# How can Petco/Petsmart get away with non-aquatic plants?



## ThatGuyWithTheFish (Apr 29, 2012)

This has baffled me for a long time. In Petco and Petsmart, they have tubes of "aquatic plants." They do have some true aquatics, like anubias, swords, wisteria, etc. However, they sell these ferns like Peacock fern that are NOT aquatic. This seems to be very well known too, when I search their scientific names, I get people telling how it is not aquatic. So how on earth can they do this? They are all clearly labeled "Aquatic Plants," but some of them aren't. How is this legal, and how haven't they gotten sued yet?


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## josolanes (Feb 28, 2012)

Agreed and also interested. It's very misdirecting how they label and sell them


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## mrduna01 (Nov 27, 2011)

ThatGuyWithTheFish said:


> This has baffled me for a long time. In Petco and Petsmart, they have tubes of "aquatic plants." They do have some true aquatics, like anubias, swords, wisteria, etc. However, they sell these ferns like Peacock fern that are NOT aquatic. This seems to be very well known too, when I search their scientific names, I get people telling how it is not aquatic. So how on earth can they do this? They are all clearly labeled "Aquatic Plants," but some of them aren't. How is this legal, and how haven't they gotten sued yet?


At my petsmart they label aquatic plants as such and plants meant for terrariums and the like as semi aquatic. I see no problem with this labeling as long as they advise what the labels mean... In my case they do.

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## josolanes (Feb 28, 2012)

At least at the Petco near my house, I haven't noticed this labeling (aquatic vs semi-aquatic). I'll double check tonight to see if they have this. All of the tube plants are placed together in a pretty unorganized fashion and, from what I remember, they simply have the common name and latin name of the plant on the packaging.

This one also has many plants in a holding aquarium fully submerged and all sold as fully aquatic with no warning whether they are or are not. This is where I got my "lucky bamboo" previously, fully submerged in their grow out aquarium. I ended up removing it from my tank later when I was notified by someone I know that the leaves must be out of the water


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## Centromochlus (May 19, 2008)

At my local Petsmart, they have stickers on the top of the tubes that say "semi-aquatic", even though the label on the side of the tube says aquatic plant. Very deceiving but they do say that they are non-aquatic... sort of.


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## mach_six (Sep 12, 2005)

the packaged ones may tell you but the ones they sell in their tanks are those that would not survive for long submerged.


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## chad320 (Mar 7, 2010)

It never fails to surprise me how many people will buy a plant without even knowing if they can keep it alive. Much like fish. Or Frogs. Or Lizards.


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## AaronMB (May 9, 2012)

One of my local PetSmart(s) started carrying bona fide aquatic plants. They still carry the semi-aquatic plants in a tube (with some having the correct label "fully aquatic," such as wisteria and swords), while most of the _new_ aquatic plants are in clear bags, nearly submerged in water/gel and marked accordingly. Yesterday I saw a few various crypts, a baby Amazon, a few other stems I can't recall the names of, and Dwarf Hair Grass (Eleocharis parvula). I picked up a bag and it was a lush, dense 1"x4" portion.


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## tiggity (Feb 21, 2012)

the Petsmart/Petco near me have the plant tubes clearly labeled aquatic and semi aquatic. I also google the names of the plants on my phone to verify prior to purchasing.


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## acitydweller (Dec 28, 2011)

tiggity said:


> the Petsmart/Petco near me have the plant tubes clearly labeled aquatic and semi aquatic. I also google the names of the plants on my phone to verify prior to purchasing.


Definitely google a plant or livestock id on your smartphone before purchase at the big box or even lfs.... It saves time and grief of being ignorant.


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## JackFu (Jun 6, 2011)

acitydweller said:


> Definitely google a plant or livestock id on your smartphone before purchase at the big box or even lfs.... It saves time and grief of being ignorant.


After ignorantly buying mondo grass from my local petsmart, this is exactly what I do.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

They just don't care.


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## DerekFF (May 24, 2011)

hydrophyte said:


> They just don't care.


+1 and as long as people keep buying.....theyll keep selling

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## Jorge_Burrito (Nov 10, 2010)

They rely on the fact that most people don't know enough about plants to figure out the plant died due to not being fully aquatic versus just poor care.


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## sampster5000 (Oct 30, 2010)

hydrophyte said:


> They just don't care.


roud:

They do what they are told to do. Chain store employees are not paid to care, they are paid to sell. They are not paid to study every item they get in stock either. You have to also realize that these employees might be in charge of multiple departments so they dont have time to focus on aquatic plants let alone fish.

The Petco by my house sells the tube plants as aquatic plants and has for several years now. They have a planted tank that has absolutely no light over it. They simply throw the plants in the tank and randomly place the labels. What floats floats and what sinks sinks. Not to mention they are incredibly overpriced.

These stores are obviously not the place to get help from. You have to know what you are doing already. You do get the occassional employee that truly cares about his/her job and does their research, but again this is not required for them.


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## HighDesert (May 8, 2012)

I totally fell for the Peacock fern! I have one waiting to go into a vivarium now. I had it submersed for a few days, but someone here on the forum took pity on me and told me it was actually a marginal plant. The bummer is, the Java fern (which I *DID* recognize) was also marked "semi-aquatic", so I assumed the peacock fern would be a true aquatic also. A simple chart would be nice -- they spend enough on fancy packaging that I would hope they could spring for a laminated chart with the parameters for each plant. I realize I may be ignorant, but most of us are when we're first learning. I also expect to be able to rely on the information I can obtain from the stores where I purchase items. There are way too many instances where these stores hire people that have a less-than-marginal interest in what they're doing, and then regional managers are always irritated by the number of refunds that are given for dead returned animals. I was the primary contract veterinary care provider for one of the big box pet stores here for a few years and it was really disheartening when they would send in BOXES of reptiles, birds and mammals on a regular basis because of poor care in the store. If I don't ever have to treat a pet store victim hampster with wet-tail or a snake with a URI again I'd be happy!


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## nat72sherman (Feb 20, 2012)

how fitting. my dad just got some plants from petco today. he got peacock fern and this in the picture. so neither is aquatic?


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## ThatGuyWithTheFish (Apr 29, 2012)

Went back to my petco to make sure, but there are no labels saying semi-aquatic. All of them are marked aquatic, and have a picture of an angelfish.


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## mrduna01 (Nov 27, 2011)

ThatGuyWithTheFish said:


> Went back to my petco to make sure, but there are no labels saying semi-aquatic. All of them are marked aquatic, and have a picture of an angelfish.


Talk to management and ask why this is. I would be curious to know his/her response.

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## aweeby (Oct 1, 2011)

somewhat unrelated, but one of these chain stores that just opened near me. I was in a rush but i decided to just have a quick look around. I asked this clerk if they had nerite snails... and the lady, puzzled, asks me if they would be considered to be in the BIRD section or the REPTILE section. *facepalm*

I said never mind.


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## sampster5000 (Oct 30, 2010)

aweeby said:


> somewhat unrelated, but one of these chain stores that just opened near me. I was in a rush but i decided to just have a quick look around. I asked this clerk if they had nerite snails... And the lady, puzzled, asks me if they would be considered to be in the bird section or the reptile section. *facepalm*
> 
> i said never mind.


lol!


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## mannye (Jun 11, 2012)

Well, I would expect this of any big box store. The parameters you must meet to work there are "will you work for minimum wage." and "can you point?". Yes... I bet somewhere there's a Petsmart or a Pet Supermarket with ONE guy that knows a guppy from a snail...but he doesn't work in any of the South Florida stores.


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## babydragons (Mar 14, 2012)

Just adding my 2 cents here and telling everyone I did a good deed. 

I ended up at one of the large stores that sells these tube plants with my boyfriend. We were bored and usually end up at a pet store when that happens. I have licked out twice so far with these tube plants. I picked up wisteria once which now has to be trimmed it got so big and i also scored this windelov java fern which my shrimp just love. So i like checking out the tube plants every so often to see what i can find. 

Earlier we had over heard this lady getting bad advice from one of the girls working there and she juat so happened to come and look at the tube plants while i was standing there. She was picking out some plants for her sons new fish. I couldn't let the poor lady buy the bad plants only to have her 4 year old watch them die so I decided to help her. I steered her in the right direction and about 30 min later she was finally on the right path. 

Just thought I would share my good deed for the day and throw out there that not all the tube plants are bad.


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## jeremyTR (Mar 21, 2012)

nat72sherman said:


> how fitting. my dad just got some plants from petco today. he got peacock fern and this in the picture. so neither is aquatic?


That's mondo grass I believe. Not aquatic. I also bought some of that awhile ago.

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## Jaguar (Oct 13, 2011)

mannye said:


> Well, I would expect this of any big box store. The parameters you must meet to work there are "will you work for minimum wage." and "can you point?". Yes... I bet somewhere there's a Petsmart or a Pet Supermarket with ONE guy that knows a guppy from a snail...but he doesn't work in any of the South Florida stores.


Yep... and if you know too much about the department you're applying for, they won't hire you either. They'd rather just say no than have to fire you later on for trying to do the right thing (ie. telling people you can't keep an Oscar in a 10g) because sales > product knowledge and animal welfare. Yesterday an associate sold a young kid a bala shark and rainbow shark to put in a 2.5 gallon plastic tank with no filter.

Also - my Petsmart only labels some of their plants. Mondo grass is completely unlabeled other than the price sticker on the holding tank. Quite often I'll find a mystery plant in the tank with no label, and since the employees have no idea what it is, it will sit in there for weeks until it dies and they throw it out.


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## mrduna01 (Nov 27, 2011)

Jaguar said:


> Yep... and if you know too much about the department you're applying for, they won't hire you either. They'd rather just say no than have to fire you later on for trying to do the right thing (ie. telling people you can't keep an Oscar in a 10g) because sales > product knowledge and animal welfare. Yesterday an associate sold a young kid a bala shark and rainbow shark to put in a 2.5 gallon plastic tank with no filter.
> 
> Also - my Petsmart only labels some of their plants. Mondo grass is completely unlabeled other than the price sticker on the holding tank. Quite often I'll find a mystery plant in the tank with no label, and since the employees have no idea what it is, it will sit in there for weeks until it dies and they throw it out.


I would have to disagree here. They are there to make money sure. But businesses get way more profit from offering legit customer service and knowlege than from the opposite so I doubt this is their goal. It boils down to, in my oppinion, the lack of training a franchise can offer to one small segment of their overall product lineup given the high turnover of employees and low pay. To say that a store would purposefully mislead customers and offer poor advise for the sake of profit... I'm sure it happens but in this case I don't think that's true. Fish make up up a small portion of their total sales and with the few plants they try to offer its really nothing they care to pay out the high cost of an expert employee for.

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## Eldachleich (Jul 9, 2011)

All of the plants near me are clearly labeled aquatic, non aquatic, and semi aquatic.

Must just depend on the store.

Even the mondo grass they keep in the main aquarium plant section has a little non aquatic tag below it. Not that anyone reads it. I didn't.


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## lunaluz (Feb 24, 2018)

I guess I need to be a more careful shopper, I, too bought the peacock fern from Petsmart. and it is not doing well, sad because it is a pretty plant.


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## TCD (Nov 7, 2017)

I can understand why the staff may be poorly trained, but that doesn't explain the labeling. Surely that is done by the people supplying the plants, who have to have some decent knowledge? You wouldn't get away with such incorrect labeling in any other type of goods, would you?


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

FYI - Mondo Grass ia semi-aquatic and does fine in an aquarium where you can have the leaves partially emersed. I had it grow great that way for years. So you can plant it up on rocks or driftwood and/or in a shallow tank.


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## Surf (Jun 13, 2017)

They do have some true aquatics, like anubias, swords, wisteria, etc. However, they sell these ferns like Peacock fern that are NOT aquatic.

Most of the plants in the tubes are actually semi aquatic. They live in areas where the soil stays moist or is fully saturated all year long. These same areas may flood and turn into lakes for several months during the years. All will do well with the roots fully submerged. Some do well with the leaves and roots fully submerged but the flowers must be above the surface to reproduce (anubias is an excellent example). Others do well with the roots fully submerged but the leaves and flowers must be above the surface. Almost all plants in aquariums are actually semiaquatic. There are very few that actually "True" aquatics meaning that they entire plant is submerged and it can flower and produce seeds fully submerged.


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## houseofcards (Mar 21, 2009)

I don't think many people care if they are "truly" aquatic by definition because of their ability to produce seeds. They simply want them to grow in their aquarium submersed if sold that way.


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