# Petco tube plants



## hiittman (Apr 2, 2006)

Does anyone have any experience with those plants you can get at petco that come in the plastic tubes?


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## bathysphere (Jan 30, 2006)

i got one of the hyrocotyle species and it did pretty well. just make sure what you get is healthy and a true aquatic (a lot of them aren't, just like their unpackaged plants)


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## scitz (Mar 16, 2004)

Former Petco employee here...

Not only are most of them not suitable for an aquarium, but they get hung on a shelf just like pH plus and minus. Therefore, unless you are there the day they get them, expect them to be half dead. That said, I had a package of java fern turn out ok. But instead of one rhizome with several leaves, it was actually several individual leaves tied together with black cotton thread.

I had sent numerous emails to every corporate desk-jockey who would deal with ordering and handling these things to obviously no avail. 

There are hundreds of better uses for your money.


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## Shaggathai (Apr 18, 2006)

Those were the first plants I got back when I decided to stick a few plants in a 10g. They worked out pretty ok for me, the wisteria grew well and is still around in a couple of tanks, some kind of sword that's grown nicely, a non-aquatic fern of some sort that has lasted months and months, and non-aquatic mondo grass that lasted pretty well. The java ferns did great, still have some of those and their plantlets. I knew zero about plants when I got them, just picked stuff that looked good and healthy, and they worked for what I wanted at the time.


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## erik Loza (Feb 6, 2006)

Former Petco manager here. Like all the plants we sold, they would do fine if you got to them right after they arrived at your local store and if you selected species which were truly aquatic. As was previously mentioned, if they sit on the shelf for very long in a dimly lit store, they fall apart quickly. These tubes plants appeared since my tenure with Petco ended (about four years ago) but I do have lots of experience with Horizon plants. They were the supplier for bunch and potted aquatics, as well as these small, potted terrestrial succulents and tropical plants that many stores sell. Quality plants and it really varied from store to store how they were kept up. I always specified that the potted plants be placed near a window if possible, or I would arrange to have one of those clamp-on light fixtures and little spiral fluorescent PC set up to light them with. In these cases, the plants did fine until they sold. Of course, not all stores may make this a priority.

I was picking up some frozen bloodworms at my neighborhood Petco the other day and they had some nice looking young Ozelot swords in the tubes. Had I been setting up a new tank, I would have bought them without hesitation. As always, you should be the judge of what's important for you.
To answer your original question, yes, you can get very nice plants at Petco. Good luck.


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## anthonysquire (Mar 15, 2006)

My experience is almost identical to Shaggathai's. I bought 2 different plants to put in my 10 gal, knowing nothing about planted aquariums. That was almost 3 years ago and they are still alive and doing well. Now that I know a little more I'm not going to buy those, but they lived.


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## Robert Hudson (Feb 5, 2004)

I thought Petco usually had three large square tanks that overflowed into each other with metal halides overhead, as plant tanks. Maybe I'm thinking of Petsmart.

Last year I wanted a part time job to give me some extra play money, and money to put back into my business, so I went into Petco thinking it would be a slam dunk. I showed them my WEB site, the articles I have had published... yada yada yada... and they had an opening in their fish dept.....

Well this stupid 20 something year old, owl faced olive oil said she would hire me to unload trucks at 2 in the morning. What a cheese head. Months later she is reffering people to buy plants from me, and I am sure she was clueless in remembering who I was. She just pulled Aqua Botanic out of the phone book. I also went into the store a couple months ago to buy fish and it was the worst service I had ever seen. People were lined up waiting to be helped. The guy was writing the names of the fish on a little post it note instead of on the bag. It was just incredibly lame. 

When they turned me away, I think that is when I decided to go wholesale and put a lot more effort into my business. Thanks Petco.


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## erik Loza (Feb 6, 2006)

Robert Hudson said:


> I thought Petco usually had three large square tanks that overflowed into each other with metal halides overhead, as plant tanks. Maybe I'm thinking of Petsmart.
> 
> Last year I wanted a part time job to give me some extra play money, and money to put back into my business, so I went into Petco thinking it would be a slam dunk. I showed them my WEB site, the articles I have had published... yada yada yada... and they had an opening in their fish dept.....
> 
> ...


I'm not sure what your point is. That would be like me saying, "I'm handsome enough that any girl would want to be seen with me. I offered to buy that one girl over there a drink and she said no. She was ugly and I didn't want to go out with her, anyway". Come on, really...

I hired, more or less, 200-300 employees during my eight-year tenure with that company and will make two statements: It is retail, and low-paying retail at that, so clueless 20-year olds are to be expected. And, if I legitimately needed an Aquatics Specialist and your application ended up in my box, I probably would have hired you. Unless, of course, you rubbed me the wrong way or came across as a know-it-all to the customers. But, I don't know you and speculation doesn't benefit anyone.

I think it's great that your plant business is successful and I will make a note to browse your site when I'm setting up my next tank. The beauty of retail stores like Petco is that if you don't care to spend your money at one because of the staff, prices, quality of product, there's an alternative most likely right up the street. Speaking only for myself, I let my wallet do the talking and if the goal is to make money, then it seems to me that you would be glad to have the neighborhood big-box pet store sending business your way, rather than critical. Of course, my 2-cents may be worth less to the next person. Good luck with your planted tanks and your business, friend.


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