What Do You Do In the Store When...

If only my other half took me seriously. She'd rather take the advice of an employee over listening to me, who's done the research. (Neons with betta, a light that produces 5-8 PAR for plants that are expected to grow, better filter, etc)

Sounds like my husband. He'll take the advice of anyone who looks like they would know what they are talking about (store employees is one example) before he listens to what I say. Fortunately, he is slowly learning that when it comes to pets I tend to research tons before we get them.

 

one thing that's interesting, why don't pet stores have go to source for fish keepers when they buy fish? Like in case they have questions later on? maybe a business card to a website. ( fishlore ) or somewhere like that..

I work for a Petco with our fish department as one of the biggest in its district.

But unfortunately we can't even give out business cards, just ours mostly. Petco (in most stores at least) encourages to even hire people who barely know the hobby or nothing at all! Petco is suppose to "train us", but that training is mostly computer training that will teach the bare basics, selling skills, and equipment. I'm new to fishkeeping, and my job certainly hasn't trained me anything about fish or how to take care of them! I mostly learned on my own (I'm one of the few people in our store or who actually care about our animals) from this site and others. My coworkers actually say I have a big tank for a betta! I only have a 5.5g and I think it's still too small for any full grown fish. They justify the small bowls, and tiny bags the Bettas are shipped to us because of the betta's natural environment. Though our Bettas slowly rot away in their little bowls while getting fed once a week. No body really checks up on them honestly, at least I haven't seen anyone else check up on them.

One incident we had on our store was that our Koi got ick some how. Instead of putting appropriate medication or aquarium salt, my manager said we did not have the necessary products to properly treat it. My general manager just told me that the ammonia was so high that their scales were just burning off =_= My fish aquatics "specialist" didn't even know what ick was when I asked if the koi had ick..

I work at Petco and I get a discount, but once I leave this company I wouldn't support it or another big chain pet store honestly. The way they "train" us, treat ALL of our animals, (our manager didn't cut our ferrets' nails for like 3 weeks and one of our ferrets ripped out one of her nails) and the way the store just operates for their employees is terrible and stressful.

I'm also a dog trainer, trained by Petco, and we have extreme limited training policies. I'm not allowed to give out business cards to local trainers/behaviorists either..

 

This is why I'm hesitant to apply for a job at petco/smart.

I have the know-how to easily be a great employee but I'm not sure I can deal with being around all that ignorance. Also not sure how they'd appreciate it if I was honest with all the customers and drove away people that could've been duped into getting a 1 gallon and a Betta or a 5 gallon and a bristlenose Pleco and corydoras.

 

I'd apply to non chain stores/local. I'm sure they'd appreciate much more insight for their customers over the yearly gross

 

This is why I'm hesitant to apply for a job at petco/smart.

I have the know-how to easily be a great employee but I'm not sure I can deal with being around all that ignorance. Also not sure how they'd appreciate it if I was honest with all the customers and drove away people that could've been duped into getting a 1 gallon and a Betta or a 5 gallon and a bristlenose Pleco and corydoras.

I would honestly scout nearby Petco/Smart and see how educated the employees are actually. It really depends on location. My location is in one of the biggest retirement spots in the states and also one of the rudest! I would talk to the GM and try to have a steady conversation with them. The store is only as good as their GM! Though I would really recommend applying to a non-chain, small pet store. It'll save you some hardships.

Other than it would look good on your resume as an introductory into different animals and retail business in general. I would check out other smaller stores first. The smaller stores that aren't nationwide are the best imo. But working with ignorance is killing me. I feel like crying when I see our fish with Algae covering the tanks more often than not, Bettas having swollen Gils, and unable to swim right.

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

I work for a Petco with our fish department as one of the biggest in its district.

But unfortunately we can't even give out business cards, just ours mostly. Petco (in most stores at least) encourages to even hire people who barely know the hobby or nothing at all! Petco is suppose to "train us", but that training is mostly computer training that will teach the bare basics, selling skills, and equipment. I'm new to fishkeeping, and my job certainly hasn't trained me anything about fish or how to take care of them! I mostly learned on my own (I'm one of the few people in our store or who actually care about our animals) from this site and others. My coworkers actually say I have a big tank for a betta! I only have a 5.5g and I think it's still too small for any full grown fish. They justify the small bowls, and tiny bags the Bettas are shipped to us because of the betta's natural environment. Though our Bettas slowly rot away in their little bowls while getting fed once a week. No body really checks up on them honestly, at least I haven't seen anyone else check up on them.

One incident we had on our store was that our Koi got ick some how. Instead of putting appropriate medication or aquarium salt, my manager said we did not have the necessary products to properly treat it. My general manager just told me that the ammonia was so high that their scales were just burning off =_= My fish aquatics "specialist" didn't even know what ick was when I asked if the koi had ick..

I work at Petco and I get a discount, but once I leave this company I wouldn't support it or another big chain pet store honestly. The way they "train" us, treat ALL of our animals, (our manager didn't cut our ferrets' nails for like 3 weeks and one of our ferrets ripped out one of her nails) and the way the store just operates for their employees is terrible and stressful.

I'm also a dog trainer, trained by Petco, and we have extreme limited training policies. I'm not allowed to give out business cards to local trainers/behaviorists either..

I just want to go on record to say that that sounds like a horrid store, and it is NOT a representation of the entire company.
Those kind of problems absolutely warrant a call to your District Leader or Regional Animal Care and Education Leader. Or both. Immediately. Their info should be in your break room. Write down instances, dates, names, anything that will back you up. Our new VP especially would be horrified.
Be the change you want to see happen.

 

I just want to go on record to say that that sounds like a horrid store, and it is NOT a representation of the entire company.
Those kind of problems absolutely warrant a call to your District Leader or Regional Animal Care and Education Leader. Or both. Immediately. Their info should be in your break room. Write down instances, dates, names, anything that will back you up. Our new VP especially would be horrified.
Be the change you want to see happen.

Let me ask you what should be done about this situation Kwig. I've pointed out to my local Petco that Columnaris in their system and it needs to be treated. One of the people pulled out their blue book on what to use for treatment and they can only use Medifix, permafix, and one other product that is all natural. Problem is it's in the advance stages where they are suffering heavy fish losses and unfortunately I've also brought it home to a healthy tank and now have suffered 5 fish losses. I go in on shipment day and notice it's their new stock that has it as well, so it has come in on new stock and the warehouse or where ever the fish are coming from is coming in with it. How can I help my local Petco save their tanks? I'm close to taking my business else where, but this is the closest place I can buy from right now.

 

This topic has been heavily discussed on the forum. Change is difficult due to employee turn over rates in retail. Most merchandise (including live animals) are insurable, any loss is just claimed or added as loss come tax time.

I love the critters but as mentioned, a stores focus is to sell product. How you decide to use or care for it at home is up to you

 

Let me ask you what should be done about this situation Kwig. I've pointed out to my local Petco that Columnaris in their system and it needs to be treated. One of the people pulled out their blue book on what to use for treatment and they can only use Medifix, permafix, and one other product that is all natural. Problem is it's in the advance stages where they are suffering heavy fish losses and unfortunately I've also brought it home to a healthy tank and now have suffered 5 fish losses. I go in on shipment day and notice it's their new stock that has it as well, so it has come in on new stock and the warehouse or where ever the fish are coming from is coming in with it. How can I help my local Petco save their tanks? I'm close to taking my business else where, but this is the closest place I can buy from right now.

That's a tough one. The only products we're allowed to use are approved by two veterinarians. Using anything strong enough that is risky and there's a high margin for error on an undertrained employee. That's where we would need to consult our RACEL, DL, and probably the local vet. The RACEL can approve alternate treatment with vet instructions. Large aquatics systems are very hard to keep healthy.
Start by sending a very detailed email to the customer service team who will direct it to the proper channels. Include any practical treatment options you can think of, with links to articles. Like this one:

They should do a few necropsies to identify which strain it is. The scary factors are that they'll likely need to treat the whole system which is going to wreck their biofilter. Also trying to work in the extra water changes is nearly impossible as they are trying to cut back hours every way possible. We also need to know what their pH is to figure out which meds would be most effective. It's so time consuming and costly that I don't have a clue if they will even be able to make a good decision.
How many tanks are infected?

 

Something like 12 to 15 tanks on one system. I can tell you their pH is 8.0 which is not approved by Petco, and their blue book says it has to be between 6.8 and 7.2. 8.0 is what our water runs at, but they face the same issue as me with low kh. If they try to drop it, it can crash and burn. I warned them that and explained what they would have to do to maintain their kh, and it's not Petco approved either. So they are in a catch 22 when it comes to their pH issue.

As for the strain, it shows up as mouth and fin rot. It's especially shows up on the live bearers, but I've seen it also on the tetras and other fish on the same system. I asked if they can use Kanaplex, and they said no.

Does this help?

 

Have you contacted anyone higher up on the issue?

 

Something like 12 to 15 tanks on one system. I can tell you their pH is 8.0 which is not approved by Petco, and their blue book says it has to be between 6.8 and 7.2. 8.0 is what our water runs at, but they face the same issue as me with low kh. If they try to drop it, it can crash and burn. I warned them that and explained what they would have to do to maintain their kh, and it's not Petco approved either. So they are in a catch 22 when it comes to their pH issue.

As for the strain, it shows up as mouth and fin rot. It's especially shows up on the live bearers, but I've seen it also on the tetras and other fish on the same system. I asked if they can use Kanaplex, and they said no.

Does this help?

I wonder how old that book is. We've got an ideal range pH but if it's higher or lower stability is the most important thing.
Even the meds don't sound familiar.

I'm not well enough versed to diagnose most illnesses. But I can almost assure you the water change schedule wasn't being followed and the deceased fish not pulled in a timely manner for a long period of time for that to happen. Sadly, some of that is corporate levels fault as they don't give us enough time at my store to do every tank weekly. We have to sneak them in every free minute we have since we no longer get preopening shifts to do them. It's hectic. But you have to have a team that fights to do the best they can. Dead pulls are the easiest way to protect disease spread and water quality issues for us. The fact that it's isolated to one sump helps. I'd send everything in our convo to customer service via email so no details can get lost. And then keep nagging them until you get results. They may just need to quit ordering fish for that stack for 6 weeks. That alone would fix the problem. But they'd lose their cycle. If it's a marine land system we can buy new preseeded biowheels but theyre about $250 a piece.

 

I'll do that Kwig. Hopefully they will get more help, or someone will pull their head out and get this fixed. I do know dead fish can be stuck to the filter for awhile because it seems this store is majorly understaffed. I was in there Sat evening about 6:30 pm, and only the assistant manager and one other person was trying to run the store. Not good in my book.

 

The biggest problem with Petco's fish department is that corporate policy only allows them to use "organic" and "natural" medications that just flat out don't work (they aren't even allowed to stock or sell real fish medications.) Once they get an outbreak like this in their tanks, the employees' hands are pretty much tied and they have very little power to stop it.

Like I said though, this isn't an issue with employees, it's corporate policy (but that's not to say that Petco employees all know what they're doing when it comes to fish.) Personally, I couldn't bring myself to try talking someone into basically throwing their job away in order to save some fish.

 

I just want to go on record to say that that sounds like a horrid store, and it is NOT a representation of the entire company.
Those kind of problems absolutely warrant a call to your District Leader or Regional Animal Care and Education Leader. Or both. Immediately. Their info should be in your break room. Write down instances, dates, names, anything that will back you up. Our new VP especially would be horrified.
Be the change you want to see happen.

Yes, I did mention in a later post that it does depend on the location! I know there are some petco's that truly care. And I have seen plenty that have as well (as a customer though). Just seems like there's more bad than good stores.

But our store is slowly changing, but not fast enough. Trust me appropriate action has been taken. Unfortunately I have transferred between a couple of Petco's and they all seem to have similar troubles or just other troubles that gives us less time for the animals because of some policies or just time restrictions. Thanks though ^.^

 

I will agree with the MASSIVE understaffing. It's why I'm on the hunt for a new job, as well as the low wages as compared to other specialty retailers. It sucks because my store could be GREAT if they'd just give me some staff. I never recommend shopping at night. That's when the labor model is the most thin and you'll be waiting for ages or getting less of the associates time.
I agree that the medications are a joke. So is the fish safe I'm supposed to clean decor with since some idiot didn't dechlorinate their decor after a bleach soak. When my decor gets too gross, I just order new stuff. I'm not gonna sit and scrub a rock for 15 minutes a piece because you want me to use what's essentially hydrogen peroxide. Haha.

But not being able to do water changes properly is our biggest issue. If the already sick or stressed fish come in they'd do much better going into pristine tanks.