Just wanted to share

Thrashed

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So I am the aquatics specialist at a petco in my area ( I know save the gasps). But I love my job because it allows me to do what I love 40 hours a week. But on October 12th I received a juvenile blue tang on a order as a push. Well she was a very sick fish and wasn't looking like she would make it through the night, but I couldn't handle just leaving such an amazing fish to just lay and die. So I decided to spend the outrageous price on this fish to try to save it. So here we are just over a month later and wanted to share the difference this fish has shared. It has made me fall in love with this hobby even more than ever and allow me lots of stories to tell people about sleepless nights worrying about a baby fish that should of never been shipped. But I am more thankful today and it finally made it's way out of QT and into my tank and is loving life and every minute of being here. I will add all of this was done with no treatments, just water change of QT every 3 days and good carbon. I have always been against cheap carbon and I will argue all day that it made a difference in this fish. No other additives was added to my QT setup nor was anything else done besides simple water changes and using good carbon in the HOB filter in the system. First picture was the day it came in and 2nd picture was taken after being added to my display earlier today. She still isn't fully healed but I feel comfortable enough to keep her in my display now to start building her immune system back up

125401431_2251383451672334_7248846418522847924_n.jpg 125390583_412296706783487_298092063834834577_n.jpg
 

Ksull72487

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So I am the aquatics specialist at a petco in my area ( I know save the gasps). But I love my job because it allows me to do what I love 40 hours a week. But on October 12th I received a juvenile blue tang on a order as a push. Well she was a very sick fish and wasn't looking like she would make it through the night, but I couldn't handle just leaving such an amazing fish to just lay and die. So I decided to spend the outrageous price on this fish to try to save it. So here we are just over a month later and wanted to share the difference this fish has shared. It has made me fall in love with this hobby even more than ever and allow me lots of stories to tell people about sleepless nights worrying about a baby fish that should of never been shipped. But I am more thankful today and it finally made it's way out of QT and into my tank and is loving life and every minute of being here. I will add all of this was done with no treatments, just water change of QT every 3 days and good carbon. I have always been against cheap carbon and I will argue all day that it made a difference in this fish. No other additives was added to my QT setup nor was anything else done besides simple water changes and using good carbon in the HOB filter in the system. First picture was the day it came in and 2nd picture was taken after being added to my display earlier today. She still isn't fully healed but I feel comfortable enough to keep her in my display now to start building her immune system back up

125401431_2251383451672334_7248846418522847924_n.jpg 125390583_412296706783487_298092063834834577_n.jpg
Former Aquatics Specialist at Petco here. That job is a science experiment as PetCo does not give you all the answers. You did the right thing! My store couldn’t keep Tiger Oscars a live they stopped ordering them. Well they wouldn’t eat when we got them in. Babies. I fed them live minnows against company policy and trained them on pellets. Didn’t take more than a week. They lived they grew and ate pellets. I did a lot of things at Petco. All you can do is try. Eventually I had the lowest mortality rate on fish in the entire district. But I did have to go out of my way or bend a policy or two to do it. Refuse your shipments if they look sick. But over all their not a bad company. Their just for profit and some times their distributors screw em. By the end of it when I decided this job dosent pay enough I was keeping things alive in my store that managers said I cannot order they’ll die and we were having great success!!!!! Your job is all about caring for fish. Petco views you as a salesman also. Not to mention selling the customer a fish while it’s healthy. Their were times where I said nope can’t have those. Why? They are just recovering from Ich. I want to watch them a few more days. Great job! Petco needs more people that will try and care about the system and less of the sales crap.
 
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Thrashed

Thrashed

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Former Aquatics Specialist at Petco here. That job is a science experiment as PetCo does not give you all the answers. You did the right thing! My store couldn’t keep Tiger Oscars a live they stopped ordering them. Well they wouldn’t eat when we got them in. Babies. I fed them live minnows against company policy and trained them on pellets. Didn’t take more than a week. They lived they grew and ate pellets. I did a lot of things at Petco. All you can do is try. Eventually I had the lowest mortality rate on fish in the entire district. But I did have to go out of my way or bend a policy or two to do it. Refuse your shipments if they look sick. But over all their not a bad company. Their just for profit and some times their distributors screw em. By the end of it when I decided this job dosent pay enough I was keeping things alive in my store that managers said I cannot order they’ll die and we were having great success!!!!!
Going through that now as well. I’ve started ordering some soft corals and have been doing great with them. Said they have never been able to keep them alive longer than a couple days. Funny what a coralife light and good water does for these corals haha
 

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Going through that now as well. I’ve started ordering some soft corals and have been doing great with them. Said they have never been able to keep them alive longer than a couple days. Funny what a coralife light and good water does for these corals haha
They don’t know. Seriously. Lol. They really don’t. My store couldn’t keep a lot of **** alive until I got their. Are they using A Pet as a distributor still. Might vary by region.
 

Ksull72487

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It’s not a bad company at all. You are correct too. 110% it comes down to the aquatics guy! Sometimes they hire people with little experience or somebody that is still learning and try to train them. They hire the guy that already knows or is willing to try that’s luck and then all of a sudden things do well when they had bad luck before. Hahaha! Keep at man! I’m really happy you hung on to that Tang. I would of done the same thing!
 

Ksull72487

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It’s not a bad company at all. You are correct too. 110% it comes down to the aquatics guy! Sometimes they hire people with little experience or somebody that is still learning and try to train them. They hire the guy that already knows or is willing to try that’s luck and then all of a sudden things do well when they had bad luck before. Hahaha! Keep at man! I’m really happy you hung on to that Tang. I would of done the same thing!
When I left and got a different job lol. I’m still in the water business too. I worked full time at my new job. Maintained Petcos tanks 2 days a week for months until they send we need full time and we train a replacement. My boss got that right. You should be the highest paid guy in that store. Deciding when to treat. QT. Euthanize etc. Very rarely did I ever euthanize. But I watched a manager do it. I only did it when I knew it was gone.

I watch an assistant manager net an Anenome one time. Customer was like we will just leave. Lol I’m like what the heck are you doing!

Your doing PetCo a solid. The pic below is what hung on my wall at my store. Keep doing what your doing. I miss that job. And remember you know more than they do.

D572F455-0C21-4645-9C3D-462B9F583FC5.jpeg
 
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Thrashed

Thrashed

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It’s not a bad company at all. You are correct too. 110% it comes down to the aquatics guy! Sometimes they hire people with little experience or somebody that is still learning and try to train them. They hire the guy that already knows or is willing to try that’s luck and then all of a sudden things do well when they had bad luck before. Hahaha! Keep at man! I’m really happy you hung on to that Tang. I would of done the same thing!
Oh yeah it was in my QT at my house and went into my display earlier. I couldn’t just leave it there after seeing it shape when it came in
 

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So I am the aquatics specialist at a petco in my area ( I know save the gasps). But I love my job because it allows me to do what I love 40 hours a week. But on October 12th I received a juvenile blue tang on a order as a push. Well she was a very sick fish and wasn't looking like she would make it through the night, but I couldn't handle just leaving such an amazing fish to just lay and die. So I decided to spend the outrageous price on this fish to try to save it. So here we are just over a month later and wanted to share the difference this fish has shared. It has made me fall in love with this hobby even more than ever and allow me lots of stories to tell people about sleepless nights worrying about a baby fish that should of never been shipped. But I am more thankful today and it finally made it's way out of QT and into my tank and is loving life and every minute of being here. I will add all of this was done with no treatments, just water change of QT every 3 days and good carbon. I have always been against cheap carbon and I will argue all day that it made a difference in this fish. No other additives was added to my QT setup nor was anything else done besides simple water changes and using good carbon in the HOB filter in the system. First picture was the day it came in and 2nd picture was taken after being added to my display earlier today. She still isn't fully healed but I feel comfortable enough to keep her in my display now to start building her immune system back up

125401431_2251383451672334_7248846418522847924_n.jpg 125390583_412296706783487_298092063834834577_n.jpg
Great job! Petco DEFINITELY needs more people like you. And other LFS too!
 

Ksull72487

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Great job! Petco DEFINITELY needs more people like you. And other LFS too!
I agree!!! But some of these Reef places have more in-tuned people. Petco is commercial. They especially need an aquatics guy and more often than not they’ll hire people with little experience. The LFS Reef Store usually has people or owners that’ll slave on the tanks. Petco doesn’t always have that. That’s why some are freshwater only and some are saltwater. It’s gonna depend.

The stuff my store couldn’t keep alive sold when I kept it alive. Like crazy! I had repeat buyers at Petco. Then all of a sudden Petco changes it’s view on sales. We should do this or that. Is their intrest in saltwater at that store?????

The guy who takes care of the tanks is everything to the location. And the minute they tell him to spend 3 hrs on a cash register to save on payroll. Is the minute he’s spending less time with the fish and customers but that expectation is still their.

Literally it comes down to one guy. Aquatics Specialist. He’s the answer to a good or bad Petco.

Sounds like we got a good one here!!!!! That’s what I’m trying to say. Thrashed.
 
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Weasel1960

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Outstanding work by both of you. What amazes me most about any of the big box stores is that their salt tanks look pathetic and their freshwater tanks look good to really good. I know a lot more goes into salt but I also peeked “behind the curtain“ little to no filtration and 20+ tanks daisy chained together. Proper policy starts at the top if you want to make profits. Good job you guys for putting the right foot forward.
 

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