Petsmart on goldfishes

[Kittycat]

I was reading through an article in petsmart.com entitled "Choosing the Right Pet for You." I was shocked when I reached the part about fishes, it said this:


For Fish Only

A Kid's Best Friend
For a very young, very inexperienced pet owner in search of a first fish, there is no better choice than the goldfish. Kids love goldfish because they are friendly and easy to maintain. They flirt and beg for food when people are around. They're very inexpensive and need only a bowl, some fresh water, and some food every day to be happy. If goldfish are well cared for, they will live for years, even decades.

I thought goldfishes need very large tanks and higher maintenance due to large amount of waste?

 

[ncjharris]

That is a little on the vauge side - bit irresponsible if you ask me.

When it comes to choosing pets for a kid, something people never consider is what will happen when the pet dies. If you get a goldfish for your 3 year old, don't really look after it that well and it pops its clogs a year later, its not that easy to explain to a youngster what death is and that it won't happen to them when they go to sleep!!

I picked that up from the Just Jane agony aunt in the Daily Star - knew it would be good for something!

 

[dwarfgourami]

It will also not be good for said child when it susses out that this death was entirely unnecessary and due to its parents' irresponsible attitude! Or to its parents being conned.

Seriously, this attitude towards goldfish really gets my goat. My Pets@home, which employs at least 2 members of staff who seem perfectly competent and does not contain any such horrors as betta cups, yet seems to make most of its profits on small gdlfish biorbs (just a posher word for bowl really) and all their smallest tanks are labelled coldwater only. How can their employees bear to go on selling these day after day, when they really seem to care about fish otherwise?

 

[wrs]

at my petsmart there were these ladies with a goldfish bowl that wanted to buy some fish, maybe like 3 or so because they are cheap, $.12 each. So they go over to the guy and tell him that they want to get some goldfish. He asks how many and askes what size tank they have at home for them. They show him the bowl, and then he says that he will not sell them the goldfish because. goldfish get big and need filtration and that they fish are feeders and shouldnt bve kept as P{etsanyways as they may have diseases. The goldfish wouldnt survive in the bowl anyways becauser of the messyness and lack of filtration and size. Then he shows them a one gallon bowl and a betta fish. They left with everything that the betta would need to live happily.

not all petsmarts are bad like that paragraph.

 

[Kittycat]

The rest of the article was pretty good (about dogs and cats), which was why I totally didn't expect this part about goldfishes. It's just sad that something supposed to educate people about responsible pet keeping is advocating the wrong idea when it came to fishes.

About fish dying--probably parents would just sneak out and buy another one without the child knowing better, fishes are cheap pets anyway. I think that's why people tend to be more irresponsible with them--if they suffer or die, so what they're cheap and easy to replace.

Recently, I tried a new vet someone recommended to me. One visit was all it took to turn me off, the staff was nice and all, but behind the vet's desk was a 2.5 gallon tank, about 3/4 filled with water, and containing two goldfishes, one of which was dead. That was all the tank had, no pump, no airstone, and definitely no filter. Who would want to go to a vet who practices animal cruelty?

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I think goldfish are the most mistreated fish out there, virtually all of them grow huge yet still the advised tank size for them is a small bowl.
And goldfish seem to be the most targetted fish by newb's who don't know anything about fish keeping mainly because of the belief that they are easy to look after no hassle fish and also because most experienced and knolegable fish keepers don't buy them because they want somthing more interesting in their tanks and not just "boring old goldfish".
I think alot of goldfish problems could be sorted if they wern't bred on such a large scale buy breeders like neon tetras- virtually every lfs in the world has goldfsh but only about 5% of them actually give out proper advice to look after them.

 

[OohFeeshy]

My Pets@home, which employs at least 2 members of staff who seem perfectly competent and does not contain any such horrors as betta cups, yet seems to make most of its profits on small gdlfish biorbs (just a posher word for bowl really) and all their smallest tanks are labelled coldwater only. How can their employees bear to go on selling these day after day, when they really seem to care about fish otherwise?

Ah, yes. Same here. They sell 1 gallon goldfish tanks. I mean, come on. On all their glass tanks (not complete kits), it tells you how many goldfish you can have in it. Such as in a 18x10x10, I think it says 'suitable for two small goldfish'. If you do a goolge for goldfish care, nearly every site tells you goldfish need at least a 20 for one etc. Its only the larger companies that tell you they're fine in a bowl. I went to Pets at Home yesterday for a filter, and there was this idiotic woman with a screaming kid buying a goldfish. The guy went 'How longs the tank been setup?' and she says 6 months, but the goldfish that was in it died. No more questions asked. While the guy was netting it etc. the woman was cooing over all the goldfish going 'look, its Nemo! Yes, its Nemo, isn't it!'... Grrr.... I emailed them but I haven't got a reply.

 

[Synirr]

I'm actually proud of the Petsmart I saw in Irving, Texas. They had signs taped under the goldfish tanks that said things like "Goldfish do not have lungs and cannot live in bowls" and "Goldfish are much happier in tanks larger than 10 gallons"
I guess some Petsmarts are lucky enough to have employees who actually know what they're doing