I just bought a $3 baby green terror from either petco or petsmart, i forget which... and he'll probably be dead tomorrow because he was struggling today. I broke my own rule about not ever getting fish from either of those stores.
a lot of people on this site bash on chain petstores about having bad fish but everytime i read a story about it it begins with 'oh i saw this poor half dead fish so i decided to buy it...'
try buying the healthier fish guys and youll have better luck. even your lfs have die off so i dont get what the big deal is about buying from chain stores.
-shrug-