Ocurred to me

[WeeMan]

I got my first Betta a few weeks ago and he seems happy enough and to make sure he is how he should be I have been in this forum a fair bit. Anyway one thing that keeps on amusing me is the amount of people who have been rescuing Betta's from Wal-mart and other LFS's and that is awesome, thank fully here the LFS's are pretty good, at the moment!

Anyway I was just thinking Wal-mart dont need to keep there stocks healthy (well they do but from a business point of view) because one of two things seems to happen:

Either a kid comes along and sees a Betta trapped (for want of a better word) in a tiny bowl and seeing as they are fairly cheap to buy so it becomes a pet of an uneducated fish keeper virgin and more often than not it will die prematurely only to be replaced and so the cycle continues until either the keeper comes here or somewhere similar or they go for a hamster instead

The other outcome is that someone who is experienced and knows what they are on about comes along and feels sorry for the Betta with no tail and a puddle for a tank so they buy him, get another tank and Wal-mart or the LFS makes some more money

Sorry if I offended anyone and to be honest if I were in situation 2 I probably would do the same

Just a thought though, let me know what you think

Dan,WeeMan

 

[Ethos]

Yeah, thats what happened to me today! Although, it was the ONLY betta in the store, so they wouldn't care if it died and stayed on the shelf for weeks! I need to talk to the manager of my wal-mart about those gouramis.....But I still buy my fish food, filter cartriges and deco.s from walmart. I dont buy fish though. walmarts garentee only last 3 day, while petco lasts 15 days!

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

From what i've gathered, WalMart don't make profit from their fish, they only make profit when people buy tanks from them to go with the fish which is why they get the fish in the first place, to sell tanks.
So as long as you don't buy any other merchandise from them, they are actually running at a loss .

 

[WeeMan]

Thats interesting to know so rescuing them has another positive as well as presumably no fish means no one will likely buy a tank

 

[Ethos]

I've bought my tanks from walmart. All my friends get their little tanks from walmart too. I guess its just because I went to petco and saw the 5G for $39.99. Then I went to walmart and saw the exact same tank, with the same color, all the same starter kit accesorys for only $26.99

 

[Bettabelieveit]

Yes and no, it's not something I do very often, because I just don't have the space for one, and our stores are pretty good about keeping them in decent conditions, walmarts cups are pretty big, and farely clean, same with petco, 'cept for when they get too many in and have to put them in small cups, but me and my girlfriend often visit the betta and bring the workers the sick fish, so they take care of them. I just made my first rescue, because some walmart nimrod (or hell, maybe it was some random customer, even) decided to put the poor guy in a tank with a bunch of other fish. But yeah, it's easy to say, well, don't buy the walmart fish because that's helping them get more in, until you see the one fish one day that is clinging to life, and needs your help.


EDIT: But, I have never bought any tanks from walmart, however. They've all come from petco, and petland (home of the cheapest 10 gallon tanks I've ever seen hah)

 

[WeeMan]

Bettabelieveit sounds about right as I said my LFS's are pretty good, just hope if that day comes I have the space, what the heck, I would probably make it!

 

[Ethos]

Whats a 'LFS'?

 

[Bettabelieveit]

LFS= Local Fish shop/store

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

LPS alternatively means local pet store too

 

[Ethos]

OOOHHHh...........That bit of info's gunna help me a bit on this forum....thanks