What's the best deal you ever got on livestock in retail?

[Moe_K]

Best deal I ever got in retail was by accident at PetCo in Cambridge.
I was in there looking at fish, and a guy walked in with his puple tang in a bucket.
He said the fish was too big and mean for his small tank.
He gave it to PetCo.

I asked them how much, the kid shrugged and said 30 bucks. I agreed and he wrote up the ticket for the cashier.

I see them now on line (Live Aquaria) for ~120 bucks.

That was a good deal.
Fish was healthy and lived for years before I gave it away when I moved.

 

[jarrodsanborn]

I bought a piece of live rock and it came with a free snowflake eel inside.
Not quite as good as a med-lrg purple tang though.

 

[acrofragger]

I bought a piece of live rock and it came with a free snowflake eel inside.
Not quite as good as a med-lrg purple tang though.

lol


i got a hippo tang for 10 dolars and it is about 6 inches from head to tail and i got it from the mspca

 

[dannyp02908]

free snowflake eel. Thats awesome.

 

[Dekon]

I bought a piece of LR with so zoas on it. When I dipped it, a 1/2" long pistol shrimp popped out of the rock. Only paid $2 for the rock. Not a purple tang score but a little score.

 

[jokersplayground]

i whent to krystal clear and bought a superman shroom for $17 and the shroom was mounted to a mini colony of black sun corals and i also scored a 25 head sun coral for $20 from them(all in one day)

 

[P-Nut]

I bought 120lbs of live rock for $200. It came with a couple of blue mushrooms, sponges, GSP, 3 small hermit crabs, one blue hermit crab, and 25 snails.
The rock was covered in purple and copepods.

Not a bad deal, but not retail either.

 

[wrassefan]

I did just a bit better than you Moe...I got a purple tang from Petco but it did have HLLE....the clerk said it was eating well tho for weeks. I asked the manager about a reduced price and got it for $17 because of the obvious disease it had...HLLE went away after a few months of eating well and good water quality

 

[The Ng Thing]

I didn't benefit from the deal but a bunch of people did. Back when I worked for Petco, we had a sale on all Powder Blue Tangs. Due to some error up in the food chain, the sale price came up as $24.99 for all of them regardless of size. Normally when we got them in, they were tiny but this particular week the only ones we got in were the medium to large (they were all the size of my palm, I'm guessing 4"-5") I was just getting into saltwater at that point so I thought nothing of it. If I knew then, I would've gotten one with my discount. Unfortunately they realized their mistake and it'll probably never happen again.

 

[Overlook reef]

One month ago at Petco in Norwood!

$12.00 for this Zoa covered rock!

 

[fishfry]

Picked up an amazing rainbow bta at Jay's for $50! I have never seen them on line when their even available for less than $150. Today was a good day.

 

[Dfrontiero89]

Was looking at the saltwater fish and was waiting to buy a maroon clownfish when a guy( customer too) came in with one in a bag. We were looking at the clowns and he asked if I wanted it,I took it and was psyched.

Also, last week bought a live rock and came with 2 emerald crabs!

 

[Dfrontiero89]

Overlook reef, how did you pull of $12 for that!? Haha awesome!

 

[Overlook reef]

Overlook reef, how did you pull of $12 for that!? Haha awesome!

I stopped in the store at about lunch time just to look around. When I saw the piece in one of their tanks, I asked the kid working there how much they were asking for it. He spent some time looking at lists of coral and eventually came over to me and said " I think it is $11.99". I tried not to smile when I said I will take it.

 

[Ryukin_Girl]

Yep love the slow staffers lol. Gotten alot of great deals over the years either from working in a petshop or by word of mouth. The best deal I've gotten latly is 300pds of clean Live Rock for 150.00. Cause not many do Saltwater here and /or everyone buys online. Just got to hang out anywhere and somethings coming in. I got my breeding pair of Falus clowns for free (If I knew how happy the couple was I would have walked away lol ). Wish I was suprized what people spend their money on and throw away around here lol.

 

[Ruge13]

ORA trained mandarin eating frozen food and pellets... paid $20 because the kid with the net didn't know the difference in pricing. IIRC they were selling around $129 at the time. I was not about to remind him. Had him for 2 years now.

 

[CaptainAndy]

Cannot believe some of the responses. Call it what you like but these actions hurt vendors.

 

[P-Nut]

Cannot believe some of the responses. Call it what you like but these actions hurt vendors.

With that mentality, we shouldn't negotiate prices for anythng, not even cars.

Vendors hurt themselves. You ask for a price, if they say $10 for something that is worth $50 then its not your problem.

 

[Overlook reef]

Cannot believe some of the responses. Call it what you like but these actions hurt vendors.

I believe I saved these Zoas.

I stopped by the same Petco the other day and almost all their corals were dead.

How do you think that affects the vendor.

At least they got something for the Zoas instead of watching them die.

 

[jt628]

I got a 12" green carpet nem for 19.99 at petco a couple years back, It grew to about 18" an ate a Yellow tang, I in turn traded it in at a place with whom I will never do business again.. I got 80.00 in trade, They then SOLD it for 350.00.... so IMO vendors are doing just fine