# Do not buy walmart fish!!!



## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

I was extremely disgusted by the lack of care these people give these fish at walmart they dont feed them the fish have fin rot and their color is faded and they're water is brown and cloudy I was at walmart yesterday and was disgusted at what i saw fish were dead in dirty water cups and the fish that were alive weren't doing well. I then asked for the Manager and told him ''Look at these beautiful fish just lying lifeless in these cups'' i said thats UNCALLED for and unacceptable your employees haven't taken care of these fish/animals in some time. He said i am sorry ma'am i will take care of this i said ''take care of what they're already dead or sick'' I said would you treat your fish like this he said NO ma'am...I can't believe this its sad and disgusting to see this. My fish and my Animals are my life i would ever treat them like this. I told the Manager he needs to do a better job at taking care of these fish they're way to beautiful to just sit here and die. He took down my name and number and i said im gonna file a complaint about this to your headquarters He got really quiet. I also asked for the Hd number he gave it to me i said this is totally unacceptable and cruel you will be hearing something in a few days. I am heartbroken by what i saw these beautiful fishes suffering with no care or food at all. Sorry for my rambling but i am a big animal lover and i hate to see any living thing die or suffer its just not right at all.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Btw I took a few Fish home for free and im treating them hopefully nurse these beauties back to health.


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## speeddemonbk (Sep 30, 2012)

My Mom's friend worked in the garden dept and I know she fed the bettas they sell once a year, but they weren't allowed to change the water.

My sister got 3 bettas from Walmart. One died the same day from the fuzz they get. They replaced him and that fish died a week later. Her last Walmart fish lasted years and years. 

The fish aren't sold for pets there, they are sold for a profit. It doesn't matter to them that some are sick or dying. They are just a product for making money, even if they lose some.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

That's extremely sad Because bettas are beautiful fish.


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## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

Walmart is on my list of chain stores to go for betta rescues once I officially open my betta rescue.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

I wouldn't buy Fish from there ever after what i saw


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Walmart is not a good place to buy fish everyone i've brought from there died. I bought my New bettas from petco and theyre doign great healthy. one of my fish is named sooner bc hes ou sooner red he loves to make bubblenest its fun to watch him do it. lol.


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## Myates (Aug 2, 2011)

Welcome to the world of Walmart bettas! I understand why they don't feed them, as a lot of places don't for the fact they want the water to last a bit longer.. but it is still sad. I have a female I had picked up at Walmart, have her a little over a year now with no health issues. Luckily the Walmart closest to me stopped selling them.


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## laynisample (Sep 10, 2012)

I rescue fish from walmart, but if I'm looking for a fish that I want to last a while and actually keep, I go to the petsmart in my area. The fish guy is my friend and takes my advice on water changes and feeding. He now does a 50% change in the cups every other day.


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## LizzyP (Jun 21, 2012)

I bought my Dumbledore (see avatar) from Walmart. He looked pitiful. I bought him before I even knew how to take care of a betta. I don't know what it was about him, but he just looked at me and said "Please help me...I can't do this much longer" So I gently picked him up and took him to the register. Best $3.45 ever spent. He went from one of those 1 liter bowls to a heater and filtered 3 gallon in 2 days once I read up on them. He's been my guinea pig and recently was upgraded to a 5.5, which was turned into a fully planted tank last night. He's a brat, but I wouldn't change him for the world. He's been fairly healthy ever since. Just a tad bit of fin rot after he chewed his tail into a double tail and then had a quick bought of internal infection of some kind but that cleared up in 2 days with Epsom salts.

Anyway, sorry for my tangent. I would never buy another fish from Walmart, as much as I want to. It only makes room on the shelf for another. They are all about profit and money. So, you buy fish from them, you support them. Even if you buy them because they are sick/dying. You still paid your money for them. :/


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Beautiful fish!!!!


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## Kuronue (Oct 12, 2012)

I usually buy from a local aquarium store. My newest one is from petmart.

I did make this mistake with the first betta I ever owned and poor little guy had chronic fin rot. I managed to get it mostly under control after the first few weeks, but he was forever a bit fragile after. Never had that problem with any other betta after that, only the walmart one.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Your fish looks like my boy named Sooner I call him sooner because hes ou sooner red. I have another one that the color of a peacock with the green and blue hes beautiful. then my baby her name is Sidney she is getting a bit of color to her some green her fins are thin also not as big as a males i say shes female because she has that little dot on her belly who knows. She has grown since i got her and that was last sunday so ive only had them for a week and they are doing GREAT idk how old she is im saying maybe a month or so idk. Sooner had made himself a bubble nest at the top of his tank and he lays under it and sleeps lol its a weird fish and hes very active all three of my babies are active and they thrive nigght and day i guess thats a good sign meaning they're healthy. Every Morniing all three of them great me they know its feeding time but anyways im done rambling lol.


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## sainthogan (Sep 27, 2012)

It also depends on which wal-mart you go to. The one I worked for had someone very knowledgeable working in the pet department. He managed to convince the manager that the fish there needed caring for if people were going to buy them. Plus, he was an avid betta keeper himself, so he knew what he was talking about.


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## Myates (Aug 2, 2011)

BettaGirl228 said:


> her fins are thin also not as big as a males i say shes female because she has that little dot on her belly who knows. She has grown since i got her and that was last sunday so ive only had them for a week and they are doing GREAT idk how old she is im saying maybe a month or so idk.


Females will have shorter tails (the variants of plakat males have short fins as well), but you mentioned the egg spot which at the age they are sold, should be gone in most males that have them. Fish sold in stores tend to be around 3-6 months of age  A month old is around .45 inches.. less than half an inch long


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

So your saying she's Female im not certain.


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## crowntaillove (Sep 3, 2012)

I will never buy a betta from walmart. They show no care what so ever towards them. It's like they get a shipment in, and either people buy them, or they die. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even feed them. My local Petco does seem to provide slightly better care, but I do see a lot of dead ones on the shelf, and most are sick. My petsmart seems to take care of their bettas, and that's why they get my business.


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## PinkGuava (Oct 15, 2012)

Those betta breeders need to see what is happening and stop being greedy about money and start selling them to pet stores that actually provide care.


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## VanBoy (Aug 22, 2012)

I think they're actually stepping up and doing something about it. They have doubled the size of the cups that the betta are in. the air hole is really big now too. Just look at their cups compared to the cups from from my lps.
Left is from my lps and right is from Walmart.








I bought my orange betta, Flash, from Walmart and he was super healthy and still alive. But they still need to do water changes and feed the fish though. Making the cups bigger isn't enough. I think.


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## sainthogan (Sep 27, 2012)

VanBoy said:


> I think they're actually stepping up and doing something about it. They have doubled the size of the cups that the betta are in. the air hole is really big now too. Just look at their cups compared to the cups from from my lps.
> Left is from my lps and right is from Walmart.
> 
> 
> ...


Just wait until the bettas jump out of that hole though. Mine jumped through a hole much smaller than that.


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

i've bought two bettas from my local walmart. my first one was a horrid case. almost no tail, bloated, so pale it was impossible to see what color he was, very dark stress stripes..... he died three days later. i gotta find the pics i posted.

second one was their last live betta. the only other was a long dead veiltail. i bought the CT, who looked steel blue, and gave him to my niece as an Easter present. over a year later, King Steve is a royal blue flare monster. 8V

they have the tags there. for more bettas. but it's been three months, and no sign of them yet. so i'm hoping they don't get anymore.


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## VanBoy (Aug 22, 2012)

Yeah. They thought they were doing something good but it's just as bad. A bigger air hole is good but too big is bad because of the possibility of the fish jumping out.


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## Luimeril (Dec 29, 2010)

aahh, here he is. my darling Remy. ;3; he was gonna be a pretty thing. probably was a pretty thing. his there days with me, were his best. he was active, despite his condition, even though he couldn't do much.

http://i53.tinypic.com/70z9fd.jpg


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## Tikibirds (May 26, 2011)

Tell me how petco or petsmart is any better??


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## laynisample (Sep 10, 2012)

Tikibirds said:


> Tell me how petco or petsmart is any better??


All of it is relative. As i said previously my petsmart is my favorite. They take really good care of the fish and the guy doesn't sell to just anybody. He's a personal friend of mine and I've heard him suggest larger tanks and most important, heaters. Walmart seems to be consistently bad because they don't really know anything about fish or have people dedicated to the fish, however I went to an area near where my mom lives where a walmart had the best bettas available and all the cups were clean with no dead or sick fish.


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## xShainax (Feb 11, 2012)

The new Wal-mart near me actually takes care of their betta's. I never saw a dead one and I have seen a few with big bubblenests in their cups


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## sareena79 (Sep 10, 2012)

I got my boy from walmart. he was one of the few healthy ones, the rest were all a mess but I can say that alot of the chain pets stores arent much better. atleast the ones around here. it really is sad ;(


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## LeoTheLakerBetta (Oct 12, 2012)

Hmm my Walmart does not have fish at their store, but I have been to a walmart where they kept fish.. It wasn't very good at all; I didn't bother taking a closer look at the bettas. The communtiy tanks did not have brownish water, but there were dead fish and all that tragic stuff.


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## toad (Jul 17, 2012)

Didn't read through the replies (sorry!), but I just wanted to chime in and say that my Cali and Percy both came from Walmart - I had walked out without them at least 5 times and couldn't do it again, knowing they were dying an awful death. I took them home in July, along with my purple girl Delilah (who I lost a few weeks ago), and they are both doing very well.

While I don't advocate supporting Wally World's fish keeping practices, I don't regret buying any of the 3 fish I got from there. Now I just try to steer clear of Walmart altogether, so I'm not tempted to save any more.


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## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

I will have to say petco and petsmart are not better than walmart. Petco sells babies which should be illegal. Petsmart stacks cups and fish suffocate. They also sell females toooo young GRRRRR. All of those stores are on my rescue list.


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## toad (Jul 17, 2012)

LadyVictorian said:


> I will have to say petco and petsmart are not better than walmart. Petco sells babies which should be illegal. Petsmart stacks cups and fish suffocate. They also sell females toooo young GRRRRR. All of those stores are on my rescue list.


In my experience, all the stores are different - it depends on who is managing them. The Petco near me does a great job with their bettas, but the Petco in the next town is disgusting.


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## Tikibirds (May 26, 2011)

> I will have to say petco and petsmart are not better than walmart. Petco sells babies which should be illegal. Petsmart stacks cups and fish suffocate. They also sell females toooo young GRRRRR. All of those stores are on my rescue list.


For here, Petco is the worse out of the three not only in fish care but in customer service. Walmart is walmart. They aren't a petstore and I know the one I worked in only had people in that dept at night- doing the stocking. Petsmart is 40 miles away. I dont visit often but they seem to be a bit better - fish look more healthy and so do their aquatic plants. 

When I was in Alaska, all 23 of my bettas were from walmart. Some were in bad shape, some were OK. I would think the ones in walmart have a better change of getting a home simply because they are $5 at max as oppsed to petco which can charge up to $20 depending on the tail type.

The last one I got was from petsmart. She has some kind of back/spine deformity but looked healthy other then that so I took her home.

As for selling young females - as long as they are not babies, they should be OK. All the females I have gotten from Petco have been young as well and all have grown up just fine. Thw only thing I would caution about is some of the females are very young VT males ... which may cause a problem if you are getting them for a soerity.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Everytime i go to Petco the Bettas are always in clean water and look healthy and are active, Maybe be different at other petcos. I brought a gorgeous female betta tonight at petco and she likes to jump i bought a tank with a lid so she wont get out,Shes a fiesty girl too wow.


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## OrangeAugust (Jul 23, 2012)

LadyVictorian said:


> I will have to say petco and petsmart are not better than walmart. Petco sells babies which should be illegal. Petsmart stacks cups and fish suffocate. They also sell females toooo young GRRRRR. All of those stores are on my rescue list.


I think it all depends on the individual stores. It does seem that Walmart is the worst. None of the Walmarts in my area sell bettas. And like a couple people said on this thread, their local walmarts actually take good care of their fish.
But I still think Petco and Petsmart are better. I saw them changing the water in the betta cups one day while I was in Petsmart. I've never seen dying, dead, or sick bettas there until yesterday when I saved one with pretty bad fin rot (and I think she may have arrived in the store that way because her water was still very blue). And they don't stack their cups there, either. I do agree that their females are SUPER young, though. I don't think it's bad, though, because they will eat adult food and everything.
I have seen numerous dead bettas in one Petco, though. But another Petco in the area takes good care of their bettas and all their fish in general, it seems. I've never seen a dead fish until I went in one time and a GIANT "ghost shrimp" was nomming on a fish (not sure what kind of fish it was) that was larger than itself. :shock:


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## prosthetik (Oct 5, 2012)

I am so glad that in Australia you can only get pets/fish from Pet Stores, not big chain stores [not that we have Walmart here - but from everything I hear its not that great anyway lol]


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Ok i have a baby Betta and I think she has Swim Bladder because she is swimming on her side and its like shes off kilter when she swims and i was told to give her a pea everyday until she starts swimming better and she is Bloated too they told me to take the skin off before giving it to her then mush it up and put in her tank I don't want my little girl to die so is this the right thing to do...Please help me I am worried about her. all she does is swims for a bit then shes up at the tank floating im so scared shes gonna die Please help me!!


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## Wendyjo (Oct 19, 2012)

Every time you purchase a fish from a store that keeps them in bad conditions, you are simply rewarding them for their neglect by giving them your cash. They'll turn around and replace the fish you just "rescued" with another one that they'll treat just as bad and the cycle will continue.

If you really want to help then stop buying from that store and tell the store manager exactly why you're taking our business somewhere else. Then go home, contact HQ, and report the problem.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Ok but that doesnt help me about my baby betta thats sick.


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## Savageajc (Oct 12, 2012)

Wendyjo said:


> Every time you purchase a fish from a store that keeps them in bad conditions, you are simply rewarding them for their neglect by giving them your cash. They'll turn around and replace the fish you just "rescued" with another one that they'll treat just as bad and the cycle will continue.


I completely agree. I also agree every store is different, it all depends on the person working that department and how much they care.


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## logisticsguy (Sep 7, 2012)

I do not think the pea is a good idea. Maybe a start would be a water change but make sure to use a conditioner. Do you have a heater and what temp. is it. Do you have pictures of your fish many questions I will try to help. Look at some of the stickys in the care forum.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

I don't have a Heater its warm here. She has been doing fine until today when i noticed she was swimming weird on her side a bit and up at the top and been swimmign around a bit as well shes a confusing little fish lol. but she is eatting good im gonna fast for a few days and see if that helps. The guy at the pet store told me to feed him a small amount of a pea and mush it up real small for the baby and also told me to hold off on feeding her for a few days she may be constipated. Well see how she is tomorrow.


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## LadyVictorian (Nov 23, 2011)

You need a heater for babies, they need to be in temps of 83-85, nothing less or they can get sick and die. Babies are not as strong as adults.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Ok i will get a heater for her thanks alot


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Yay went to check on her this morning and did a water change and she is happy as can be now she is swimming normally and jumping im gonna fast her today and tomorrow then feed her 1 pellet in the morning and 1 at night starting this weekend. I think she was just bloated. So glad my baby is ok i was worried about her lastnight


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

How do you post pics on here i wanna post a pic of my betta.


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## BettaGirl228 (Oct 15, 2012)

Here he is!!!!


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## TheMCP (Nov 10, 2012)

LadyVictorian said:


> Walmart is on my list of chain stores to go for betta rescues once I officially open my betta rescue.


So, that would encourage them to have more bettas and care for them in the same manner they have been, because it would be more profitable to them.


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## AquaticGirl101 (Nov 3, 2012)

I hate it how people don't take care of bettas.... Just because they don't have a voice and they can't express their sadness. If someone saw a dead hamster in its cage everyone would care but a betta? People just don't care...


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## NeptunesMom (May 4, 2012)

I work at PetSmart, and my store is VERY well managed. Our betta's are not stacked on top of each other. They have frequent water changes and are fed well. Most everyone who works there has a fish tank, and is concerned for the well being of the fish when they are at work and at their new home. I have worked there for a year, and I have never seen a dead fish on the sales floor. We encourage heater usage, and tanks that are at least a gallon. I will not say they are necessarily "happy", but they are well cared for. I also do not see that many bettas returned dead either because we do try very hard to educate new pet parents about their fish.


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