Buy Your Dead Fish For Less At Walmart
A reader sent us the following pics of the neglected aquariums in her local Walmart in Carmi, Illinois. She complained to a manager, but when she checked back "several hours later," the tanks remained untouched. Well, the dead fish were probably slightly smaller, since the remaining live fish were eating them.
I was shopping at my local Walmart today, in Carmi, Illinois, when I walked through their pet section. I noticed their fish tanks were full of dead and decaying fish. It was very nasty and very upsetting for my young child. After searching the sales floor for assistance, I finally found someone working in the electronics area. He was very friendly and genuinely seemed concerned, but expressed an inability to do anything about it. He asked if I wanted to speak with a manager - He paged for a manager to come to the counter. After several minutes had passed, he made a phone call asking for a member of management. Finally, a manager "Pam" came out. While she seemed nice, she seemed mostly unconcerned about the dead fish. She said she'd have it addressed. Several hours later, I went back and snapped these photos - the tanks had not been touched.
I didn't bother trying to speak with anyone else.
Post a comment
Comments:
Yeah, I tried complaining about the dead fish when I bought my wife a fish from there. It didn't do any good. My complaints about the way they transfer the fish from the tank to the transport bag was ignored.
my wal mart is the same way, i never buy fish from them, those contaminated fish can take out your whole tank. they must maintain them only once a week, I once saw a employee drop the fish while bagging him and then trying to tell the customer its fine... somebody should ban wal marts from selling fish.
as for the bettas, their supposed to only be in those cups for a short time and are normally sold quickly, but I can imagine at a place like wal mart they might be there awhile.
I see this all the time at the wal marts here that sell fish. It's not exactly nazi-logo shirt type offensive, but it's just one of all the wonderful little things wal mart does to prove they live their motto : "Wal-Mart: we couldn't care less if we tried (and we do!)"
The local Walmart just drastically downsized its fish section. I'm glad. This type of treatment is the norm for Walmart. PetSmart is bad but they're a little better. That said, I prefer to get fish from a pet store; I know it's encouraging them but I also want to save the fish in those small containers/small tanks storing 500 fish! (They are particularly bad about the 50 cent feeder fish at PetSmart. I have seen HUNDREDS of fish in those 10 gallon tanks, all with like a centimeter of room to swim.)
@solareclipse2: Maybe because people like you keep buying fish there. What's their motivation to take care of their fish if their condition is not keeping people from buying them?
Buying fish from Wal-Mart can be hit or miss. I had a few fish I bought from Wal-Mart that lived two weeks and some lived two years. But Wal-Mart is a terrible place to go if you want any reasonable advice on taking care of fish. A good pet store or aquarium supply store will have employees who can tell you which fish would be better together and be less likely to fight. For instance...the little black fin sharks (not actually sharks) might look cool, and might look friendly when they're swimming around together, but they tend to be very aggressive to other kinds of fish. It's best to avoid them altogether unless you have only the black fin sharks.
And the little plump catfish that are also adorable...they tend to turn on each other, so I've learned that it's best not to keep more than one or two.
My favorite fish are the orange and red guppies. They're very docile, very friendly in general. I had one or two that were aggressive toward each other, but if you watch the fish in the tank for a while, you'll be able to see which ones are aggressive, and know to avoid them.
Don't buy fish from a grocery store.
@Cocoa Vanilla: Honestly, there's no other place to get a pet fish, except for a pet store. So there's not really any kind of "encouraging" them unless you can find a reputable breeder. And in a lot of cases, specialty aquarium stores are breeders so you're technically buying from the source.
No good aquarium store will keep their fish in destitute conditions.
My favorite aquarium store is in the town where I went to college. It was practically a huge aquarium. The entire basement level was aquariums, huge habitats for all kinds of fish and eels too. I loved visiting there, and their prices were pretty reasonable as well.
@katieoh:
I agree. Walmart is a good store, but when it comes to specialty products...
Although, many Petsmarts and the like are not too much better as far as the fish are concerned.
This is part of their new money-saving program, where they avoid buying fish food for the tanks by just letting the fish eat each other. Om nom nom nom.
My wife used to work at Wal-Mart in the pet department. She was the only one who actually took care of the fish. Apart from retards dropping things into the tanks, very few died while she was there. The tanks were kept clean, and the water was checked and maintained every day. She received lots of praise from customers and management for her efforts.
Until the store manager decided that she could better serve the Evil Empire by becoming a cashier. She was happy working the pet department, and was told that if she didn't accept the cashier training, she would be terminated. Once she transferred, the pet department went to complete crap. Fish dying daily, filthy tanks, aisles in disarray, and employees doing their best to hide from customers.
@Cocoa Vanilla: Our PetSmart is partnered with the local SPCA for adoptions and is honestly one of the best places in the city with regards to how the pets are kept. Sure PetLand has more selection but I've seen ferrets running around loose there, anda couple of the localy owned pet stores around here have been getting shut down (finally) due to incredibly bad living conditions for the animals.
WTF. Otos in with goldfish? Otos are EXTREMELY sensitive and tropical fish. Even experienced hobbyists have issues keeping the water acceptable for an oto. And they're in there with goldfish... cold-water nitrogen factories. :(
@pecan 3.14159265: Two years, other than for a few species, is still a very short life span for a fish.
@Cocoa Vanilla: If you pay to remove the fish, you're paying to put even more fish in there. Don't give them any money. it isn't saving.
Wow, dead fish in a pet store fish tank? I've never seen that before....except in every single pet store fish tank I've ever looked at.
Sorta messed up that they told the woman they would do something and then didn't, but not exactly surprising. This is WalMart, after all.
Oh and also:
It was very nasty and very upsetting for my young child.
Is she being serious? These are dead fish we're talking about. Either the kid is so young that he/she has no comprehension of what dead fish even are, or he/she thinks dead fish are cool. There's no stage in between the two.
Can we go back to pointless blog posts about sign typos and price mistakes? I prefer that to dead fish we've all seen.
@katieoh: This is a reaction of people that don't understand the concept of pet fish. These fish die, FREQUENTLY. It's impossible to keep a commercial tank without dead fish. They die in shipping, arrival, maintenance. They die constantly because their environment is changing (tank, temperature, size, chlorine, nitrate levels) and they go into shock. It could have been cleaned that morning and it would still have dead fish in there.
And quit it with the cruel beta argument. You're putting an animal in a tank. Make it as big as you want, its still a tank and the Beta will still find the smallest space and crawl in it.
@robdew2:
Agreed. Walmart bad fishie handlers, we get it.
Can we talk about something more interesting.
@Darrone: It's true that a lot of fish will inevitably die. BUT, it's very unhealthy for the other fish for lots of dead fish corpses to remain in the water. The decay releases tons of ammonia which is very poisonous to the other fish. That's why the dead fish should be removed immediately by staff.
And as for the bettas, just because they CAN live for a time in a tiny cup doesn't mean it's ideal. It's wrong to say that all captivity is equivalent.
Well sure, their prices on fish sticks are pretty good.
What? Of course I like fish sticks.
I worked at Wal-Mart in the early '90s when they also carried pet birds. You want to talk about disturbing for young children...
@katieoh: Actually, the Betta are kept in the cups because they will fight and one will die if you put two or more together in a tank. Also, they do fine in the cups if they are taken care of.
@Darrone
Yes, fish die, but part of responsible tending the aquariums is removing the dead fish promptly. At the Petco where I work, we are required to check for dead fish multiple times a day. Walmart just doesn't have the dedication to responsibly sell live fish.
@wardawg: I adopted my cat from PetSmart that was linked with a shelter :)
As for PetLand, I would never shop there. Too many rumors circulating about them buying animals from puppy mills.
@katieoh: Agreed. Owning a pet is a decision and a commitment. It shouldn't be an impulse buy and if you can't afford to pay more for a fish at a reputable pet store then you can't afford to have any pets at all.
@Darrone:
Except that I don't remember corpses littering the tanks of my favorite specialty fish store. Their meager little skeletons don't litter the floor of my fishtank at home, either. The fish store I frequent, unlike Walmart, actually know how to take care of fish and must take the time to, oh, remove corpses from the tanks?
Dead animals rotting to skeletons on the gravel is NOT normal, for goodness sakes!
@sinfonian94: So don't put more than one male betta in a tank, then. Or use dividers, etc.
The main problem I have with the cups is that they are such a small volume of water for the fish. It's very hard to keep stable water parameters in a cup that small, and the water would need to be changed multiple times a day ideally. Bettas can stand the inevitable fluctuation a bit better than many other fish, but that doesn't mean it's great for them. I don't like that they are often marketed that way because I think it encourages beginners to keep them that way, sometimes thinking it's actually what's best for them. What a lot of people who aren't informed don't understand is that larger aquariums are often EASIER, with lower maintenance requirements, than small cups, because it's so much easier to keep the water parameters, temperature, etc stable.
@Darrone: Have you kept a betta in a big tank? I had one in a 10 gallon all to himself and he used the whole thing.
@MerryLifeAndaShortOne: Many big box pet stores take horrible care of their pets. My fiance worked in a vet clinic for 4+ years and the sickest pets they ever got were ones that had just been purchased from a place like Pet Warehouse or Petsmart. They frequently have colds, parvo, and other illnesses that could be avoided if the living conditions were a smidge better.
If you're in the neighborhood for a pet, I would seriously skip the big chain stores. Try finding a small specialty store, as they're more likely to be run by people who actually care about the animals they're selling.
I thought wal-mart stopped selling fish..at least my local ones did (and a brand new Supercenter does not sell them either). Honestly, this happens everywhere...I have a nasty Petco down the road from me...one time I was shopping for fish and you could see dead,rotting fish up against the tanks on the floor.
@sinfonian94: Uh, no, they don't "do fine." They die rather slowly in the cups. Betta can be kept in community tanks or given their own tanks. Even a small 2-5 glalon tank and the fish will be infinitely more happy than in a cup, and be able to thrive. I have mine his own heated, planted 10 gallon tank and he was constantly brightly colored, flaring, and creating bubble nests.
The argument usually goes "oh, in the wild they live in puddles in a field," but that's just a lie at best--they live in rice paddies where those "puddles" are thousands of gallons in volume.
@johnva: I was thinking of the nitrogen cycle, and ammonia starts it... ahhh. I've not kept fish in a while now.
@Ratty: Yep. Saying they won't use the space is pure ignorance. The commercial explanation given above (commercial sellers don't want to dedicate so much space to them by properly segregating them into tanks) seems more plausible to me. I wonder why they don't just mix their bettas in with compatible species, one male to a tank,?
@xamarshahx: Basically, it would be nearly impossible to ban Wal-Mart from selling fish, because in most states animal welfare laws don't apply to pet fish. I know they are specifically excluded here.
@johnva: My local aquarium store had a community female betta tank that was also a tank for some of the plants they sold. The males had bowls to themselves at least, but not full tanks--they were almost entirely saltwater. But they were exceptionally bred bettas meant for show and breeding and most were alert and making bubble nests. They were also kept away from one another so as to not stress them out.
They've since converted to fully saltwater.
@johnva: I was about to comment on exactly that but you beat me to it. Well said.
@sinfonian94: I may never have been to the particular location you work at, but in general Petco also does not have the dedication to responsibly sell live fish... It may be slightly better than Walmart, but every location I've been in (as well as other chains like Petsmart etc) has had terrible living conditions for the fish. Whats worse than the unhealthy fish they sell is the untruth's they tell customers which perpetuates the bad care.
I'm not trying to insult you (even though you got the whole beta cup thing wrong) and your particular branch may be the exception to the rule, but in my experience specialty stores are the only place to go to get good info and good fish.
My local Walmart's fish section is always this way or worse. Usually the fish are diseased, neglected, or housed with incompatible other fish. People usually do not know or realize what it takes to keep fish alive and healthy. While other chain stores that sell fish often has similar problems Walmart is by far the worst of them.
I always thought this was the norm for Wally World's fish section...
@squinko: Based on the size and head shape they look remarkably like otos and not CAE.
Even if they are chinese algae eaters, they're not appropriate to keep with goldfish in any way.
If you had been smart consumers you would have never been in Walmart to see this.
@pecan 3.14159265: If by "little plump catfish" you mean any of the Corydoras species they are known for the shoaling habits and tend to cheerfully get into group piles. Unless, you're referring to Chinese or Siamese Algae eaters which tend to be agressive.
yeah, i'm just gonna throw this out there: maybe they shouldn't let walmart sell fish. eugh. plus those poor [beta?] fish in those little cups they sell... ugh.