Fish I've Seen At Walmart...

[char la]

Right....where do i start with this one. 'Pirate' isnt just an African cichlid, he's a Mbuna. An aggressive Rift Lake cichlid from Lake Malawi. He'll get to about 12cm and needs hard, alkaline water, plenty of rock work and needs to be kept in a large group because of how aggressive they are. So the tank needs to be atleast 53 US gallons. You cant just buy 1 Mbuna cichlid and stick it in a tank, your just asking for trouble.
I want to save all the fish when i go in Pets at Home, but at the end of the day if you buy fish from them your just paying for them to get more. If no one buys fish from them they'll soon realise they're spending more on electricity to house them than they are from profit.

 

[dipsydoodlenoodle]

I'm in the UK, so I've had no dealings with walmart. However, I have seen youtube videos, which have shown tankfuls of dead fish. Not nice or healthy at all

We have ASDA - thats ran by Walmart; but it's not the same thing

 

[BethK]

Ah yeah, forgot about Asdas but that is not a chain started by Walmart, only taken over by them a few years back. Fortunately, they have the intelligence not to sell live stock

 

[Larkspur]

Right....where do i start with this one. 'Pirate' isnt just an African cichlid, he's a Mbuna. An aggressive Rift Lake cichlid from Lake Malawi. He'll get to about 12cm and needs hard, alkaline water, plenty of rock work and needs to be kept in a large group because of how aggressive they are. So the tank needs to be atleast 53 US gallons. You cant just buy 1 Mbuna cichlid and stick it in a tank, your just asking for trouble.
I want to save all the fish when i go in Pets at Home, but at the end of the day if you buy fish from them your just paying for them to get more. If no one buys fish from them they'll soon realise they're spending more on electricity to house them than they are from profit.

My boyfriend already has the following:

2 yellow labs
1 bumblebee cichlid
1 electric blue zebra
1 red zebra
and we believe a (labeotropheus trewavasae)It's blue-striped with orange fins.


The LFS told us when we stock the 55 gallon make sure it's slightly crowded to disperse aggression among the fish. So once the tank is established (the 55) we will be buying 2 or 3 at a time (to help prevent one single new fish from being bullied)

If "Pirate" is still there I will probably take my chances and give him half a fighting chance as well. The worse case scenario is he's no longer there or I take him and he passes in which case he can be returned. Sounds awful, but I honestly don't see any cichlids ever adopted and I am pretty confident without me intervening he will die anyway.

Maybe I'll just avoid walmart in general...

Actually, their fish section is better than other walmarts you see. About the same as our Petco just the tanks are HEAVILY stocked. The oscars in their tank will eat each other alive and the parrots are all battled and scarred. I think they are closing the fish section down soon.

 

[drobbyb]

No one can stop you from rescuing that particular fish, it's just that if you do, you are funding the suffering of future stock. If they can't move the fish they have, they will order less, and eventually if they don't make enough money on fish, they will stop carrying them altogether. It stinks for the fish they already have, but better in the long run for future fish's lives.

 

[Larkspur]

Well, I saw their list of sales. They keep track and if it is indeed the sale list...they only sell 3 fish a day. (That or maybe that's how many fish die and are returned?) So obviously my bf and I went to walmart today. I needed a mother's day card anyway. They of course still had Pirate. We went ahead and bought all the appropriate equipment and got Pirate and another cichlid (to disperse aggression and nitpicking when added with the main colony) There is actually a 90 day guarantee on them. So, worse case scenario they die they will be returned and we will be refunded. We both decided after today we're not looking at walmarts fish anymore. While waiting 20 minutes for someone to help us get the fish we were watching a tank with puffer fish and the parrot cichlids argue. Was really sad. So from this point on we won't be supporting walmart.

Good news is my bf is closing on his house tomorrow so he will have the fish in his place this weekend. Too bad the new guys are going through 2 moves. Hoping their tough little fellows! They seem to be.

So here are some photos. Also included photos of his cichlids he has now. BAD pictures. I only had a camera phone on me. Will get better ones soon!!

You can sort of see the black patch on Pirate's left eye.

Yes, those are my legs...but you can see Pirate has spot/stripes on his right side. Very unique! The other one is a silver/blue striped one. Looks a little like his bumblebee cichlid.

And another shot

My bf's cichlids feeding. This is his 36 gallon with his cichlids he got in February.

This was the blue-striped one with orange fins that needs to be ID'd. My guess was labeotropheus trewavasae

Bumblebee. He was the smallest. Tripled in size since March! He's also the dominant fish of the tank. He makes up for his bad attitude by being pretty.

And a full size image of the 36 gallon.

 

[Larkspur]

Bumping. I posted images last night, If anyone can identify exact species type of any of the cichlids it'd be a real help. I know there for sure are a couple red zebras and a bumblebee, Also a lab, but the others are semi-mystery.

 

[fishnovice]

Pirate is lovely. Well done for rescuing him and his cichlid friend.

 

[Gunngee]

I know you can put giant danios in with cihlids. They are too fast. My friend has a 50 gallon full of cihlids and 2 giant danios.

 

[Larkspur]

Oh my! I think we're going to have about 15 cichlids at least in the 55 gallon and at least one synodontis. Probably nothing else though. My bf went and spontaneously bought one from Petco when we found out they were selling aquarium heaters for $1.50 and they're the marineland stealth shatter proof ones!! So when he picked a few up he discovered they had some upside down catfish. *smacks forehead*

I can't wait to get better pictures of Pirate. He/she is the most adorable cichlid ever. Hoping and praying he and his new buddy get through their ordeal and end up in the 55 with the others happy and healthy.

 

[char la]

If you post some better pictures in the African/Old World Cichlid section they'll be identified.