What is the coolest fish you have seen at petsmart or petco

[esoxlucius]

We have something called petbarn here, it's pretty bad for fish but some of the country stores seem a bit better. Generally goldfish and a very basic range of tropical. I've never seen anything even close to being rare or unusual in them , I'd be surprised to even see a GT or firemouths occasionally. Usually they have a bunch of empty tanks and the rest filled with boring unhealthy looking tetras and guppies.
The owner of the whole business is on a tv show where you go and pitch a business idea to him and a few other rich entrepreneur, if they lie them they invest.. In my daydreams I'm tempted to contact him and see if he will hire me as a national aquarium manager for $500K per year!
It's worth a try, if they did it properly they could really take over the local aquarium trade and their buying power would be incredible so they could get prices down. As it stands no one with even the slightest knowledge of fish would ever buy anything there.

Do you fancy a joint venture, $200K a year for you and $300K for me......well I do have travelling expenses!

We have a show in the uk like the one you mentioned, it's called "dragons den". It's hilarious. Some people go up asking for shed loads of investment for the most useless business ideas you've ever seen. The dragons just rip them apart.

 

[Ogertron3000]

Do you fancy a joint venture, $200K a year for you and $300K for me......well I do have travelling expenses!

We have a show in the uk like the one you mentioned, it's called "dragons den". It's hilarious. Some people go up asking for shed loads of investment for the most useless business ideas you've ever seen. The dragons just rip them apart.

Why not go into a partnership, the guy who was going to buy the island to strip mine the coral didn't seem to appreciate our business proposal!
Our version is called shark tank, it sounds very similar to your version, deluded suckers thinking they are on a get rich quick ticket only to realise they were really poorly prepared and no one is likely to give them even $0.02.
Seriously though, I wonder why petbarn are so bad at the fish side of things, the only live animals they sell are cats and fish. The rest is bulk food for all other pets and accessories.
They have huge stores in convenient locations all over the plac,eevery shop is already set up with display tanks and all the filtration and infrastructure. It shouldn't be that hard to set up a national deal with an importer or wholesaler then hire a young enthusiastic local to be "aquarium management specialist" at each location for a cheap wage. Set a standard stock list for each shop then tweak it depending on local preferences. Make sure there's a big sign saying they will be able to special order things they don't have. Do some advertising and promotions via social media and you think it would work well. Maybe have a supervisor to travel around all the stores and keep an eye on things to make sure the quality and stock is right and set up some scape tanks for each shop.
The only problem is if it works it would most likely kill off al, the independent shops which would be a shame and damage the hobby overall.

 

[TwoHedWlf]

Wow haven't seen a Blue Spot Ray in yrs had to be Petco because Petsmart don't sell saltwater fish.

I remember it being a FW ray, but googling now I don't see any FW rays with blue spots. Soo, maybe not.

 

[KATALEKEEPER]

discus at a local petco

 

[Rayfishowner]

Rarest I’ve seen is probably exodon, Leporinus, yellow chubby pleco (this was the first time I saw such an expensive pleco lol), clown knife, rainbow gudgeon, and fire eel.

my Petco is generally really good, as they do special orders and the manager is very knowledgeable!

petsmart is just the normal stuff lol hardly ever see anything more than African ciclids, tropical fish, and common south and Central American cichlids.

It sucks that my local fish store is relatively on the expensive side and I’ve seen stories where they raise prices and “scam” buyers. They have a wonderful selection but the customer service and prices turn me away. Although it’s always fun to window shop ?

 

[Deadeye]

Really neither get anything too rare, but I guess they get/used to sell some nice stuff.
I’ve noticed petco has been getting much more diversified stocking.
Petsmart: Pacu, leporinus, bgk - stopped selling them years ago, they do get the occasional spotted silver dollar though.
Petco: Full black midnight clown, full white snowflake clown, clown trigger, ornate bichir, leporinus, Salvini, some geos (I forget what kind), orange seam pleco (I think phantom plecos too), Royal gramma (hard to come by these days), dwarf and f8 puffers, snowflake morays (common but awesome).
I also saw one exodon before at a petco. It had cons and dempseys pinned. If I could do it again I’d have gotten it in a heartbeat.

 

[KATALEKEEPER]

Really neither get anything too rare, but I guess they get/used to sell some nice stuff.
I’ve noticed petco has been getting much more diversified stocking.
Petsmart: Pacu, leporinus, bgk - stopped selling them years ago, they do get the occasional spotted silver dollar though.
Petco: Full black midnight clown, full white snowflake clown, clown trigger, ornate bichir, leporinus, Salvini, some geos (I forget what kind), orange seam pleco (I think phantom plecos too), Royal gramma (hard to come by these days), dwarf and f8 puffers, snowflake morays (common but awesome).
I also saw one exodon before at a petco. It had cons and dempseys pinned. If I could do it again I’d have gotten it in a heartbeat.

i agree

 

[Backfromthedead]

Why not go into a partnership, the guy who was going to buy the island to strip mine the coral didn't seem to appreciate our business proposal!
Our version is called shark tank, it sounds very similar to your version, deluded suckers thinking they are on a get rich quick ticket only to realise they were really poorly prepared and no one is likely to give them even $0.02.
Seriously though, I wonder why petbarn are so bad at the fish side of things, the only live animals they sell are cats and fish. The rest is bulk food for all other pets and accessories.
They have huge stores in convenient locations all over the plac,eevery shop is already set up with display tanks and all the filtration and infrastructure. It shouldn't be that hard to set up a national deal with an importer or wholesaler then hire a young enthusiastic local to be "aquarium management specialist" at each location for a cheap wage. Set a standard stock list for each shop then tweak it depending on local preferences. Make sure there's a big sign saying they will be able to special order things they don't have. Do some advertising and promotions via social media and you think it would work well. Maybe have a supervisor to travel around all the stores and keep an eye on things to make sure the quality and stock is right and set up some scape tanks for each shop.
The only problem is if it works it would most likely kill off al, the independent shops which would be a shame and damage the hobby overall.

Lol I've been waiting to see a news article pop up on my feed reading something like "millionaire-child loots tonga reef, devastates fragile ecosystem with get-richer-quick scheme"

 

[EntoStentor]

My local chain store was actually pet supplies plus for a while. I've been to a petco a grand total of once. The rarest thing I saw in PS+ were synos and spotted talking catfish that the staff thought were plecos. I mean I see why, but just looking at them there's an unmistakable difference. They only stocked 1 or 2 at a time, but when I bought them (for 4 bucks apiece since they thought they were baby plecos) they always got more. I ended up buying about 10 of them and a couple striped rapahaels for my 300 SA biotope. I liked them so much I ended up not buying any centerpiece fish.

 

[krichardson]

I guess the coolest that I can recall ever seeing would be the Ctenopoma acutirastre.That's probably not saying very much but those stores(the stores in my area,anyhow) dont seem to bring anything other than the most commonly kept novice level aquarium fish.