# Plants at Petco?!?



## Rnasty (Jun 30, 2017)

The live plants at my petco usually look okay, but the supply is always very limited, like 5 or 6 bunches of anachris or swords. The packaged plants they have are almost always all dead. They might as well not stock them


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## freshestemo412 (Aug 19, 2016)

It can be a hit or miss. Like Rnasty said, very limited selection. Mine usually has the standard 38 sword pots, 15 pots of Mondo grass (not an aquatic plant) 2 Anubias, and a whole metric ton of floating stem plants that cannot be identified which in tun kills off everything in the tank because no light gets through.

SOMETIMES.. the packaged tissue cultures look OK.. but still even those are mostly brown and dead. I cant even get the manager to give me them at a discount rate since they were brown. Ive tried..


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## StevieD (Jun 17, 2017)

I was fortunate enough to pick up a buce at my local store, they had no clue what it was as it was priced at $4:99 for a bunch the size of the palm of my hand. More good luck than good management I assure you as usually their stuff is just as others have described.


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## Patriot (Dec 22, 2010)

I think petsmart have a better selection. 

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk


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## noseprint (Jun 29, 2015)

It's hit or miss. My petco actually has a tank with just live plants and they're usually in great condition, sometimes I can find really nice high quality plants. Our petsmart has all packaged plants, they're overpriced, even if they are pretty healthy.

Bump: It's hit or miss. My petco actually has a tank with just live plants and they're usually in great condition, sometimes I can find really nice high quality plants. Our petsmart has all packaged plants, they're overpriced, even if they are pretty healthy.


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## Highseq (Jul 26, 2017)

ItsTosh said:


> I haven't started my tank build yet, but I enjoy going to the local shops and browsing to get ideas. I was headed out to a really great LFS this morning but upon a quick check online, they are closed on Mondays. So I figured I'll take a ride over to Petco and walk around. I found three tanks stocked with "live" plants for sale. Wow... Leaves are all brown and wilting, many have nasty goop or fibers all over them... They just look so sickly. Granted, I didn't go there with any intention to buy, but I was shocked that the selection looked so bad. Later this week I'll hit up the good LFS and I'm sure I'll find better supplies.


The reason they look so bad is because almost all aquatic plants for sale are grown emersed, that is, out of water. They have leaves developed to efficiently capture CO2 from the open air. Petco then takes these plants, puts them in their display tank and if they aren't bought quickly you get to witness the plants conversion to the submerged leaf form. This causes existing leaves to melt (looks terrible) but it is completely normal as the new submerged leaves come in. This is really evident with plants like the amazon sword, which everyone buys, puts in their tank, and then they think they have a nutrient deficiency when in fact nothing is wrong.

Anyway the real problem with plants from the LFS is that they are almost always infested with bladder snails, pond snails, and their eggs. Also their selection is usually pretty small, only selling the most common of plants.


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## Kurama21 (Oct 14, 2015)

freshestemo412 said:


> It can be a hit or miss. Like Rnasty said, very limited selection. Mine usually has the standard 38 sword pots, 15 pots of Mondo grass (not an aquatic plant) 2 Anubias, and a whole metric ton of floating stem plants that cannot be identified which in tun kills off everything in the tank because no light gets through.
> 
> SOMETIMES.. the packaged tissue cultures look OK.. but still even those are mostly brown and dead. I cant even get the manager to give me them at a discount rate since they were brown. Ive tried..



Wierd, I always see the tissue culture ones at petsmart\petco marked half off if they look older.


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