it at time could have photographed tanks and sent them to corporate was feeling sorry for fish and didn't think about using phone at the time. I know not all petco's are like this got 2 Glofish from another store and there tanks did not look like this.

 

Can you contact an animal welfare organization and make your complaints? I think someone needs to do an inspection. Chances are it's not only the fish that are poorly cared for I'm afraid

 

Can you contact an animal welfare organization and make your complaints? I think someone needs to do an inspection. Chances are it's not only the fish that are poorly cared for I'm afraid

that's a good idea. I know on weekends this rescue center brings cats and dogs in surprised that none of those people have noticed conditions of fish and done something. This isn't the first time I seen these fish in bad shape. About 4 months ago they had a good portition of tanks under watch and not selling out of those tanks. My wife stopped in there looking for tiger barbs for daughter a couple of months ago and she said fish didnt look good so she got them from mom and pop store. so this is an ongoing problem at this store.

 

Maybe they're not really experienced enough with aquatic pets to know what the signs of distress are. Obvious though it may seem.

 

HI there. dirtmidget33 We appreciate you sharing this story and we'd like to follow up with you. Could you please send us an e-mail and the store location you visited so that our team may look further into this? Animal concern is always our top priority and we'd like to be sure that this is addressed.

Please send the email to this address:

Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you.

 

As horrible as that is, it's quite common in most big chain pet stores around here, including Walmart, which isn't even a pet store and should NOT be selling ANY live animals.

Sadly, even if that Petco was cleaned up, there would still be so many stores that let their fish suffer and die. Many of the employees seem to either not care or don't know any better, meaning that while they still get their pay, the poor fish have to pay the price of improper care and just outright neglect.

I'm happy to say though, that not all pet stores and employees are this way. I've actually met some really knowledgeable employees before, one of them even working at Petsmart!

So yeah, just depends on the pet store, but it's always tragic and sad nonetheless.

 

At the PetCo near me, in the filters there are tons of dead fish.

 

That's awful!