Petco or Petsmart

love_my_fish

My vote is for PetSmart only for their low on-line prices. I have never purchased fish from either store. I went into a Petco a few weeks ago and every tank had this white disk in the bottom that the fish loved to hang out around. I wonder if it was something to make them feel better? It sorta looked like how salt 'melts' in water. That made me suspicious, I didn't ask about it though. The other thing that was a total turn-off at petco was a loud, pre-recorded sound of running water playing from a speaker in the fish dept. Stupid.

I might consider purchasing from PetSmart now that they have opened a store closer to my home -- used to only stop at PS if I was out of town, too long of a drive for live fish.

However, I prefer some of my other local fish stores where the tanks have caves, driftwood, rocks, plants, etc in the tanks and the tanks aren't obnoxiously stocked full with one kind of fish.

Andyandsue

If I have to choose, I choose PetSmart. I've had experience in both stores and it's consistent regardless of location. For dog or cat items I'd say either is ok, but since we're talking fish...

I swear by a lfs that I found by accident. They have been wonderful! They have so much more to offer than the chain stores. It's obvious they are interested in helping, which is to their benefit. Fishkeeping isn't exactly the cheapest hobby, and word of mouth is the best advertising. I'd rather go there and spend the extra few dollars to support small business and get appropriate advice.

FDStation152

I like petsmart more on the basis of pricing really. petco is massively overpriced for most things here. Honestly in terms of fish advice I've given up on asking the people at bigger stores like that since the information I recieve is usually wrong. I prefer to do my own research or ask the employees of the smaller places. When it comes to buying fish both have their equal share of sick or poorly kept fish and I look at it on a case by case basis. For example I bought my GBRs from petco and they ended up fine but I've never gotten a livebearer from them thats been completely healthy whereas the livebearers from petsmart are usually in better shape but some of the other fish like killies always look terrible. Both tend to have poor information and I like my small local shop more in terms of both fish quality and advice but quite frankly the bigger stores tend to have a larger selection of fish so its hard to not pick up something from there from time to time.

daisycutter

we got petsmart in the uk the used to be called petcity and id have to say ive seen more live fish at the fishmarket not to mention the 25 hampsters in a tank the size of an a4 page

*Word edited out. There's no need to post it.
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