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Do not buy walmart fish!!!

3K views 48 replies 25 participants last post by  NeptunesMom 
#1 ·
I was extremely disgusted by the lack of care these people give these fish at walmart they dont feed them the fish have fin rot and their color is faded and they're water is brown and cloudy I was at walmart yesterday and was disgusted at what i saw fish were dead in dirty water cups and the fish that were alive weren't doing well. I then asked for the Manager and told him ''Look at these beautiful fish just lying lifeless in these cups'' i said thats UNCALLED for and unacceptable your employees haven't taken care of these fish/animals in some time. He said i am sorry ma'am i will take care of this i said ''take care of what they're already dead or sick'' I said would you treat your fish like this he said NO ma'am...I can't believe this its sad and disgusting to see this. My fish and my Animals are my life i would ever treat them like this. I told the Manager he needs to do a better job at taking care of these fish they're way to beautiful to just sit here and die. He took down my name and number and i said im gonna file a complaint about this to your headquarters He got really quiet. I also asked for the Hd number he gave it to me i said this is totally unacceptable and cruel you will be hearing something in a few days. I am heartbroken by what i saw these beautiful fishes suffering with no care or food at all. Sorry for my rambling but i am a big animal lover and i hate to see any living thing die or suffer its just not right at all.:cry:
 
#3 ·
My Mom's friend worked in the garden dept and I know she fed the bettas they sell once a year, but they weren't allowed to change the water.

My sister got 3 bettas from Walmart. One died the same day from the fuzz they get. They replaced him and that fish died a week later. Her last Walmart fish lasted years and years.

The fish aren't sold for pets there, they are sold for a profit. It doesn't matter to them that some are sick or dying. They are just a product for making money, even if they lose some.
 
#7 ·
Walmart is not a good place to buy fish everyone i've brought from there died. I bought my New bettas from petco and theyre doign great healthy. one of my fish is named sooner bc hes ou sooner red he loves to make bubblenest its fun to watch him do it. lol.
 
#8 ·
Welcome to the world of Walmart bettas! I understand why they don't feed them, as a lot of places don't for the fact they want the water to last a bit longer.. but it is still sad. I have a female I had picked up at Walmart, have her a little over a year now with no health issues. Luckily the Walmart closest to me stopped selling them.
 
#9 ·
I rescue fish from walmart, but if I'm looking for a fish that I want to last a while and actually keep, I go to the petsmart in my area. The fish guy is my friend and takes my advice on water changes and feeding. He now does a 50% change in the cups every other day.
 
#10 ·
I bought my Dumbledore (see avatar) from Walmart. He looked pitiful. I bought him before I even knew how to take care of a betta. I don't know what it was about him, but he just looked at me and said "Please help me...I can't do this much longer" So I gently picked him up and took him to the register. Best $3.45 ever spent. He went from one of those 1 liter bowls to a heater and filtered 3 gallon in 2 days once I read up on them. He's been my guinea pig and recently was upgraded to a 5.5, which was turned into a fully planted tank last night. He's a brat, but I wouldn't change him for the world. He's been fairly healthy ever since. Just a tad bit of fin rot after he chewed his tail into a double tail and then had a quick bought of internal infection of some kind but that cleared up in 2 days with Epsom salts.

Anyway, sorry for my tangent. I would never buy another fish from Walmart, as much as I want to. It only makes room on the shelf for another. They are all about profit and money. So, you buy fish from them, you support them. Even if you buy them because they are sick/dying. You still paid your money for them. :/
 
#12 ·
I usually buy from a local aquarium store. My newest one is from petmart.

I did make this mistake with the first betta I ever owned and poor little guy had chronic fin rot. I managed to get it mostly under control after the first few weeks, but he was forever a bit fragile after. Never had that problem with any other betta after that, only the walmart one.
 
#13 ·
Your fish looks like my boy named Sooner I call him sooner because hes ou sooner red. I have another one that the color of a peacock with the green and blue hes beautiful. then my baby her name is Sidney she is getting a bit of color to her some green her fins are thin also not as big as a males i say shes female because she has that little dot on her belly who knows. She has grown since i got her and that was last sunday so ive only had them for a week and they are doing GREAT idk how old she is im saying maybe a month or so idk. Sooner had made himself a bubble nest at the top of his tank and he lays under it and sleeps lol its a weird fish and hes very active all three of my babies are active and they thrive nigght and day i guess thats a good sign meaning they're healthy. Every Morniing all three of them great me they know its feeding time but anyways im done rambling lol.
 
#15 ·
her fins are thin also not as big as a males i say shes female because she has that little dot on her belly who knows. She has grown since i got her and that was last sunday so ive only had them for a week and they are doing GREAT idk how old she is im saying maybe a month or so idk.
Females will have shorter tails (the variants of plakat males have short fins as well), but you mentioned the egg spot which at the age they are sold, should be gone in most males that have them. Fish sold in stores tend to be around 3-6 months of age :) A month old is around .45 inches.. less than half an inch long :)
 
#14 ·
It also depends on which wal-mart you go to. The one I worked for had someone very knowledgeable working in the pet department. He managed to convince the manager that the fish there needed caring for if people were going to buy them. Plus, he was an avid betta keeper himself, so he knew what he was talking about.
 
#17 ·
I will never buy a betta from walmart. They show no care what so ever towards them. It's like they get a shipment in, and either people buy them, or they die. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even feed them. My local Petco does seem to provide slightly better care, but I do see a lot of dead ones on the shelf, and most are sick. My petsmart seems to take care of their bettas, and that's why they get my business.
 
#19 ·
I think they're actually stepping up and doing something about it. They have doubled the size of the cups that the betta are in. the air hole is really big now too. Just look at their cups compared to the cups from from my lps.
Left is from my lps and right is from Walmart.

I bought my orange betta, Flash, from Walmart and he was super healthy and still alive. But they still need to do water changes and feed the fish though. Making the cups bigger isn't enough. I think.
 
#20 ·
Just wait until the bettas jump out of that hole though. Mine jumped through a hole much smaller than that.
 
#21 ·
i've bought two bettas from my local walmart. my first one was a horrid case. almost no tail, bloated, so pale it was impossible to see what color he was, very dark stress stripes..... he died three days later. i gotta find the pics i posted.

second one was their last live betta. the only other was a long dead veiltail. i bought the CT, who looked steel blue, and gave him to my niece as an Easter present. over a year later, King Steve is a royal blue flare monster. 8V

they have the tags there. for more bettas. but it's been three months, and no sign of them yet. so i'm hoping they don't get anymore.
 
#25 ·
All of it is relative. As i said previously my petsmart is my favorite. They take really good care of the fish and the guy doesn't sell to just anybody. He's a personal friend of mine and I've heard him suggest larger tanks and most important, heaters. Walmart seems to be consistently bad because they don't really know anything about fish or have people dedicated to the fish, however I went to an area near where my mom lives where a walmart had the best bettas available and all the cups were clean with no dead or sick fish.
 
#27 ·
I got my boy from walmart. he was one of the few healthy ones, the rest were all a mess but I can say that alot of the chain pets stores arent much better. atleast the ones around here. it really is sad ;(
 
#28 ·
Hmm my Walmart does not have fish at their store, but I have been to a walmart where they kept fish.. It wasn't very good at all; I didn't bother taking a closer look at the bettas. The communtiy tanks did not have brownish water, but there were dead fish and all that tragic stuff.
 
#29 ·
Didn't read through the replies (sorry!), but I just wanted to chime in and say that my Cali and Percy both came from Walmart - I had walked out without them at least 5 times and couldn't do it again, knowing they were dying an awful death. I took them home in July, along with my purple girl Delilah (who I lost a few weeks ago), and they are both doing very well.

While I don't advocate supporting Wally World's fish keeping practices, I don't regret buying any of the 3 fish I got from there. Now I just try to steer clear of Walmart altogether, so I'm not tempted to save any more.
 
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