Wal-Mart Fish and Plants Suck!

interseting subject. I purchased 4 rosy barbs and 5 tiger barbs from my walmart a month ago. i lost 1 rosy and 2 tigers within a few days, but the rest have done fine. i was impressed with the quality of their fish, and fully intended to use them as a source in the future, as the walmart is a 5-10 minute bicycle ride from my apartment.

HOWEVER

in the past 2 weeks it's gone to junk. TONS of dead fish. In fact, there was a dead oscar that was completely bleached-white color, no eyes, bloated. and the other fish in the tank were eating it. it clearly had been there for a long time.

i can understand the occasional dead fish, but you would think that someone would take a peek maybe once a day to clean the dead ones out.
 
I rescued two female bettas from walmart several months ago. One had maybe all of an inch of water in her container. They are both doing fine and they are sure pretty. One is now living at a friends house, she has two young daughters that were thrilled!

Other than that, all my fish are from Petco (ours isn't too bad) and lfs. All I have lost is one oto, and I may have killed it when I moved a rock while cleaning.
 
I guess since I always post bad about walmart I should post the one good thing that has happened to me. I did have a tank awhile ago when I was a newbie that got some sort of flesh eating disease in it and slowly but surely killed every single one of my fish except for these 2 algae eaters I bought at walmart. Those things lived forever and never caught anything the other fish got. I dont know if it is because they were accustomed to bad conditions or what but those little guys lived forever.
 
Good point carpguy. Why should I buy my stuff there? Well, I don't. I found a few good LFS's I do my business with now. It seems to me that little fish places sell good quality fish for 2 reasons. One, they love the fish, and two, they have to sale good stuff to beat the big guys. This is the only aspect that I have found where they beat big sellers like Wal-Mart, Petsmart, etc... When I buy filters and equipment, I go to the big stores where it is cheap, but they don't care about the lives of fishes.

So why did I go to wal-mart in the first place? It was close, and I am a beginning aquarist. Lesson learned. I'm just ticked off that Wal-Mart sells fish like rotting candy. That is if candy rots. You get the idea.
 
tell us something new :huh:
 
Walmart would not sell a banana that was in as bad of shape as their fish sometimes can be. They would be embarrassed to have rotten produce on the shelves and would remove it immediately if someone pointed it out.

Sometimes the fish at my local WalMart really don't look all that bad, but they are mostly uninteresting common fish and my tastes have become more picky than what walmart can offer me.
 
with out wal mart i would have to pay crazzy monny for the basic stuff, like filters, food and much much more.... and would have to pay way way more for basic fish.... I also wish we had a pet store but we keep getting them and they are total crap and then they get shut down... before walmart came i had to pay $10 for a basic guppie and the person who sold it to me couldnt tell if it was male of femail... I love walmart its like $2 for a guppie... and everthing else :D
 
I purchase alot of my fish from Petsmart. I've had a lot of luck and haven't lost a fish yet! They sell a lot of 'neat' fish too. I've bought all my dojo loaches from them and recently picked up a senegal bichir. If you have one in your area, it's one of the better stores. There prices aren't too bad either. I'd say they are ALMOST as good as a local fish store. They tend to have more of a selection, where a LFS has higher quality, less common fish.
 
Wal-mart is both good and bad. I have 2 near me, one is terrible with dead fish and not even substrate in the tanks! Plus one person there tried to sell a betta to this woman who wanted to do the betta vase thing, saying that it wouldn't have to be fed with the lily in the pot! I stepped in at that point. :rant:

The other is better kept, and sometimes has interesting fish. I picked up my 4 dojo's and 2 giant danios (not that they're interesting, my hubby liked them) over a year ago and they are still going strong. And paid no more than $2 per fish! Normally I prefer Big Al's, and then Super Pet, but I've never seen a dojo there! And the supplies are well priced and convenient, I can pick them up when I go shopping for my other stuff.
 
Yeah never get fish there. I have a friend that works there and there's like always 1 or 2 or more fish dead in every other few tanks. Its horrible. Your best bet is to get them from the pet stores. They take a little more pride in there job and takin care of the little buggers.
 
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