Jason
New Member
Hey everyone. I work at a Wal-Mart on Long Island, NY and make frequent trips to the Pets department where we have about 25 tanks of freshwater fish + a dozen or so beta bowls.
I would not recommend buying a live fish from a Wal-Mart.
I'm a cashier and spend most of my time in the opposite end of the store, but I make treks back there to take care of the fish because i feel sorry for them. The betas are kept in deplorable conditions. Just the other day I cleaned all of their bowls. The fish were sitting in water that had (no joke) about a half inch worth of waste at the bottom. The water was almost too cloudy to see the betas themselves.
As for the other tropical fish, we keep everything from common goldfish to koi, to chicilids and oscars. For some reason, all the oscars and dying, especially the albino ones. I don't know what's causing the die-off, but I imagine its probably the horrible way the tanks are kept. Whenever I go back there while I'm on break I'll find at least one or two deceased fish and have to scoop them out myself.
Now, to understand, Wal-Mart has full-time pets department people, but they don't care about the fish at all, unless someone comes up and asks for one. They are more concerned about stocking the dog and cat food, which is what they do most of the day.
This holds true for pretty much all Wal-Marts. I'd highly advise people NOT to buy their fish from here.
If you want to get a tank or equipment or food, fine. I've checked the prices and Wal-Mart is actually 5-10 bucks cheaper than most fish stores when it comes to tanks and such. But the conditions the poor fish are kept in leads me to want to call Animal Control, let alone discourage anyone from purchasing them.
Hope this was helpful. Feel free to ask me any questions at all.
- Jason
I would not recommend buying a live fish from a Wal-Mart.
I'm a cashier and spend most of my time in the opposite end of the store, but I make treks back there to take care of the fish because i feel sorry for them. The betas are kept in deplorable conditions. Just the other day I cleaned all of their bowls. The fish were sitting in water that had (no joke) about a half inch worth of waste at the bottom. The water was almost too cloudy to see the betas themselves.
As for the other tropical fish, we keep everything from common goldfish to koi, to chicilids and oscars. For some reason, all the oscars and dying, especially the albino ones. I don't know what's causing the die-off, but I imagine its probably the horrible way the tanks are kept. Whenever I go back there while I'm on break I'll find at least one or two deceased fish and have to scoop them out myself.
Now, to understand, Wal-Mart has full-time pets department people, but they don't care about the fish at all, unless someone comes up and asks for one. They are more concerned about stocking the dog and cat food, which is what they do most of the day.
This holds true for pretty much all Wal-Marts. I'd highly advise people NOT to buy their fish from here.
If you want to get a tank or equipment or food, fine. I've checked the prices and Wal-Mart is actually 5-10 bucks cheaper than most fish stores when it comes to tanks and such. But the conditions the poor fish are kept in leads me to want to call Animal Control, let alone discourage anyone from purchasing them.
Hope this was helpful. Feel free to ask me any questions at all.
- Jason