I have gotten most of my fish at walmart. A couple have died, most are doing fine. I really like the associate that works in the dept. he is a hobbiest as well. My walmart has strip thermometers on the fronts of the tank and they all say like 80 degrees or around there. He tells me they don't work and they have floaters they pay attention to. He keeps the tanks pretty well taken care of. I think most of Walmarts problems are the sheer mass of the fish they have in their tanks. I DO NOT put their water in my tank. I float them for about 10 mins and then dump half the bag in the sink fill back up with my water from tank and let sit another 4 or 5 mins and then I use the net to get them out although petland says to let them swim out Of course they also tell you to put their water in your tank, so I just use my judgement. Also, about Walmart, it isn't the fish you are looking to buy, of course they are healthy or you wouldn't be looking at them, it is the fish in the tanks with them!! Look all around the air hoses too, I see so many dead fish there.
WAL-MART FISH
- Thread starter cory
- Start date
Buickgirl, your community is very lucky to have you running the aquatics dept at wallyworld. Your store must be a diamond in the rough with your fish. The WM stores around here are horrible. I don't look anymore. I have seen tanks with half of the fish dead in them, survivors choking on ick with half their fins rotted off, desparetly trying to feed on the skelotins of their tankmates. Yuck!
Welcome Buickgirl. I too run a damn good pet dept at a walmart. I get the same kind of comments. Especially since we have three walmarts with in a 20 minute car ride in our area, a lot of the regulars say that I have the best tanks in all the walmarts, and the rest of the lfs. So where is your store located.
How long had the tanks been set up? It's usually best to have them run for 24hrs or longer depending on the size to get rid of harmful clorine and other stuff before adding fish. If they've been running a good while I would worry to much about, but it is something to think about.
I've made it a habit not to buy fish from Walmart. Their fish are not as good a quality as PetsMart, Petco, or any of the other petstores. Walmart doesn't specialize in pets, thus their pet stuff is not always the best. About the only thing I buy there, for any of my pets, is fish food because I trust the brand that makes the food and it's a good price there. Other than t hat I would say look other places for fish or, like has been suggested before, really look at the whole tank. Ask these questions: How do all the fish look? Is any one of them sick? Dead? Why?
I agree that sometime you can't tell if it's just a weak fish or a sick fish who's disease will or has spread and just hasn't shown its self on other fish yet, but just be careful. Good luck.*twirlysmi
I've made it a habit not to buy fish from Walmart. Their fish are not as good a quality as PetsMart, Petco, or any of the other petstores. Walmart doesn't specialize in pets, thus their pet stuff is not always the best. About the only thing I buy there, for any of my pets, is fish food because I trust the brand that makes the food and it's a good price there. Other than t hat I would say look other places for fish or, like has been suggested before, really look at the whole tank. Ask these questions: How do all the fish look? Is any one of them sick? Dead? Why?
I agree that sometime you can't tell if it's just a weak fish or a sick fish who's disease will or has spread and just hasn't shown its self on other fish yet, but just be careful. Good luck.*twirlysmi
This subject has being regurated so many time in so many of the fish forum that now it reads like bad movie. Let it die.
In Austin Metro area there about 9 Wal Mart, of which 5 five of them are super centers. All these store carry fish and the degree of healthy fish varies from store to store. It depends entirely on the person in charge of that area. A few days back, I over heard the sales person telling a lady that she should use DI water to setup her aquarium for the betta. I had to jump in and explain what DI water is.
When I first graduated from college, our CEO favorite expression was " ... the bottom line in profit ... ". This hold true for Wal Mart. Wal Mart will sell fish as long as there are people willing to buy them. I have bought many of my fish from Wal Mart and as a consumer we should use good judgement when buying fish from any store. You wouldn't buy a car that has being sitting on the lot for 2 years because you feel sorry for the car. The same should apply when buying fish.
Rohn
In Austin Metro area there about 9 Wal Mart, of which 5 five of them are super centers. All these store carry fish and the degree of healthy fish varies from store to store. It depends entirely on the person in charge of that area. A few days back, I over heard the sales person telling a lady that she should use DI water to setup her aquarium for the betta. I had to jump in and explain what DI water is.
When I first graduated from college, our CEO favorite expression was " ... the bottom line in profit ... ". This hold true for Wal Mart. Wal Mart will sell fish as long as there are people willing to buy them. I have bought many of my fish from Wal Mart and as a consumer we should use good judgement when buying fish from any store. You wouldn't buy a car that has being sitting on the lot for 2 years because you feel sorry for the car. The same should apply when buying fish.
Rohn
Most people here will probably agree that the care of the fish is the problem AFTER walmart puts them in the tanks. I would find out what day of the week walmart gets their fish shipment in, and buy the fish that day - hopefully getting a new arrival.
I've seen the boxes that arrive at walmart with the fish in them, and they are exactly the same as what I've seen at petsmart - meaning they probably have the same general supplier (in my area). Walmart just doesn't take as good of care of the fish after they're in the store's holding tanks.
I've seen the boxes that arrive at walmart with the fish in them, and they are exactly the same as what I've seen at petsmart - meaning they probably have the same general supplier (in my area). Walmart just doesn't take as good of care of the fish after they're in the store's holding tanks.
can anyone recommend a good, reasonable place online to buy fish?? I live in Wyoming and the lfs, which isn't very good, is 1 hr away along with a Petco that is terrible. Other than that there is a Wally World... also, being in Wyoming, it is freezing!! Would fish survive shipping? I think i may be looking at an empty 55 gallon tank for quite a while...
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There are a lot of places online with reasonable prices (www.aquariumfish.net , www.liveaquaria.com) the problem is shipping. You will get a decent price on the fish, but to get it to your house it's going to need to be sent FedEx overnight, which runs about $30. Typically they pack the fish in styrofoam inside the box, with heat or cold packs (depending on the time of year) so that the fish will survive to your door. I would only buy from a place that will gaurantee live delivery. I think liveaquaria has that.
I think liveaquaria also has a 14 day guarantee.
http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=23&ref=3319&subref=AF
http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/general.cfm?general_pagesid=23&ref=3319&subref=AF
Yeah, I thought the walmart was bad where I was in Kentucky. Then I moved to Missouri. Every tank has massive amounts of ick and one of their larger goldfish tanks has bad (at least 5+ on every fish) anchor worms. Plus they have small ADF (clawed) in the betta containers with about half the water the bettas have. It's just depressing.
Amanda
Amanda
