# Petco vs. Petsmart



## Paul75

There is a petco and a petsmart each 10 minutes from my house. Which one should I buy from?


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## emc7

The one with healthier fish and more knowledgeable people. Usually I like PetCo a little better (I think the local fish guy has more authority), but it really depends on the local manager.


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## Superfly724

If I were you, I would buy my dry goods such as food, chemicals, and the like at the big chain stores. Doesn't matter which one. Buy your livestock at the local independent fish store, though. It may be a longer drive, but you'll get much better quality, and a much better selection. It'll also help to keep those stores alive, meaning you get better fish for longer.


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## Paul75

I don't know the petsmarts guys seem like they know what their doing while at petco I usually get the feeling they are good at this, but not professionals. Theere are so many employees I don't think I have met either maneger.


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## Paul75

Also, despite hard searching, there seems to be no local fish store in or around dix hills, long island. If anyone knows a place near there, it would be very helpful.


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## hXcChic22

Around where I live, it all depends on what I'm looking for. If I want bettas (which we collect, lol) I go to Petco because they have a lot of variety. They also have some really great sales sometimes, and we even found one of our hard-to-find fish there, a Yoyo loach, on sale for $7 ($8 off!) with a Petco card. 
Petsmart has some cool things once in a while, but unlike Petco, they rarely switch things out. They have a basic stock, and that's pretty much it. 

But our LFS is the best because we can get store credit for unwanted fish/grown babies and they also have the best deals on feeder fish, brine shrimp, and can custom order things if we want. They also have ALL knowledgable people rather than one or two.


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## Albino_101

Both are terrible for livestock in my experiences, only use as a last resort, but they are great for anything else, food, chemicals, decorations, as a big chain they can sell it cheaper.


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## Tallonebball

Yeah where is the neither option. In winchester the petsmarts are better


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## Revolution1221

Superfly724 said:


> If I were you, I would buy my dry goods such as food, chemicals, and the like at the big chain stores. Doesn't matter which one. Buy your livestock at the local independent fish store, though. It may be a longer drive, but you'll get much better quality, and a much better selection. It'll also help to keep those stores alive, meaning you get better fish for longer.


i work at a lfs and i can tell you that without dry good sales we would not be in business. we dont make hardly any money off fish sales in general because of the costs of feeding and water changes and all the chemicals. most places that are like fish only and no dry goods only manage because they cary everything and are typically huge lol so they dont need to rely on dry good sales. and not to mention we have seriously the best prices on anything over petsmart and petco except of course livestock with the exception of some. anything marineland brand you will not find for any less than 10 bucks cheaper than at big chains. our mark up prices are very low some things we buy at $20 bucks we sell for $24 which trust me is very low. also we can special order anything we want where you cant at petco and petsmart and we can even get fish that someone wants even if we dont normally stock it. all of our reptiles and small animals are all hand picked by us personally from shows from very reputable private breeders that hand feed and raise all of there animals we never get wild caught either. where at petco and petsmart all of their animals come from what are called farms where basically like for their birds they just have tons of birds all laying eggs and raising the babies then they just remove the babies and ship them off. and pretty much every reptile/amphibian is wild caught and can infect any reps you might have. having to choose between one tho it all depends on customer service and knowledge.... petsmart here they are very knowledgable and friendly where at petco there is almost no one ever around to help the manager is an ass although the herpitologist i work with his wife is the head of the fish department and she is in charge of ordering fish and she doesn't order anything that they shouldn't cary so the decision comes down to you. as for dry goods they both cary a lot of different brands so it all depends on what you need.


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## OCtrackiepacsg1

In my area, the petco wins. The Petsmart people, when I was asking for some tiger barbs, didn't know how to scoop of the fish, each one she scoop fell on the floor, we didn't want the first few she dropped, but after she kept dropping them, we gave up and took them. They just seem to have no idea what there doing. When I asked for the pest snails for my puffer, they were like, "why do you need them for?".
My petco on the other hand, know what there doing, theres this one guy there that will share stories on the products and how they worked out for him. When I asked for snails, they gave me some but also suggest breeding them and how to, even though I knew it was just an utter failure. It really varies depending on where you live, sometimes having fellow fish fanatics will one store significantly better than the other.


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## FishMatt

My area Petsmart is better they know more.


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## TheOldSalt

Six of one, half a dozen of the other. They're both terrible and should be shut down completely.
However....
I've been to dozens of each all over the country, and if I had to pick, I'd go with Petco. Your mileage may vary, but overall, I find most Petcos to be slightly more competent than most Petsmarts. 

Long Island has some good fish stores on it. I remember one place called.. King's ...something, which was very very nice. They may be far from you, but they're worth the trip. Being only twelve, you can't really get around very much, but let your fingers do the walking through the yellow pages and try to plan some trips around other fun stuff the rest of your family might enjoy.


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## CichlidCrazy

Petsmart where I live knows a lot about their fish, Petco on the other hand...


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## Albino_101

Well mostly it depends on the store manager for any specific store, as well as how knowledgeable the employees are, as company wide policies are not always followed to the letter.

For example: If TheOldSalt was working at a petco, anyone who lived near him would say petco is way better than petsmart.


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## TheOldSalt

Heh. Only if they'd let me do things the _right_ way instead of _their_ way.

The funny thing is that Petco was created with the intention of doing things the right way instead of the crappy ways the other guys do things, and for a short time they pulled it off and things were great. That didn't last after they started to expand, though. Running a good fish/pet store requires a lot of detailed micromanagement, and a chain store can't be micromanaged.


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## emc7

Speaking of PetCo, the $1/gallon tank sale in on where I live. People in my club are getting 20L and 40 breeders.


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