# Buyer Beware



## bahensley4

Ok, so I am a newbie to Aquascaping. I have had an aquarium in my life off and on since I was a kid. It seems that I am not content unless there is water and fish swirling around me somewhere.
I have really tried to do my homework. I’ve bought books and magazines. I am trying to wait until January to get my 55 gallon tank up and running before I get started with fish and such. However, I am an eager person and now I have three one to one and a half gallon "tanks” sitting on a small table.
I won’t go into all of the details of my tanks setups; however, my plants are doing great. These tanks have a very small bio-load and the water looks good. I do my ritual water changes and so things are good.
So the other day, I was at Petco and bought a plant in a plastic tube. I had once told myself ….many times that I would never do that. (Chuckle.) However, it , the plant was small, healthy and quite beautiful. 
How many times have they told us not to impulsive buy? Anyway, I took it home and plant it. Now I have yet ANOTHER container sitting on the table. Luckly, I planted this plant by its self. The name of the plant on the package was Peacock Fern. The other ID on the container said Selaginella Wildenowii. 
So today, I decide to look it up on the internet. Duh! Of course the scientific name was misspelled and it should have been spelled Selaginella Willdenowii. I now find out this in NOT an aquarium plant.
It is a moss and will last only about six weeks after being submerged. It is not the four bucks I spent for this plant that upsets me, but I think Petco should be better informed about their products and how they sell them to the public. Some plants in this order can be toxic if submerged in a closed environment. Of course I will not put any fish in with this plant.
If anyone else has any information on this plant or a similar experience, I would like to hear about it.


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## tropism

I don't know much about that plant other than what you've already said. For some reason though, the LFS that I go to most often seems to get that (and about 2 or 3 other non-aquatics) in almost every plant shipment, and sells them submerged along with their other plants. Either the fish stores don't know that they're not aquatic plants, or they don't care. Either way, it really bothers me that they continue to sell plants to people that have no chance in an aquarium! [smilie=m:


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## SimplyOrange

we've all been there. it's definitely a buyer beware when it comes to fish and plants. I can understand if they sell it for terrariums and such but say it. and it's difficult since I go to the LFS several times and I see a plant and if I don't recognize it I'll stand there debating on whether to get it and risk it.

just do your research and take what they say or sell at your own risk. i hate mondo grass. lol.


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## evercl92

that's exactly why most of us on here don't buy plants at petsmart, petco, etc...


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## Cliff Mayes

evercl92 is right on but remember businesses are in business to make money. It is always safe to assume "Buyer Beware" when buying anything anywhere! If no one bought them the stores would not sell them. ?

Whose fault is ignorance when good info is readily available? Yeah! I have in the past bought non aquatics for my tanks, so mea culpa.


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## dekstr

Well it's always buyer beware anytime you buy anything.

First plant I ever got was mondo grass.

Me: Are you sure it's submersible?
PetSmart salesgirl: Yup. They're really heathly.
Me: Are you really sure: Yup.
PetSmart salesgirl: Yup I'm very sure.
Me: Okay I'll take 3 bunches.

I hate mondo grass too lol.


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## Amazon_Replica

The petsmart by me is actually pretty good with their true aquatics, however, literally 90% of the plants for sale as "aquariums plants" at the petco here are not true aquatic. Bamboo, grass, some wysteria, no kidding, and a few houseplants like spider plant etc. I actually got in an argument with the sales guy there. I'm like, how can you sell these to people, most of whom wont know until its too late, and then while their plants are dying, they will think either they did something wrong, or this hobby is too hard and not worth entertaining any further. "How can you knowingly sell these plants"? He says, "I am not selling them, the store is." I wanted to knock the tank over and walk out, I was mad.

Yea I saw those tubes they had too, and they say "Snail Free" on them, those guys are "censored"


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## rsretep

yes i bought the same plant from petsmart...lover the look of it in the store ,it grew for a little while and was sending off new growth ,then things went south very quickly....live and learn i guess


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## Muirner

I'd call them up and request a refund or replacement with a true aquatic plant. Dont talk to the people who answer the phone, go to the store manager. Let him know how you feel in a clear and consice way, and see how it goes.


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## johnny fish

ugly but true. after lerning my lesson i now nolonger impuls buy. and its not a bad thing to buy at petco or any other store for that matter. face it "real" pet shops are so far apart its not logical to search them all. so first what i do is look at the condition of the livestock. ask questions you know and see if they know what they are talking about. if you find a plant you like(not mondo grass) write the name down and study the way the plant looks. DONT BUY IT YET. go home and research it. and you can figure out the rest. 
i have many friends that are into aquatics and many times they will give me clippings or sprouts if i ask. and another way to be sure to get quality plants is to order them from your local pet shop. (NOT PET CO) i find my local dealers more than willing to look for and call me when they find what i desire.
anyone can grow crabgrass under water if you add enough co2 thats why they dont have any fish in those tanks..... think about it!


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## bahensley4

Thanks, you all have made me feel better. Even though I live on a large city, the LFS are the pitts. The larger chain-stores are great for equipment, but their live stock sucks. At the smaller locally owned stores, they are not interested in you unless you are into the saltwater scene.


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## Mr. Fish

Lol yup we all been there.... I got into an arguement once too with the LFS guy.
Only becuase dude didnt wanna return it, saying that they've ordered from that vendor
for years and never heard this... Im like check it out, this plastic container says Amazon 
Sword, does this look like an Amazon sword to you ? The plant I had was some yellow and green
stripped plant forgot the name, but when I bought it I didnt read the name that was on
the container.... dumb of me... but to make a long story short I got my money back
and you should NEVER buy plants from Petco or Petsmart for 2 reasons:

1) They dont take care of their plants leaving you with deffiency problems

2) They help promote a company that sells house plants for Aquairums...

I only order from Members here, online or this one LFS near me that actually knows what hes doing...


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## cynkatt

i never realized such duping was even possible before getting into plants. i was into fish for yrs but only became interested in live plants for a few months now and was sold mondo grass as one of my first plants by petcetera which i later found out woudl die within a few months if not sooner. i have since been there several other times buying specific plants i was interested in and had them misinform me on other plants by label or information or even try to sell me plants they had submersed that were not even true aquatic plants...i really just don't get it. Simply in my mind, there is no lack of aquatic plants out there, they are in abundance...why dupe ppl with false aquatic plants, it makes no sense atall!

now i do all my own research..often i can go to the store and 'correct' any lfs store person on what their plants actually are and wether or not they are aquatic, and id what i am looking for and therofr buy only what i actually want and can use.
my beginners eye with all the research has gotten quite skilled if i do say so myself 



tropism said:


> I don't know much about that plant other than what you've already said. For some reason though, the LFS that I go to most often seems to get that (and about 2 or 3 other non-aquatics) in almost every plant shipment, and sells them submerged along with their other plants. Either the fish stores don't know that they're not aquatic plants, or they don't care. Either way, it really bothers me that they continue to sell plants to people that have no chance in an aquarium! [smilie=m:[/QUOTE]


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## toxic69

i been sold a spider plant befor it had bin cut to look like some kind of grass, it did well for about a month then died, Dont feel bad about it tho because even tho i was kind of conned into buyin it thinking it was something else ,i think it was worth the risk of tryin a plant i knew nothing about i looked at it like buying cut flowers even if it died it looked good for a while and if it had be for real i would have had a cool plant, its wrong i guess what the shop people tell you but i allways take advice given to me by people trying to sell me something with a pinch of salt anyway lol


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## fishfan

Since getting into planted aquaria, the plants I have gotten from mail order places have done so much better than when I used to buy plants at Petsmart. Ironic in that you would think it would be just the opposite because of the potential trauma in the shipping process.


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## Robert Hudson

It is not that these stores are purposely dupping you, they just do not know any better. Their distributor lumps terrarium and aquarium plants all together on a availability list to the store. Most of these stores do not know one from the other.


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## hoppycalif

Isn't another problem that as we become more and more successful at planted tank keeping we need less and less new plants, so the LFS have a hard time making any profit at all on plants. That would make nicely packaged-in-a-tube plants that look real good seem very good for the stores. And, the less plant sales they have, the less their staff know about plants.


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## SimplyOrange

hoppycalif said:


> Isn't another problem that as we become more and more successful at planted tank keeping we need less and less new plants, so the LFS have a hard time making any profit at all on plants. That would make nicely packaged-in-a-tube plants that look real good seem very good for the stores. And, the less plant sales they have, the less their staff know about plants.


that's true. so everyone grow your plants well and share. lol.

but how many of you have ever found an employee who doesn't know their plants and have been able to take advantage of pricing? whether their fault or with the power of suggestion. lol. hey i just found out (from a member's experience here) that you can offer a price for plant trimmings from the store's display tanks.


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## Robert Hudson

I don't think thats really much of the problem. Most of the stores don't have that many if any customers that really know anything about plants either. The bulk of retail customers buy a few plants without knowing how to care for them, watch them disintergrate in the aquarium and then give up on plants. The store has the problem of keeping the plants alive and healthy looking long enough to sell them. Thats why stores don't see plants as a way of making any money. If a store has a large amount of foot traffic, then they are willing to take more chances with plants, and are more likely to have a small number of customers that are really into the plants. The plant club people don't spend the money, but there are plenty of other plant enthusiasts that do


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## wakemenow

I'm in agreement with Robert. At the place I work, the plants are shipped in without any labels other than anacharis and "bunched assortment." And I too have fallen for mondo grass being passed off as submersible. The only reason I can that we continue to stock it is for our terrarium customers. It would be nice if it were separated from the true aquatic plants, but the planogram doesn't allow for that. Go figure. It's retail. 

So you do your research and pray for a knowledgeable sales person. :neutral:


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## Dryn

The Petsmart near me has a really large collection of plants. I was there to buy a dwarf asian puffer that my LFS person told me about (very rare here). Anyway, I browsed their plant selection. Most were not labeled. About one third of them were terrarium plants. I asked the associate some questions and she didn't even try to answer. She got her supposedly plant "guru" boss to come over. Surprise, surprise, he knew almost nothing. He told me that there were no plants that lived indefinately underwater. He said that you just throw away your dead plants and buy new ones. WOW.

Now, from a business standpoint, this makes sense. If your customers have to replace their plants every so often, then you make more money. But, if you look at the facts, big-box retailers are slowly doing away with plants altogether. Many fish-keepers want plants. They buy them at cheap, big-box stores and then the plants die. They buy a few more, and alas, they die too. Eventually, they give up on plants. When they quit buying plants, the retailers quit caring about plants. Then, they don't train their associates to know about plants, and we are stuck with what we have now. 

If they had just one associate per region to educate associates about plants, they could sell better plants, and the things we need to grow them, and plant sales would go up, and everything would get better. A high-tech planted aquarium makes a retailer as much money as a marine aquarium would, (if they sold them). If they just positively identified thier stock, more customers would be happy. They could even label their terrarium plants as "annual plants." Billions of annuals are sold each year, and they only live for like three or four months too. Then they get the best of both worlds. Happy customers, and repeat business.

PS. I did buy some mondo grass while I was there. I knew it would die, I just liked the way it looked, until I replaced it with some dwarf sag.


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## Robert Hudson

> He told me that there were no plants that lived indefinately underwater. He said that you just throw away your dead plants and buy new ones. WOW.


Next time you are in there, pull one of the FAMA magazines off their shelf, and tell them to read my column!


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## fishfan

Most of the bunched plants require higher light levels than the typical fish browser/buyer might have over their tank. Which is strange to me that the stores would not keep lots of say a plant like the java fern which is almost indestructable and is perfect for the casual aquarist. I would never have even known about plants like this (rhizome growing) when I first started if I hadn't researched with books and joined APC.
But nevertheless what do I see the last time I went to one of the local big box fish store but huge bunches of Anacharis and cactus looking cabomba listed as "bunched plant".


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## momchi

evercl92 said:


> that's exactly why most of us on here don't buy plants at petsmart, petco, etc...


I appreciate your comment, but where do we buy them? Do you have reccommendations? I see many placed online, but don't feel "safer" buying online "alive" things... I'd rather "see" it and "touch" it... syndrome you know... plus they are usually quite expensive on shipping costs...


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## Darksome

momchi said:


> I appreciate your comment, but where do we buy them? Do you have reccommendations? I see many placed online, but don't feel "safer" buying online "alive" things... I'd rather "see" it and "touch" it... syndrome you know... plus they are usually quite expensive on shipping costs...


Is there even a locally owned fish store in your town? I would look up for the nearest lfs and give them a try if they are some distance away from you call them first and check...if not, try to look for other fellow fishkeepers/club who are willing to sell or trade with you. I had the same dilemma until I looked around and I finally have some good sources where I can get my plants, even if it means taking a two hour bus ride into the city  Craigslist might be of help, just be careful.


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## niko

I will never understand why most of us expect excellent customer service from underpaid workers. That's especially true for pet stores - chains or not. If you ever get to talk to person that works at these stores that knows what they are talking about that's only because they happen to be interested in the hobby. Such people are pretty rare.

Truth is big chain pet stores are "businesses" operating with cheap labor and selling mostly inferior and overpriced products."Businesses" in quotes because selling an non-quarantined cardinal fish for $3.99 is not business - it's a rip off AND an insult to the customer. Selling terrestrial plants as aquatic is an insult too. Paying a good price for goods that are good is fair. The only thing that makes these stores appear good is the standard image they have to put up as a front. 

--Nikolay


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