Tropical Kingdom — Local services in Tucson

Updated review: omg you are actually kidding.. one of the 1 star reviews from someone who says “they will never return to this store again,” is from a girl who HELD A MACAW and made it step up on her arm 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 she followed it by saying “I know there’s a sign that says not to touch/hold girl” - GIRL!!!! You’re joking right?! That’s a troll review??? Hahahah omg major props to ANYONE who owns a business because holy moly.. I’d lose my mind at some of these Karen complaints ☠️ she said “I’m good with birds and know they bite.” You do understand…… that’s a liability, right?! You’re the same type of person who gets bit by the bird after holding it.. blames the store for having an “aggressive animals” ..then sues them and gets them shut down for your own mistake. I cannot ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️ then the only other 1star I’ve read so far was a guy who said the tanks “have water stains.” Bruh.. you do understand that water stains have NOTHING to do with the health of the fish tank……… right? Lololol it’s solely appearance.. and that’s your gripe? And the reason you left a ONE star review? ☠️ I’m glad I made the right choice so far to leave a 5 star to offset some of these negative ones.

Original review: Idk why people are hating on this place (on Yelp - looks like Google reviews are at 4.3 stars but Yelp has 3.0 lol kinda crazy) so I had to give ‘em 5 based off my first experience. My dad and I went to every pet store in Tucson looking for Spangles/floating plants. We turned up with ZERO! Went to the place that sells Boba+fish lol petsmart/Petco and Tropical Kingdom.. place is HUGE.. and zero floating plants 😔💔 my theory is that they’re difficult to keep from melting and you have to go filterless/have perfectly still water. Which, of course, no fish store is going to have lol

Anyways, onto my first impressions. The macaws were SO awesome. Same with the ginormous boas 🐍 was blown away. And glad they have them on display to show people how unbelievably massive they get. “5th largest snake in the world” says their message on the glass with their biggest one lol many don’t know before buying. So that’s always fun. Anytime I go to a petstore to browse.. I’m half going for the supplies I need.. and half going to see some cute animals lmao. So although they didn’t have my supplies, I at least got to see animals! Including quail chicks 😭 that will forever have my heart because I hatch them myself 🤣

What I did get was this ‘tiny’ little cup of pearl weed that I just randomly found on top of one of their tanks. They even had trouble ringing up the price because there wasn’t one listed anywhere lol so when it came up to 12 bucks, I was kinda shocked! And felt a little bit duped at first. Until I got home.. this lil ‘tiny’ cup FILLED FIVE SEPARATE TANKS!!! And now I’ll forever have endless pearlweed!!! It grows like crazy and you can snip and replant for all of eternity! It’s a one and done purchase.. so 12 bucks well spent! Very few of the roots were brown/dying looking. Super healthy specimen ☠️

The photo I added was just a couple days after purchasing. It’s totally taking off!!! So yeah.. I’m not sure what all the negative reviews on Yelp are about.. so I’m about to go read em to figure it out lol I had a great first experience and will definitely be back - so I had to drop em a 5! I’m in desperate need of snails for a new tank (bought 4 nerites off Amazon and they arrived totally dead 😔) so I’m actually thinking of taking a ride to Tropical Kingdom today. Hope it’s not like the spangles and they have none! Can’t remember if I saw any when I went the first time. If they don’t have any, I may have to edit my review to a 1 star...

I used to shop here very frequently. The prices on live and frozen rodent feeders are some of the best in town, and they have a wide selection of reptiles. However, as many other reviews have mentioned, the place stinks. [If this is TLDR for you, scroll to the bottom about frozen feeders. Seriously.]

It does have cobwebs and spiderwebs everywhere--as in, some are old and dusty, some contain live spiders. The birds are very talkative and social, though their cages need cleaning. I don't know that I've witnessed a clean birdcage on any visit, regardless of when. We're not talking some seeds and daily poo, we're talking a week's worth or more, even for birds that are poo factories. The birds are often in some kind of 'special needs' phase, whether they've been plucking or are just dirty.

The reptiles are usually in good health, but my most recent visit saw a subadult ball python with mouth rot and another with a visible respiratory infection. Come on, guys, seriously? The mouth rot on the subadult was so bad its mouth was forced open by the infection. That stage is unacceptable, and that snake needed to be quarantined or at the vet's office, not on display for sale next to another sick snake.

The place does smell, and it really always has. It clearly doesn't get the cleaning attention any longer, though, and the fish tanks are appalling to see. I have seen them clean and full of healthy fish, but not recently. I expect to see a dead fish at Petco or PetSmart, which is depressing but the norm. Here, you're like to find the aforementioned algae water in other reviews, multiple dead fish, carcasses that have had time to not only be picked over but begin decomposing, and visibly sick fish. I used to love this place for their fish.

As to the service, they're almost always awesome. The people that work there are knowledgeable and helpful, and willing to assist however they can. That's a plus, and not to be discounted, but what I experienced is just beyond not okay in terms of everything else. Cleanliness of the store and care of their stock is a part of that service, and it falls woefully short.

I don't know what's happened to this place, but it's gone down. One of the single most horrifying things I witnessed were the frozen feeders. I asked to see them for size, and a guy opened their freezer.

Inside this freezer was a tub of mice, maybe weaned or near adult size. They were all alive, scrambling over one another, packed pretty tightly.

Alive, in the freezer, running over one another, presumably waiting to freeze to death in some kind of rodent ice block.

I have no bloody words after seeing that.

Except for these: in closing, I always stress that any herp owner or other pet owner scope the place for themselves and form their own opinions. It's hard to find a good reptile store, and this one used to be...

I stopped in one afternoon, my very first visit to this store, and was pretty well appalled at the state of everything. The first thing you notice when you walk in is how absolutely acrid the air smells from the pungent presence of old urine. I was wearing a mask, and was still gagging from the smell. I could still sense the smell in my nose three hours later!

The whole time I was there I saw only one employee actively working within an open air area for larger parrots, but it seemed like they were repairing something, not really cleaning. I wandered nearly the whole store looking over everything and was dismayed to see very distressed birds that looked so stressed from being in their cages and under stimulated. I reached my main purpose on entering in to see if they had rats as pets for adoption and was dismayed to see the conditions they keep them all in with barely any room for the sheer number that they keep. They separate the males and females but is was absolutely saddening to see the dynamics of the animals causing one male to be rejected by the others, unable to snuggle up and gain warmth with the few bodies that were available. It honestly looked like a 10 gallon tank and there were about 6-7 rats in each one. Highly distressing. Also they were very urine soaked and in general looked under socialized.

I then started looking at their for sale cages in boxes that weren't marked very clearly for how much it could have been. That was the first time someone approached me asking if I needed any help. It startled me even. I got the price, put it back down and continued around. I ended up leaving not purchasing anything and regretted my visit because of how the lingering smell of ammonia was absolutely terrible. I was there for 20 minutes max, mask on!, and I can only imagine the respiratory damage that was being done to the animals, the employees, and the customers.

It was so bad I reported them to the Better Business Bureau because of the living conditions of the mammals and birds being so poor. The company never responded to the inquiry, which is truly sad, and from reading all the comments where people complain about the same thing the company only responds in denial and fake "concern " for the pets lives they financially benefit from. If you cannot provide a safe work environment for your customers, employees, and the pets you sell, you should downsize to something more manageable or not be in business.

The greatest joke of all was the "Help Wanted" sign on the front door. Seems like they are having trouble keeping employees who do not want to be abused or under paid... I will never shop there. I recently visited PACC and a Petsmart, both of them smelled immaculate compared to that. Do Better...