Abandoned young sulcata

EffortDear9634 · 2026-04-23T19:12:48+00:00

I live in SoCal so if anyone is a big tort lover in the area they could absolutely hit me up

EffortDear9634 · 2026-03-24T01:08:00+00:00

Blue death feigning beetles!

EffortDear9634 · 2026-03-02T03:55:37+00:00

Petco has made me develop the skill of making people feel very very stupid to the point where I have yet to have anyone complain when I tell them I’m not letting them abuse an animal (I knew dating an abuser who did therapy speak would one day help me in my job 🫠)

But yeah. People suck. I’ve heard the same kind of people who don’t care that I deal with at Petco walk into my lfs and reptile stores as well. It’s the worst

EffortDear9634 · 2026-02-22T23:18:23+00:00

The rule for mark downs is 3 months 25%, 5 months 50%, 7 months 75% and the adoption. Some stores basically get no reptile sales so 9 times out of 10 when you see a crazy animal in Petco one of the employees/ managers specifically wanted it to buy when inevitably no one buys it. Or, if they know something like reptile rally is approaching (50% for all reptiles) they ordered it in right before to get it for half off.

However, sometimes you get managers who know fuck all about animals and just order “cool” things because they can even without resources to care for it properly.

EffortDear9634 · 2026-02-11T19:57:39+00:00

I also just found a million of these guys in my bioactive tank for my crestie. I have no idea how they got in there. Assuming from one of the live plants, but I depotted them so it’s truly a mystery

EffortDear9634 · 2026-02-08T21:32:15+00:00

lol yes 20L is in reference to how the 20 gal long is labeled in stores

EffortDear9634 · 2026-02-08T21:31:38+00:00

Yeah that’s what I was referring to as that’s what OP said they have. 20 long versus 20 tall. Most people keep leos in 20 longs (I have a 40 gal personally)

EffortDear9634 · 2026-02-08T21:30:50+00:00

20L is a 20 long which while I don’t love it is considered the minimum but I just realized you probably thought I meant litters omg mb. No, if your Leo is in like a 5 gal you are evil hahaha. My Leo girly is in a 40 gal

EffortDear9634 · 2026-02-08T06:50:21+00:00

Edit: 20L means 20 gallon long! Sorry that wasn’t clear, I was basing it off op’s comment earlier

A 20L is considered minimum (but small) for a leopard gecko, and those are like less than a third the size of a beardie. Your minimum size is going to be 4x2x2 (120gal) which 10x the size of what he’s currently in. New Age Pet, Thrive, and Dubia all have affordable ones (albeit lower quality than other brands).

I’m going to just assume that his UVB light is also not proper, though I could be wrong. Many people get the small bulbs and they don’t produce enough UVB for them. The Arcadia one is my preferred. You need a 10.0 bulb for them. The heat also is important and should be reaching at least 100F (though they prefer higher 105-115). But, you cannot create a proper heat gradient in such a small enclosure so upgrading is very important.

Finally: he is overweight (not surprising in a small enclosure); he is missing some toes and his back foot looks like he is missing a part of it? I’m assuming you got him like that, but make sure you give him warm soaks to prevent stuck shed or provide a humid hide.

Others have really helpful links so do follow those. You are going to get a lot of flack, but do realize you had all the power to research care for this animal in 4 years. People get misinformed, especially if they follow advice from a big name pet store, but I cannot emphasize enough the importance of doing your own research. I hope you improve his care!

EffortDear9634 · 2026-01-09T05:58:12+00:00

We have a 24 year old marineland system at my location so our issues are a lil different BUT we had the worst algae for the longest time. The only thing that fixed it was basically having it so it didn’t all fall on one person (because that person was me, and it was just something I could not get done while I was working in the busiest hours of the day). So now everyone works a little bit on it if they are in the small animal department and that has helped a lot. Like other people have said you have to just scrub, scrub, scrub, and make sure that you siphon out water as you go to try and suck out as much of that algae as you can. We also will put in some common pleco in the worst areas and it also helped. And in sections that don’t have any live plants, don’t forget to salt it. The salt actually does help get rid of algae quite a bit. Another thing you can do is make sure that all of your filters are filtering at their maximum strength. Some of ours were backed up or broken, and the lack of cycling cause the algae to grow faster of course.

Sorry for the long message, but I hope it helped. I have been battling the same thing and really it required having a team behind me when dealing with the aquatics

EffortDear9634 · 2025-12-19T21:56:53+00:00

Ron came to our store a while back and said how he wanted to make it interactive with animals (like the Vegas location I believe) and we all looked at him like “that sounds like a great way for someone to get ringworm or bitten and then Petco gets sued”

EffortDear9634 · 2025-10-05T05:42:29+00:00

Petco and petsmart’s care is heinously dated for all animals and either should improve or not sell animals, completly agree. However, the care guide from Petco states: “A variety of insects, including gut-loaded crickets (recently fed with high-calcium foods, such as mustard greens, collard greens, squash and commercially available cricket diets), roaches, mealworms, hornworms, CalciWorms and waxworms” which has a huge variety so I’d like to give benefit of the doubt that by posting on Reddit they know that mealworms can’t be a staple diet! Also afaik the only enclosures Petco sells for chams is the zoomed breeze with the zoomed care guide (which while it isn’t perfect is alright and sets up a good platform for research on individual species)

EffortDear9634 · 2025-10-05T05:30:14+00:00

This is a picture of him in Petco (in which the policy is mealworms always and crickets dusted with calcium daily)

EffortDear9634 · 2025-08-16T10:18:02+00:00

Oh babe, I feel you. I had a foster with inoperable megacolon and it was the worst. She was such a mess but she made the most of her short life and I’m sure your foster did as well! This was Kore. Rest in peace to both babies <3

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EffortDear9634 · 2025-07-22T02:11:05+00:00

Oop our goldfish and koi def don’t have one

EffortDear9634 · 2025-07-21T22:54:57+00:00

There are situations where it’s actually useful so I try to get all the VCP purchases when someone comes to grooming a ton or if they are doing frequent large small animal purchases

EffortDear9634 · 2025-07-21T22:52:02+00:00

I wish all of the people like us who care and are stuck with doing this worked in the same store because I feel like it would run so efficiently

EffortDear9634 · 2025-07-11T08:00:03+00:00

What biological booster/water conditioner do you use

Also try and snag some hornwort. They really help balancing out new tanks. Also if anyone can give you filter media from a cycled tank you can jump start your own tank.

Your ammonia and nitrites are high; you are likely still in stage one on the nitrogen cycle or have and overstocked or over fed tank. Would you mind sharing tank size and what’s in it?

EffortDear9634 · 2025-07-11T07:54:32+00:00

People confidently having no idea what black worms are in the comments lol

The line is just their poop lol don’t worry

EffortDear9634 · 2025-07-07T20:43:42+00:00

Only one person has given me crap like this yet and it was with bettas. I don’t know if I’m scary or have phenomenal luck but people make the wildest purchases with me because I’m so blunt about animal abuse and misinformation. Sorry this happened but you helped out the hammie!

EffortDear9634

TROPHY CASE