I visited the new Petsmart situated in Perrysburg Ohio, southeast of Toledo today. The store has been open for about a month so it is still nice, bright, and shiny. The tanks of freshwater fish were clean and each tank had brown gravel, one rock, and one plastic plant. The fish seemed healthy; I saw no dead bodies. There were offerings of the usual type fish, nothing flashy. I saw danios, barbs, tetras, minnows, gourami's, goldfish, bala sharks, juvenile chichlids, Jack Dempsey's, Oscars, parrots, and of course, plenty of common plecos. The latter were desceptively small, around two inches at most. Many of the tanks had an automatic feeder in place holding slices of cucumber which were being nibbled avidly. The labels on the tanks told price, name of fish, how big it gets, and personality (aggressive vs community). A glaring omission was the lack of tank size needed, especially for the oscars, pleco's, and goldfish. There was one small tank of only a few live plants. One could buy varied sizes of tanks with stands; the largest I saw was a 45 gallon. The stands were different then the usual black oak or veneer. One set was very modern looking, with what seemed to be a steel door.
The flake food section was good. I noticed several different brands, including Omega One, which I have not found elsewhere. There was a good selection of frozen foods. Filters were varied; I saw Aqua Clear, Rena, Fluval, and Magnum brands. The heaters seemed to be the Petsmart store brand. For planted tanks there was Flourish and what looked like a Hagen CO2 ladder. I did not see any bags of Eco-Complete, but one could buy small boxes of laeterite. I did see 20 pound bags of white sand and different colored gravels. I never saw aquarium light fixtures, only the usual display of aquarium bulbs. Python brand siphons were evident. There was a nice selection of back-of-the-tank scenes. I never found a display of thermometers. They do sell the water conditioner Prime, which I have not found in any other local store.

Prices of fish seemed to be competitive with other local fish stores. The Rena Filstar xp3 I want for my 75g was $180.00 here at Petsmart. I have seen new ones on Ebay for around $100.00 though. There seems to be no rhyme or reason about what Petsmart stocks. I am sure there were thermometers there for instance, but they are not readily visible. The filters had a good selection but the heaters did not.

I did not have a chance to speak to the attendant as he had been trying to net a small fish for a customer for several minutes. Since he had abandoned the net and backed the exhausted fish into a corner while poking it with his finger I deemed it unnessary to ask any questions in order to gauge his level of expertise.

I would return to Petsmart in the future to purchase something, but probably not fish, as the selection is not great and I would not wish to further traumatize the fish. I believe Petsmart stock of dry goods to be varied enough to attract most aquarium hobbyists.

It seems that if you go to one Petsmart, the employees knowledge of fish is anything but what it should be, while the next actually has employees that seem to know, for the most part, what they are talking about. While I have yet to go to a chain pet store that has actually told me truthful information, such as max tank size, there are some that are better than others.

For example, the Petsmart here in Knoxville seems to be able to catch fish with minimum trauma, but when I asked one of their 'more knowledgeable' employees about stocking a 55 gallon, he told me it would be OK to stock it with a large school of clown loaches as well as two pacu. He told me the pacu grew to the size of their aquarium. :sick: :rolleyes:

That pretty much made me throw in the towel about ever getting honest information out of them. They do have good prices on most of their supplies, though. Their tanks aren't TOO bad, either. They carry most of the common sizes.

when i wen to the petsmart in my area they had a cheaper tank than petco! the 10 gallon tank (only tank and top) for $25$. The ones at petco were $50$ for a 5 gallon with goldfish food but i wanted catfish, so i didn't need the goldfish food. The filter was $15$ at petco and $9$ with the PetPerks card at Petsmart. I say i found very good deals :D

Certainly sounds like it.

Sounds like a pretty good place..