Anyone work at petsmart/petco?

When I got my fish on Tuesday, the employees were actually really knowledgeable. They didn't tell me stuff that I didn't know already, but I heard them turn down a guy wanting to get an oscar saying he needs a 55 to 75 gallon tank, they gave a little lecture on the ammonia cycle, and made sure that I had at least a thirty gallon tank for my little brother's three goldfish.

I was at petco the other day and someone was talking to an employee about buying an oscar.that he was gonna put it in a 10 gallon. The employee carried on saying its fine lets bag him up, I had to interrupt there conversation and implore him not to buy because they can grow to over a foot. No one listened to me though and now that oscar is most likely very big and in his cage they call a tank


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Im fortunate that the aquatics manager at my local Petsmart knows lots about fish and plants. But, she is never afraid to ask questions about larger species or species they might not sell. We chat and share knowledge back and forth often and I usually learn a few things with each visit, especially with plants.

I worked at petco like 6 years ago and they really don't train you that much. They just teach you the basics like cycling the tank. It also really depends on management because even though my boss knew that I knew the most about fish and reptiles than anyone else that worked there, he did not like me at all so he made other people the aquatics and reptile specialist. He finally gave both those positions to me after the assistant manager complained to corporate about the decisions he was making


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I work at petsmart. Most of the workers know the basics. But they also go off of the tags for size/compatibility which are almost always wrong. As far as cycling a tank, selecting community fish, basic problem solving- we all have to go through training and testing. Now we are 'trained' to change the filter cartridge once a month along with rinsing the sponges (ie kill most of your bb) do a monthly 10% WC, and that bringing your water in to us to test with strips every once in a while is sufficient -_- and don't even get me started on the fact that we sell ID Sharks, oscars, ryukin goldfish, etc to anyone with a tank, eels to people with gravel substrate, and plecos to people who have an 'algae problem'.

There are some of us who have knowledge beforehand, but for people who have never been in the fish industry and get trained at petsmart it is bad news.


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Lets put it this way; the "aquatic specialist" came to ME, in the grooming salon, for help. I unfortunately worked there after the store manager, a friend, convinced me to open up the grooming department and assured me there would be serious money coming my way. I had a 40g tank and was just setting up the 125g when working there and yet I somehow knew way more than their aquatics specialist..who by the way never owned a fish.

Since I'm a bit of an over achiever type, when the salon was slow I spent time becoming "certified" in all the departments simply because I wanted to. The only useful thing I gained was an actual avian certification recognized by the state, which Petco actually paid for me to get. Typically only the managers took this test, but I wanted to handle the conures the way I wanted, not some silly only holding the bird on my finger deal. I've gained knowledge in every department of animals through personal experience and/or working in many types of petstores since I was 18, but not one thing I learned in the little videos and books they gave me were anything new...and some of it was quite irritating. Mind you, the videos and quizzes were the basics one may need in their department. HOWEVER, if they got the answer wrong the test would simply tell them the correct answer and ask again (same question, same answers) so there wasn't any real information retained. You could even fast forward through some of the videos, guess the answers afterward and if you got one wrong, just redo it. There was no record of redoing answers or accuracy as long as you eventually answered it right.

The most help you'll get from an employee there is them simply mimicking something they heard, but these are biased and sometimes not common sense. Some general managers have higher standards and may make their employees learn more, but this isn't Petco/Petsmart as a whole therefore there will be inconsistencies. Some fish advisers may also simply have knowledge that they found themselves. This would be equivalent to talking to a stranger whose buying things in a fish store and asking them to advice. Maybe you'll get some help, but this isn't formal education and likely an opinion.

in blunt terms, depends.. my petco knowledgeable, certain people at smart know but the costumer is always right. last week a girl picked up a "school" of balas for her 10, and the fish man said it wont work, but that cant turn down customers

Pet smart, and Petco CEO's are focused more on the Dog, and Cat portion of the business. If you look around when entering you'll notice majority of the isle's for Dog and Cat products not fish like the LFS

The manager at the petsmart that's near me seems very knowledgable from what i've talked to her about. For those people that have worked at petco/petsmart do you have to repeat the info that they give you in training or can you use information that you know is right that they may have wrong? Cause at the petsmart near me they have little info cards that gives a brief paragraph of max size, compatibility, etc.., and one in particular that I always notice is a little off is the polypterus senegalus profile. It has them as reaching 18" and that makes a big difference in what tank you can put them in. So can you wonder off a little bit from what info they give you? or do you have to pretty much repeat the info word for word?