Don't Ever Buy Fish From Wal-Mart

[Jason]

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

 

[keane]

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.

any dead fish you could recommend then??

steve

 

[littlefishie]

Most, but not all Wal-Marts. There are some where the employees actually take care of the fish, but those are far overshadowed by those that don't.

Call animal control if it bothers you so much. I did for one of the Wal-Marts here. Fish are now kept in much better conditions, and there's even a letter in the back room from the SPCA reminding them that the fish need to be taken care of.

One phone call is all it takes.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Yes Wal-Mart is a popular conversational topic here; it rarely ever gets anthing good said about it.
From what i have gathered so far it actually makes very little profit from its fish, but stocks them because it makes profit from selling the tanks. The other thing i have gathered is that its main problem is that its staff are so badly trained; i am glad to hear you are trying to help the fish there.

The thing that makes a good lfs is its staff. There are many here who complain about Wal-Mart and i respect them for making their veiws heard but if i were them(and had a Wal-Mart near me) i would go work at that place so i could educate newb's to the hobby on fish who go there and help keep the conditions good for the fish to live in. Then there is the controversal part that you would only be helping them make profits but the way i see it is that despite the cruelty it imposes on fish it is doing very well, so instead of complaining maybe it is better to to try and improve it yourself?

Anyways, i am glad to hear you are trying to improve things there; if there's anything you need to know about fish just ask

 

[rdd1952]

All the WMs around here are the same way. I refuse to buy anything at WM simply because of they way they "care' for their fish. I will not give my money to someone that has no more respect for life than Walmart does. There was a thread on this forum a week or so ago about someone that returned a fish to the Walmart he bought it from and then learned later that they had flushed it because they had a policy against putting fish from an outside tank into their tanks because it could be diseased. Their tanks are all diseased anyway. I don't how it could possibly have hurt. But flushing it is totaly wrong and uncalled for.

 

[Y2J]

What is "Wal-Mart" American pet store?

The fish store i went to the other day was fantastic and i'd rate it 10/10. Cant name it though but its 2 miles from me and i can get there easily so its all i need to know. The fish looked happy and the bigger fishes had massive tanks that were well decorated that i'd love to have.

 

[ClustersBabyMama]

What is "Wal-Mart" American pet store?

The fish store i went to the other day was fantastic and i'd rate it 10/10. Cant name it though but its 2 miles from me and i can get there easily so its all i need to know. The fish looked happy and the bigger fishes had massive tanks that were well decorated that i'd love to have.

walmart is a huge chain of stores in the us among other places.. it sells food ( most) and clothes, all the basic essentials you need. And fish LOL

 

[keane]

What is "Wal-Mart" American pet store?

Our very own Asda is part of the Wal-Mart conglomerate .

Asda just doesn't sell tropical fish!!

steve

 

[Y2J]

Oh is it. ta

 

[Blue Lobster]

Which Wal-mart on Long Island do you work at? I never buy fish there but it would be good to know which one.

Tell you what, take a bottle or two of Melafix and dose the central filtration system in the store. It might save some of the sick fish.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

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.

On the note of cleaning out the betta bowls it is realy good you did that for them but fish can become accustomed to living in bad conditions; when cleaning out a tank/bowl that has been realy dirty for ages don't clean the whole lot out in one go as i have heard some fish simply cannot cope with the sudden change of going from bad living conditions to good.
I think with the betta bowls the first thing to do would be to remove all the muck at the bottom, then the second day to scrub the glass and do a 30% water change and the day after that do a 40/50% water change; if you do all this in one day you may cause the fish too much stress and so die more.
If you want to clean out the tanks i would repeat the same process but say over a week.

 

[BettaMomma]

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

If YOU as an employee feel it's this horrible why don't you call Animal Control?
I'd give you a big ol' virtual high five if you did.

I have called WalMart stores (I live in Wisconsin) in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Wisconsin and many others because folks have come to this forum to complain about the deplorable conditions. I have outright told them that if things don't change at their stores that we (being me, myself and I but they don't know that) will be contacting not only PETA but also the ASPCA in their area. That tends to get their attention.

I do buy fish from WalMart, but NOTHING else. And only severely sick fish that I'm pretty sure will die in the deplorable conditions they are left to live in - just because I want them to feel a tad bit loved and wanted before they take their last breaths. It makes me utterly SICK that there is such a completely blatant disregard for life. IT'S LIFE.

And I will be a huge pain in their butts until they either clean up their act, or stop selling fish, which I don't see either of those 2 happening anytime soon.

 

[BettaMomma]

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.

On the note of cleaning out the betta bowls it is realy good you did that for them but fish can become accustomed to living in bad conditions; when cleaning out a tank/bowl that has been realy dirty for ages don't clean the whole lot out in one go as i have heard some fish simply cannot cope with the sudden change of going from bad living conditions to good.
I think with the betta bowls the first thing to do would be to remove all the muck at the bottom, then the second day to scrub the glass and do a 30% water change and the day after that do a 40/50% water change; if you do all this in one day you may cause the fish too much stress and so die more.
If you want to clean out the tanks i would repeat the same process but say over a week.

They're not in tanks.
They are in teeny tiny cups.
Here's how I got my Jack (See below) from WalMart:

Nice, eh?

It would be simply impossible to do partial water changes on those things.
I'd say clean water, as long as it's the same temperature as what they're coming from would be a very welcome change to these poor little guys.

I have gotten 13 fish from WM and the conditions in their cups were NASTY. You can almost literally see a smile spread across their faces after they've been accimated and dumped into their new (much larger) swimming areas.

WalMart disgusts me HORRIBLY.
I despise that store.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

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.

On the note of cleaning out the betta bowls it is realy good you did that for them but fish can become accustomed to living in bad conditions; when cleaning out a tank/bowl that has been realy dirty for ages don't clean the whole lot out in one go as i have heard some fish simply cannot cope with the sudden change of going from bad living conditions to good.
I think with the betta bowls the first thing to do would be to remove all the muck at the bottom, then the second day to scrub the glass and do a 30% water change and the day after that do a 40/50% water change; if you do all this in one day you may cause the fish too much stress and so die more.
If you want to clean out the tanks i would repeat the same process but say over a week.

to envision the betta "bowls" at walmart, take your hands. connect your thumbs and index fingers in a circle. now adjust your fingers so that they overlap. the walmart betta containers are about that big around at the bottom. and i've never seen one with more than 2 inches of water in it. most have water barely an inch deep.

think of a small tub of butter... and make it clear. that's a walmart betta "bowl". if you were to do a 50% water change on a walmart betta, the betta'd be halfway dry.

 

[The-Raven]

Unfortunately walmart is my only choice. And I kinda see myself as a savior when I go there looking for fish.

I hate when people knock on walmart - everything's so cheap there they think that only lower class people shop there. While their fish conditions aren't the best - it's because people in the know refuse to work there, so they hire people who could care less. Why don't you apply for a job there and try to fix the pets department instead of whine and complain about how horrible it is?