My next tank is going to be 125g and devoted to an oscar and some sa/ca's...anything smaller than 75g will be too small probably even for one 
Wallmart fish
- Thread starter dreamweave
- Start date
Agreed. Although given the size of Walmart as a company even a dozen sales won't really effect the amount they order in. The whole "buying will only encourage them" concept doesn't really work for Walmart. Even a large scale boycott (which has been done for other reasons) won't effect them.
But even given that idea, I still agree. Walmart won't notice 1, 10, 100, or even 1000 sales but a local well maintained fish store will. Plus the person gets a healthier/happier fish.
I've purchased ropefish from walmart, but only becuase they were the only place in town that had them. They did fine until one managed to find a way out of my tank. I still have one today that is about 2 years old.
My Walmart took out the wall of poorly maintained tanks and installed a compact set of smaller, poorly maintained tanks. lol
In my area, as they remodel each Walmart, they eliminate the fish section completely. I was over getting a new starter for my 20g hood and picked up one of their 29g boxed sets for $49 in the clearance area. They also had all of their stresscoat meds in clearance and all other tank sets except for 2 10g are already gone. Salesclerk said that they will not have a fish section at that Walmart in a few weeks. I plan on stopping in and checking a few times a week to see when the rest of the hardware, medicine and food go on clearance.
Also, I bought 3 Pictus cats frrom a Walmart last year and all are still going strong. Not to say that I would buy just any fish from a Walmart, but these cats looked okay and none of the other tanks showed signs of illness, just overcrowding. My son worked at that store and the clerk in the pet center cared about her job. The location I was in yesterday the mollies were sick and so were some parrot cichlids, so it really depends on the store.
Also, I bought 3 Pictus cats frrom a Walmart last year and all are still going strong. Not to say that I would buy just any fish from a Walmart, but these cats looked okay and none of the other tanks showed signs of illness, just overcrowding. My son worked at that store and the clerk in the pet center cared about her job. The location I was in yesterday the mollies were sick and so were some parrot cichlids, so it really depends on the store.
I prefer to give the local stores the sale over somewhere like walmart or petco even if it means paying an extra couple dollars. Many of these stores struggle to even stay opened and they could use the business. They also often put the extra effort into properly maintaining their stock.
Walmart Fish . . .
Never bought a fish from them nor would I ever think about it but I have a friend who got a couple adolfoi cory cats from them that were incorrectly labeled as peppered cory cats, needless to say he got the last 4 cats they had for 10 bucks when at other stores (that actually understand what types of fish they sell) adolfoi cory cats run 10-20 dollars per fish.
And agree with MickRC, all the walmarts in my area have removed their live fish displays (including bettas) and just have a very small fish section with a very limited selection of supplies and only have up to 10G tanks or hoods. Their dog/cat section has doubled though, so I guess they looked at what they were selling and realized they made more money on dog/cat food than anything with fish.
Never bought a fish from them nor would I ever think about it but I have a friend who got a couple adolfoi cory cats from them that were incorrectly labeled as peppered cory cats, needless to say he got the last 4 cats they had for 10 bucks when at other stores (that actually understand what types of fish they sell) adolfoi cory cats run 10-20 dollars per fish.
And agree with MickRC, all the walmarts in my area have removed their live fish displays (including bettas) and just have a very small fish section with a very limited selection of supplies and only have up to 10G tanks or hoods. Their dog/cat section has doubled though, so I guess they looked at what they were selling and realized they made more money on dog/cat food than anything with fish.
Yeah, Oscars can easily grow an inch + per month... A pair would outgrow a 20 long in like, 3 months. So...
Of course 20 is fine for now if you really must have them right away (I really can't believe the things people here say), so long as you don't consider this a permanent home. They are in 2 gallons so it's a move up if nothing else. I also disagree about a 55. I'd say they ultimately need a much bigger permanent home than that (I had oscar in a 55 as a kid that basically was too big to turn in the tank by the time I was a teenager). Oscars and arrowana are big fish, very very big fish (probably arrowana just don't belong in a home tank to be honest, and Oscars really push the limit when they get some of their growth). 135 is probably decent for some oscars but the ideal would be to get all your fish at once not piecemeal. Get at least 20 fish because introducing fish later is going to be very hard or even impossible once the oscars get some size. Which is why I ultimately don't like them too much in spite of other great qualities - they need much more space than people realize and get very aggressive with age as well.
