LR at petco?!?

[beach bum]

Ok, now I just had to share this with all a you out there, the Petco in town just recieved a shipment of Live Rock!! I kid you not.

I was picking up a bag of feeders, when what do I see? a 29g tank jammed full of LR! And I don't mean rubble either, about six pieces FILLED this tank. Two larger pieces were about 14x10x8 with some serious branching going on.

Well, it took me all of two seconds to flip the hood open and jam my hand in the tank. That first large piece weighed about half what my Fiji does for equal size and with a decent amount of life on it. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone, is this Petco? Of course I was brought back to reality when they couldn't tell me where it came from or how much it costs! That and the fact that they were selling long dead flame scallops as though they were still alive and trying to feed the yellow and purple tangs with small goldfish ...(shudder)...


So my next move was to grab a copy of Paletta's "New Marine Aquarium" off the shelf and tell them read this tonight! . I then launched into beginner's reefkeeping 101 and educated the entire Petco fish dept. staff (and anyone else who would listen ) about the benefits and requirements of LR aquariums. They said thank you, I said my pleasure, they said can I keep it with my Green Terrors or will they kill it?, I said sheesh... just give me five small goldfish please.

Ok, sorry to write a book (I like to give my fellow insomniacs something to pass the time), but it's out of my system and you may now return to the regularly scheduled program.

[OodleyBoodely]

Well, I'd suggest you make a couple follow up trips to your local Petco along with any neccessary lectures! If you are really diligent you might (note I said might) educate them enough that they actually seem to know what they are selling, and, might even be able to offer their customers some sound advice. My local Petco could use a little edumacating, too!

[eaglelox]

our petcos also have LR, but it looks more like petrified live rock. the only thing i saw growing on them was snails, my hermets would love that.

[MontanaRocknReefer]

I don't go to Petco and I don't even know if we have one! Johnny

[Doug1]

BeachBum, you made a start. I would try and keep up tho now you have there attention, I would try to find the person in charge of that department or the grunt that winds up doing most of the work. If you can open their eyes to the wealth of info available its a start. Try to get them on line sp they can see for themselves, or invite them to a reef or SW club meeting.
Its easy to blow them off thinking its Petco(Walmart,or whatever) but its always worth a try. One informed and caring employee can make a difference, but we as the fairly well informed reef keeping hobbiests to try anytime we can. The difference between a good LFS and the other is often someone taking the time to point out a different direction. Its not easy and we dont win everytime but still, we gotta try Telling them to read the book is a good start.
The longer I am involved in the hobby the more I lean towards some regulating of the hobby. The civil liberatarian in me rebels, but after 3 yrs of helping new reefers start up, and seeing some bad LFS I believe its coming cause most LFS wont police themselves

[vulkum]

i just had to add my .02 cents!
were i live petco is the only thing still in bussiness for almost 200 miles so i have no choice but to go there for salt ect. last time i stopped by they were starting(a reef tank) this consited of them draining their hexagon plant tank(the one with the 6 seperate chambers) and filling it with bags of live sand. next they ordered in their live rock which was 1 small peice of rock with brown buttons and 1 small peice with green stars all selling for 39.00! ouch i said! i noticed also that the water flow was causing the sand to boil and i said you need to do somthing about that or the tank will never cycle, i got ignored. next time in i stopped just to see how the tank was going and they had ordered in 6 mushroom rock and about 30 condi anenomes of which did nothing but swirl around in the water colum with nothing to grab hold of. i know the manager of this petco and shes somwhat knows what to do but they can't ever find somone to run the fish dept. that has a clue. the sadest thing is the people over here continue to buy these half dead animals at inflated prices so petco keeps ordering more. i sat and watched them unpack and place a whole order one day and they were asking me what fish to put with what!
sorry to rambble just thought i'd share that!
aaron