Chrisson

Who thinks Wall Mart shouldn't sell fish?

(Sorry I forgot to put the poll for the other thread)

Amanda

Wal-Mart just isn't a store meant to sell live animals. If they started carrying redents, people would be all over them about it. But because it's "just a fish" no one cares. I don't believe that a whole sale store like Wal-Mart should sell fish. But I also don't believe that Petsmart & Petco should sell live animals either.

navyscuba

I go to my local Walmart about 2 times a week and because I'm a fish lover and have kids that like them too i visit the fish area but there's not a day that I go and don't see a dead fish on their tanks. Or have bettas in this tiny cups half of water. Which so far I got two and one died with dropsy about 4 days after I got her and the other of unknown cause. I go and see the fish and that's it.
I think the question need to be refrased!

agabr123

lol, i'm a bit confused by the question. if i answer YES doesn't that mean that i think that they SHOULDN'T keep fish?

djbrist

Was at mine today, always walk thru only to find they had 2 GSP's, I haven't researched them much but man was I tempted to grab them, just to prob. save them from certain doom. And yes, there was 5 dead fish in 4 different tanks. I know that they have plenty of "ok" equip. to get them by, but I bet they just have a list of procedures to do daily, but no TLC. My heart goes out for the many lost due to unknowing and careless negligence at my Walmart.
Dave

mr. Clown Loach

i've seen one healthy fish in my life at wal-mart and that was an oscar that had eaten the other neons the tank... like seriously who puts neons and an oscar in a tiny tank together

Minnow

I voted Yes (as in, yes, they should not sell fish).

I don't know whether my walmart carries fish (I don't shop there), but if they do, I would be very surprised if the fish are well-cared-for. From what I've heard on here, walmart has no business selling fish.

sirdarksol

Woops. Minnow's right. I missed that the question already had a negative in it. At least one of those "No" votes (mine) should be a "Yes."

djbrist

[quote=Minnow;569868]I voted Yes (as in, yes, they should not sell fish).

Crud, change mine too, should be yes

MeGustaUnaPez926

There aren't a whole lot of Walmarts around me, but the one I've been to (before I knew anything about fish) had some. Don't remember what condition they were in.
I don't have a problem with them selling fish, if they are kept in proper conditions and have a few knowledgable staff members on hand.
But thats a pretty big 'if'!

MrEMeat

I voted no but I meant no they should not sell fish.

In my town the Walmart is not carrying fish any more. I'm not sure whether that is just our store or whether it's province, country or chain wide... I did get the impression that the decision is effecting more than just the store here though.

KrisT

sad thing is that Walmart has the healthiest fish I've seen in my town. No joke! We have a petco and a family owned pet store. I've been visiting them a lot lately and noticed that WalMart has the healthiest fish. lol

Regal

Yea me too lol

Chrisson

Yeah that's what I ment but I guess I didn't clearly say the question right. = l

aquarist48

My local WalMart should NOT sell fish. Their tanks are over stocked and full of dead fish. I've had to report them (via email) about the situation. It's disgusting and so sad.

Fla_Larry

wow just wow

catfishlover123

Walmart sells a lot of things. I wonder why they sell fish?

rainman

I like their supplies, but yes they shouldn't sell fish. Our local Wal-Mart Had them for a while. Eventually their bad rep caught up with them and fish sales declined. They didn’t have anyone actually dedicated to the fish section they had people from other departments work there in shifts. I was planning on proposing a marketing plan to improve the fish section. (Find your niche in the job field) Had everything ready for the meeting when they decided to close the fish section down, and sold all the tanks.

haedra

I don't really feel like I can answer this one, as I don't see Walmart is the only problem in the aquaria industry.

While alot of people cite Walmart in their area as taking horrible care of their stock, it is the opposite where I live. I find Petsmart, and Petco to be just as bad, if not worse. My first betta came from Walmart. He was living in clean water, in much larger containers than any of the pet stores in my area. He is also healthy as a horse, to this day.

So in all honesty I think that if Walmart shouldn't be selling fish, then neither should most of the large pet store chains; as I see them as no different.

sirdarksol

That doesn't mean you can't answer the question. If none of the chains in your area keep their fish any better than Walmart, then you're right, likely none of them should be selling fish.

On average, Walmart is the worst of the chains. This is likely because they're not a pet store, so the employee who ends up in charge of fish may not even have signed up to have anything to do with pets. They need someone in the pet area, and so they dump someone there.
However, if they get someone who cares about fish working in the fish section, there's likely to be a huge difference.

BulldogWrestler

Well, to be honest - if you go into MOST LFS than you'll see "dead fish" as well.

While it's easy to rip on the big chains - the same problems that plague them also plague your LFS. Bad fish arrive, etc.

I realize that typically "the larger you are, the less attention and care you can deliver" is a general train of thought that rings true for the most part - but a lot of people crucify "big chains" and then ignore the very same things that are going on in their LFS.

I will say this - I applaud decisions made by PetSmart and PetCo to stray away from carrying any fish that are put through terrible processes to make them more appealing (i.e. "painted" or dyed fish). And while PetSmart has a lot of fish deaths in their tanks, so do a lot of local fish stores. And if you've worked in a fish store (I myself have not, although I've known someone who does), then you know that it's not like all of the fish there are peachy keen and living happy lives and in no danger of dieing, etc.

The fact is, the very trade itself is the problem. It's inhumane to keep fish super overstocked in a small tank no matter how big the filtration system. However, it's also impossible to have tons upon tons of large tanks to house all of the fish - financially that just doesn't make sense.

Anyway, while I agree there is a lot of problems with bigger chains, I think people are vastly overlooking that those problems haunt just about anywhere that sells fish (maybe not local breeders) and that having those problems is something that won't go away anytime soon (as the solution to those problems make it impossible to be in business to run a LFS most of the time).

That said, if someone is in charge of the fish department that doesn't care or doesn't have a clue what they're doing - then that's irresponsible. However, again, I think this is VASTLY overstated a lot of the time. People whose main passion in life is fish oftentimes go to "big chain" stores and start "matching wits" with the employees there. To care for fish in the store, you don't need to know everything about them. But I've been in stores SEVERAL times where some psycho is chewing into the poor kid working there and getting angry because a fish is mislabeled, being kept with the wrong fish in the display tanks, not being fed the right thing, etc. Generally, even though people occasionally make mistakes and give bad advice, I've found that the people at my "big chains" (PetCo and PetSmart, I have no experience with WalMart) have been helpful and caring in getting people the right fish. Local Fish Stores are as well, and generally more knowledgable. However, I've been "pressured into a sale" more at the different LFS than I have at the "big chains."

Just saying. Long winded post, but I feel a lot of people (not just on this forum but in general) love to beat up the "big guy" and in doing so, they ignore the problems with the little guys they're pulling for.

sirdarksol

Bulldog Wrestler:
I live in a metropolitan area that has probably a dozen or more Petsmarts, half a dozen or so Petcos, and more Walmarts than I care to think about. While I don't go into Walmarts often, and I don't go into Petcos ever anymore, I have been to at least five different Petsmarts, and all of them had the following issues:
-Oscars and other tank-busting fish stocked in the dozens. These are fish that should only be stocked a few at a time, and potential buyers should be told that they will need a very large tank in a relatively short amount of time.
-Bettas stocked in huge piles. Whether or not the water is being changed out daily, no fish store can sell forty bettas before a significant portion of them die.
-Misinformation on the tanks. Much of this info is geared toward selling the fish as quickly as possible (things like the pleco card saying "Tank size: 10g").
-Non-aquatic plants in their aquatic plant section.
-Tanks that show a chronic lack of care.

There are also seven or more LFSs in my area. Three of them have many of the same problems I listed above, and I will not return to them. However, four that I have been to;
-do not stock tank busters en masse, and do tell customers who are asking about them what size tank they will need to care for these fish.
-do not stock more than four or five bettas at a time, and do provide much better care for their bettas, either by providing larger bowls or by stocking them in the display tanks with the peaceful fish.
-do not stock non-aquatic plants in their plant section.
-take very careful care of their tanks.

Others on the forum have noted the same things. We don't just blindly bash the chains and praise the little stores. We pay attention to the reasons we like/dislike stores/chains. There have been positive reviews of the chains (I even gave some praise of a Petsmart once), and there have been plenty of negative reviews of LFSs.

pinkfloydpuffer

If you have a problem with what Walmart is doing, then do something about it. I wrote my local Walmart about how they were keeping GSPs in freshwater and selling them as such, and they had lots of dead bettas and other fish, and since then I haven't seen a puffer of any kind for sale there and their bettas cups are at least clean. Rarely see dead fish either. So, all I'm saying is if it bugs you, try to do something about it.

sirdarksol

Definitely agreed there, PinkFloydPuffer.
I've sent letters to both Petsmart and Petco about how they keep their bettas. I won't shop at Petco anymore because of this. We've had members talk to managers, write letters, etc... Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but at least you tried.
An important point is to be polite. Being polite may not always work, but being rude almost never works, and it is often unfair, since it often hurts people who have little or no choice in how things are done.

I also think it's unfair to refuse to shop at a store without sending the store a letter and giving the owner a chance to fix it.

BulldogWrestler

Well, I'm in Los Angeles - which is filled to the brim with fish stores and has some Petcos and PetSmarts as well. I spent more time going store to store "window shopping" for fish when I started out, and I've noticed dead fish in all of them. I've noticed overstocked tanks in all of them.

I can't attest to your personal experiences, and when I was saying "people" I wasn't necessarily pointing a finger at any singular person - just noting what the general concensus (sp) appears to be.

Also, it's stuff that should be taken into "degree." MOST fish stores that I've been to in this area (and I can probably honestly say that I've been to the majority of the ones listed) suffer the same problems that the "big chains" do. I regularly see HUGE oscars and plecos in 10-20 gallon tanks, oftentimes shared with other big fish. I would ask about this before (now I realize it does little to no good) and oftentimes got the "Well, the filtration system we have allows us to contain fish of this size" or some other mumbo jumbo. Fact is, they don't have the space or the capacity to individualize larger tanks for these fish.

Now, that said, a much larger store like PetSmart or PetCo doesn't have that either, but I've yet to see a 10" Oscar at either of those stores.

As for misinformation, that's a byproduct of being a "big chain" and having to label all of your fish, etc. LFS get to escape this because of the lack of customer traffic and the ability to talk one on one with them (which I think is an EXCELLENT THING). However, I don't think the "big chains" intentionally mislead, and the cards I've seen at most of them suggest much larger tanks for the pleco (in fact, PetSmart's card specifically states that the pleco gets to be 24" long - I happen to know this because it said that on the Bristlenose Pleco's card). In any case, I agree that there is misinformation in larger stores and misinformation by their employees who are not "fish experts" and wouldn't be hired at a LFS. Without a doubt. I just don't think it's "intentional" to sell fish. I've seen educated employees who advise against certain fish. In addition, I've found that LFS will really push for a sell because they need to in order to keep their business going. I realize all are different, but my questions in a lot of the ones I went to were answered with sales pitches and LFS desperately trying to get my complete business at once (I assume the economy has hit LFS pretty hard). So it DOES go both ways, and that's all I was trying to say in my original reply.

As for lack of care, I see deaths in most fish stores I go into, big chain or not. In fact, my wife spots these things almost immediately. At first, that was a deciding factor as to whether or not I would do business with them - but eventually we came to realize that all stores have fish deaths and "slip ups" in care. For the most part, I've yet to see a fish store that had filthy water in their tank or massive fish deaths. I'm sure it happens, but I've yet to see it.

Now, it sounds to me like you have a small group of LFS that go above and beyond - and that's awesome! (we have a couple here too, along with the local PetSmart) but I would venture to say that ANY store who takes meticulous care of fish, etc etc falls into the minority. i.e. the fish stores that would be rated in the 85 out of 100 range would be less than 5-10% or so, while most of the fish stores (chain or otherwise) would fall in the 50-75 out of 100 range. Just a guess, but that's the general feeling I get.

But at the same time, it's tough for me to toss WalMart (or anyone else) under a rug without at least mentioning that practically everyone faces the same problems.

sirdarksol

I get that. I was just pointing out that, at least on Fishlore (as I can't speak of any aquarist group outside of here), the opinion wasn't built on assumptions, but rather on observations.
In other words, we have a generally bad opinion of chain stores because we see that chain stores are generally worthy of a bad opinion.

I still believe that much of the misinformation is intentional, largely because it's stuff that is well-known within the aquarist community to be wrong and the only reason to maintain that, for example, a 24" fish will do well in a 10g tank is to be able to sell the fish to more than the small percentage of aquarists who actually have a large enough aquarium.
I've also dealt enough with large corporations to know the amount that at least some of them are willing to lie to their customers to improve sales.
This is, of course, conjecture, but it's again based on observation, not just "big chains are automatically bad."

BulldogWrestler

That's understandable, and I agree 100% with what you're saying. I'm sure, at some level in the corporate structure - that the decision is made to say "a pleco will be GREAT in your 10 gallon", or at least imply it through sales techniques (for what it's worth the Petsmart here has a pleco listed as a 30 gallon fish). But I get what you're saying, and I agree that it happens a lot with fish. Lots of misrepresentation and lots of badly organized sales techniques.

However, the consensus that "big chains are bad because of this experience I've had with big chains which automatically makes the LFS a better option" is wrong. The LFS has the same problems the "big chain" does (in all liklihood).

But, with any hobby, you have the "snooty people" (not saying you or anyone is one of these people - but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about) who look down on anyone who uses things that are easy to gain access to (i.e. cheap stuff available at PetSmart, WalMart, etc). I think a lot of the "big chain hate" originates with things like that, which is why the local fish store with a 14" Oscar, 10" Pacu, and 10" Pleco in a 20 gallon gets a pass while the PetSmart with 47,000 feeder goldfish in a 20 gallon does not. Just examples, but you see what I'm saying.

babyblu

I voted, but now I think I should change it. WalMart should be able to sell fish, just sell them in a proper environment, but then again, everyone should have to do that, no?

The local WalMart in Courtney has stopped selling fish, and I have to admit, I was relieved to see that. The fish there had no ambiance and the people were never educated about the fish. Someone (or someones) must have complained I guess.