Walmart

[Da_Oz]

IMO I don't think Wal mart should sale fish but they have that right. I have worked in LFS and in petsmart and in wal mart. I hear alot of people say they have sick and dead fish there. Lets take a look at the post here in the sick fish area and they only have a few fish. Pet stores deal with 100 to 10,000 fish everyday. Plus they get these fish from breeders in boxes so some time not there fault they are dieing. The way I look at it is better for them to die in the store than in my tank. The thing I hate the most you see almost everywhere and that is over slaeing fish and meds. I had a person at a LFS tring to sale me ICH cure, and every other med they had on shelf telling me you never know when you will need it, and better to had it when you need it. Well year later still don't need it and didn't need it the years befor. Ask some people in a pet store if you can add another fish to your tank and they will say yes.
Some are better than others but you the fish keeper have got to be the smart one and not rely on the pet store person on all things.

I whent to a petsmart across town to look around and see what they had. I got a fish there and never once did they ask me what type of tank I had what kind of fish I had. And told me that ALL fish like to be around there own types. Well I only got one and whent on my way. Well this fish was a red belly Pacu that gets over 2 feet lucky I bought this fish for a reason besides keeping it I grow them up and trade them in at my LFS but the soccer mom with a 10g tank may not know this.

So you have to watch all pet stores not just the one you think may have sick or dieing fish but them all.

 

[vantgE]

fish-noobie, you from calgary?
which store?

The one at northland is clean but the fish don't look healthy nor should they be kept with the fish they sahre aquriums with

 

[Acrus]

If WalMart did not make a profit, they wouldn't bother selling fish. They didn't get to be among the biggest retail stores on the planet by doing things that don't bring in the profits.

Actually you would be surpised how many things wal-mart sells that doesn't give a profit, In some cases the only reason they would sell an item, is to get people to come in and buy more. When you are a store that size, you need to offer everything, even if you don't make much on it or anything at all. Most likely they offer the sale of fist as a convience to the customer, if they are going to sell fish suppiles they might as well sell fish. It's to emphesize (i know i spelled it wrong LOL) on the whole 1 stop shopping.

 

[Rusty_S]

Can't vote, there's no Walmarts in the UK.

That must be true cos I've never seen one, although I think Asda is part of the Wal-mart company so I wasn't sure if there were any Wal-marts in this country but what you've said confirms it that there can't be. I always here people grumbling about it and I've always been curious to see for myself if it's as bad as people say it is.

 

[wrs]

If WalMart did not make a profit, they wouldn't bother selling fish. They didn't get to be among the biggest retail stores on the planet by doing things that don't bring in the profits.

Actually you would be surpised how many things wal-mart sells that doesn't give a profit, In some cases the only reason they would sell an item, is to get people to come in and buy more. When you are a store that size, you need to offer everything, even if you don't make much on it or anything at all. Most likely they offer the sale of fist as a convience to the customer, if they are going to sell fish suppiles they might as well sell fish. It's to emphesize (i know i spelled it wrong LOL) on the whole 1 stop shopping.

any money on the fish is a profit. all stores up the price they get the fish for. and do you know how many people buy fish at walmarts? Its because they have cheaper stuff. And if not on the fish, the tanks which also clasifies as fish, because it is a fish item, in the fish section.

 

[iceviper22]

Well, I've just read through all the posts in this thread and beings that I work not only in Wal~Mart but also in the pet dept. handling the fish daily, I figured I should come up with something to say. There is a lot of truth that Walmart doesn't hire with previous knowledge of fish or pets or even any other department needed. I was hired a little over a year ago and knew basically nothing about fish or aquariums but I took the time to go online and talk to anybody with something to tell me to learn everything I could about them. Everytime I have a customer ask me some question that I don't know the answer to, I go online when I get home to find as much as I can out about it for the future.

As for properly caring for the fish, it really depends on the people that work there(both managers and pet dept. associates), the number of them, and the amount of business the actual store does. I can say that when I work, I try to do all that I can within reason to keep the tanks at our store clean and the fish happy. With the amount of business the store does though, I along with the other employee's always have more than enough work to try and do just keeping shelves full and assisting customers and simply don't have the time to REALLY take care of the aquariums properly in my opinion. It isn't that the people working don't always care, they just have a job to do and are expected to do it and the fish seem to be "overlooked" by management as an issue. The other big issue that I can agree with is what to do with the sick fish. Walmart doesn't have seperate tanks, the whole system runs the same water through every tank and if one group of sick fish come in, it's pretty much easily spread through all the tanks. All that I'm really capable of doing is treating the entire system with stuff such as melafix and quick cure. I'm really not sure what could be done with this situation because a big business using the fish to simply make petty cash or pull in more customers doesn't care to do anything about it for the most part. All I can do is advise customers not to buy fish that I feel don't look good or have been acting strangly and treat them the best I can.

Well, I could go on and on complaining and trying to stick up for some things and others but I'll shut up for now. If anyone has any questions or interests I'll be glad to try to answer them or make conversation about it. I think aquariums are great and love working with the fish whether or not Walmarts facilites suck.