Extremely ill and diseased fish at Petsmart

This is why you should never buy fish from a "box store".

Two weeks ago I walked into the West Long Branch, NJ Petsmart and saw a disgusting sight. I saw almost all of their South and Central American cichlid stock with bad lateral line disease, gill fungus, fin rot, and parasite infections.

I saw a tank full of Synodontis eupterus 'featherfin catfish' that at first looked like striped tadpoles to me. They had little to no whiskers, NO fins at all, and severe lateral line erosion.

Their oscars had awful hole-in-the-head disease and scars, and most if not all their fins were reduced to spiny 'nubs'.

The other day I went back, saw how it was still horrible and they didn't do anything to treat the fish, cull them, or even put signs up saying "Not for sale". THEY HAVE ALL THOSE FISH FOR SALE! So I decided to take a video, and then complained to an employee. They were hesitant to explain and said something like "oh they just came in that way from the supplier". There's no way that's possible, no wholesaler would ever sell fish that sick...and even if they did that petsmart should've rejected the shipment.

At this point a lot of those appear well beyond repair even if they started treatment with the appropriate medications. I told them that too, and that they'd might as well put them all done or offer them free. The employee pretty much ignored me after that and I just left.

So anybody watching, NEVER buy fish from a box store. They all do not care about their fish.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• petsmart
• pets
• mart
• pet
• smart
• fish
• abuse
• ill
• diseased

[Degu1]

This is really bad. They obviously don't know how to care for your fish. I dislike your generic description though. I work at a petsmart and me and everyone in the pet care department is VERY knowledgeable about fish. None of our fish have every looked even close to that bad. Of course some have gotten sick, we have thousands of fish, but we always isolate and medicate them until they are better.

[evm2007]

@Degu1 Generic description? How so? It's pretty long and detailed with what I saw there that day. Right now the conditions in their tanks are much much better, but that particular store's employees' ignorance to the fact that their fish were in disgustingly horrible and diseased condition alarmed me...especially since they were all still for sale.

[LAXdoubleK]

how the hell is that "extremely ill and diseased"

[evm2007]

@LAXdoubleK You can't see how many of the fish have missing fins, hole-in-the-head disease, lateral line erosion, and bacterial infections? Quite obvious in my opinion.

[kr1msynn]

petsmart made 271 million dollars just within the first 90 days of the year of 2011...81 million dollars of that was profit...try harder with your propaganda videos.

[evm2007]

@kr1msynn It's not propaganda. I shop at Petsmart & Petco all the time, just not for fish because most of their stock is usually overpriced, hybrids, or mislabeled. I just happened to walk into Petsmart one day and noticed how diseased a lot of their fish were and how their staff was ignorant to the problem by still having them up for sale. A responsible pet store would've labeled them not for sale and started medicating them.

I wasn't aware documenting a case of animal negligence was proganda.

[ajaxthedog1]

look up Petsmart mills, that might be the reason why

[MegaC1111]

@shinigamigirl666 your right. the petsmart near me has exellent fish, i have one thats a glofish and its lived 5 years now. i never see a sick or dead fish. and i know ALOT about fish.

[66SiK]

The fish at the Petsmart near me used to sickly. Then they fired tha lazy lady that took care of the fish department and hired someone new that actually knew something about keeping fish and all the fish look healthy now.

[fishbutt94]

thats why they have a really good sale becuase your only getting half a fish

[SimsXluv]

I bought this Fish at PetsAtHome and it had like white stuff all over it and killed my other fish and then it died... :S

[SuperW1111am]

AAAUUUGHGHGHGHGH

[shinigamigirl666]

Everybody here needs to stop making blanket comments. Not all Petsmarts/Petcos suck, not all their employees suck, but a lot of them do. The quality of the animals and therefore the store is dependent on the individual employees in that particular building. Also @kr1msynn , that doesn't mean anything. How much of that was supplies or services or just stupid people buying unhealthy animals? You don't know.

[MzsuperrsiikwidiT]

Wow that is very sad... The store should be reported to the district manager or vp of petsmart... I work for petsmart and i kno their policy on taking care of fish.. Anytime we notice a problem with our pets they go to the vet or a sick tank where they can b cured... Wat bothers me the most is wen people say pet store dont take of care if their pets.. Which can b true and very sad.. But not ALL petsmarts or pet stores are that way.. Which brings me bak to my point... REPORT THE STORE!!

[Fx4Ranger2002]

Those oscars look rough. The petsmarts in my area are pretty good, but the petco near me has a fish selection similar to whats in this video. They have a dirty pathetic saltwater selection, corals covered in brown algae, and they have sickly looking freshwater fish that cost 2x more than the heathy ones at petsmart. Even the aquarium kits at petco are overpriced

[metallicaguyanddude]

Still better then petco.