I was a Senior Aquatic Sales specialist at a Magnet store for 3 years. Most stores don't have anyone dedicated strictly to the department. The guy throwing dog food could be the aquatic specialist for that store. I've been keeping fish for 15 years. I know what I'm doing yet it was a constant struggle to maintain healthy fish. The systems are not capable of supporting the volume of fish set by the planogram. I was constantly pushed by my general manager to overstock the tanks and was then blamed when we had high losses. The CAS and GM would come in and do their dog and pony show trying to push the blame elsewhere. They'd analyze everything and offer no solutions. It was incredibly frustrating to know what to do yet not be allowed to do it. We were only allowed to treat with hyposalinity and freshwater dips. We used tap water filtered through a culligan water filter that would have nitrites in it to mix our saltwater. We would constantly have algae problems but weren't allowed to use anything but a net and a sponge to get rid of it. Then we'd be grilled when we couldn't get rid of it. I believe I was given a talking to for suggesting we use rodi water. We'd also get pushes of fish and coral that we had no business caring for. Sps, Elegance, Goniopora, Powder Blue Tangs, I could go on and on. In the end, there are simply too many people making decisions that shouldn't be, and I don't think that will ever change. It's sad because they are in a position to impact so many new hobbyists and those hobbyist will either get the wrong information, or will buy poor quality fish. I was lucky to buy from companies like Quality Marine, ORA, A&M and Sustainable Aquatics but I would still get pushes of fish from questionable vendors. I don't want to knock every Petco because there are good ones out there. The store in Minnetonka, MN is a perfect example. Jason has done a great job and has a GM that is open to his suggestions. This was an overview of my experience while working there. After 3 years I simply had enough, and moved on to working at a fish hatchery. Leaving that behind was one of the biggest reliefs of my life. It was an incredibly frustrating 2 years. I was constantly pushed to conform to the Petco ways by my GM. He felt my passion for maintaining healthy livestock was rocking the boat and showed I had a bad attitude towards the company. The 1st year wasn't so bad. We had a lot of support from outside experts and our suggestion were considered by the project leaders. I could go on and on but I'll leave it at that.
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