DON'T BUY FISH HERE.
***Note: My review is solely based on their aquarium department and practices.***
I haven't posted on Yelp since 2015, but I felt compelled to come back today just to warn people about the state of this fish department. I don't want people's current aquarium fish to get sick or die because they don't know what to look for when buying fish. In my opinion, based on what I saw, this is a classic example of a place to avoid. Also, hopefully a Pet Supermarket rep will see this and do something about the problem.
Based on the appalling state of what I saw today, I can confidently recommend that you should avoid this place when purchasing aquarium fish.
Reasons:
1. You WILL infect your tank with diseases and parasites from sick or exposed fish. I witnessed ich (white spots), fin rot, and a associate claimed that one shipment came in with worms. So basically their entire stock has something wrong with it or has been exposed. It's sad because they really have a nice variety of species.
2. They come from suppliers that already have the breakouts happening at their farms and still ship out the fish to stores for sale. (This means that other Pet Supermarkets may have the same problems going on, but I am only reviewing based on what I saw at the new South St. Petersburg location. )
3. The store does not quarantine fish before putting them out on the floor, so diseases from the infected farms go directly into your tank if you don't have your own quarantine system set up. Even then, treating the fish is up to you and your skill at working a hospital tank.
Something else to note here: Like many fish stores, the tanks are linked together with the same water pump system, so even though one tank may look ok at the moment, it's attached to many others that may have infected fish.
4. I went in the middle of the day and there were tanks that had dead fish in them. I understand that a certain amount of stock loss is something that happens with any fish retailer, but it was clear that the tanks weren't checked and the bodies had been there for some time. I even saw a sad, dead betta fish--still on the sale shelf in it's container---the container itself looked smaller than ones I've seen in other stores. The other bettas looked like they weren't doing so well. :(
This was my first visit to the store. This place just made me feel so,so, sad--I wanted to buy all the sick fish just so they would have a chance in a hospital tank...but you would pretty much have to buy them out, and then they would only stock more sick fish apparently. They made Walmart's fish section actually look better...and that's scary.
When I first looked into the tanks and saw all of the problems, I took an associate at checkout back to point out what I had seen, especially the ich and dead fish. She said it was a problem with the supplier, and pointed out that that another section of fish came in with "hookworms", but I think she meant anchor worms since hookworms are intestinal. She was very nice, seemed concerned, and said she would bring the matter up with her manager. If this location has any integrity, they will not sell a singe fish until they have treated their entire stock.
The thing is, and this is just my feeling, I think she still would have sold me the fish from one of the tanks infected with parasites even after knowing about them.
I was really excited that a large pet store finally opened in south St. Petersburg since I would normally have to drive to Pinellas Park or Gateway to get certain pet supplies that our smaller, mom and pop stores didn't have. This was such a disappointment. Since this is a new store, and they may still be working everything out, I will visit again in a few months to see if they have improved and update this review.
TLDR: All of their fish are sick or dead and this place made me sad. :( :( read more