# Petco Water Params?? WTF!



## cobrafox46 (Jun 2, 2008)

Well I went to the mall today and stopped by the local Petco to do some browsing. I finally remembered to bring my vials to test their water params figuring them to be disasterous. I stuck my vials in and got the water. I brought it home and went to work. Ammonia and Nitrites came out zero as expected. But the amazing thing is the Nitrates were also at zero??? How can that be? Their tanks are all connected to one filter! I was amazed when I came up with this. I tested my feeder tank to make sure the test was ok and the nitrates were really high. Anyone understand how the reading could be so low? I am actually kinda impressed LOL!


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## mike61701 (Mar 9, 2008)

did they have a couple of tanks with plants? that could be one reason.


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## Guest (Mar 2, 2009)

They probably have a good filtration/plumbing system. Maybe they flush their tanks out with fresh tap water.


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## cobrafox46 (Jun 2, 2008)

I may have to ask next time I am in there.....I was just really suprised!


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## notaverage (Sep 10, 2005)

Every time I used to go there they were flushing the tanks...It seemed they constantly did water changes and there is always someone vacuuming out the tanks.
That is interesting though.


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## CLUSTER ONE (Aug 2, 2006)

Even if water is good, any possible diseases can be spread pretty fast. I wonder what walmarts tanks are at. I also doubt it was 0 becasue that would be hard to acheive unless its overfiltered, the use of plants as well as waterchanges, but thats pretty good. Im canadian so dont have petcos, but have petsmarts and hear they are fairly similar. If they have water chamistry down pat, now all they have to do is focuss on telling people correct info. Its kinda sad at petsmarts how apparently pacu's grow to 11" and can live in a 30gal minimum. Iven if pacus did only grow to 11", it would be cruel to put any 11" fish in a 30 gal.


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## crazy banana (Jan 8, 2009)

They let you do that? You just walked into petco and started hording water from them?


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## blbig50 (Jan 1, 2009)

That is impressive, but I too want to know, how did you get water, ask, or just take it lol


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## DiPpY eGgS (Mar 6, 2005)

They just probably do lots of water changes is all.


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## Guest (May 24, 2009)

Lots of water changes still wouldn't get levels that low...

-Your test could be insensitive to micro readings
-They could use absorbent media which stops ammonia from building up, which would in theory eliminate Trites and Tirates.
-We once had a freshwater tank that we ran about 4 skimmers off of. We didn't think they would do anything, but they ended up lowering Trates by 80% in a couple weeks.
-Purigen?

Interesting though, thanks for sharing!


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## Death in #'s (Apr 29, 2003)

im pretty sure all the tanks are connected and they have a massive filtration system


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