Keep an eye on things buying fish from department stores!

[kenyth]

Well, I'm at Wal-Mart getting a couple of fish. I'm generally pretty impressed with this particular store. The tanks are clean, the fish are healthy, and you rarely if ever see a dead one. They also keep species that pick on each other apart. The only problem I see is that there is only one person in the place that knows about fish (the manager at this store) and they simply aren't there most of the time. So, you wind up getting folks who know nothing about fish from other departments to help you. Frankly, they'd be better off letting tank owners get their own fish.

Anyway, I wind up getting a lady from the gardening dept. to get my fish. I pick them out, she nets them and puts them in the bag. She pick the bag up and only one isn't belly up! "WTF?", I think and take the bag from the confused lady. THE BAG IS ICE COLD! "Did you get this water straight from the cold water faucet?", I ask. The look I get is enough for an answer. She want's to leave the poor fish in the sink for dead, so I grab a net and quickly transfer the fish back to their holding tanks. Only one of the poor things died, the rest recover within seconds. I ask if it's OK to get my own fish and for her to just write out the slip.

Now, I'm not mad at the lady or here to scold. She looked like she felt real bad and honestly didn't know any better. But from now on, I keep a close eye on what the employee is doing instead of browsing the tanks.

[Lady Hobbs]

I've seen them do the same thing and not only at WalMarts. Glad you were in the rescue mode and saved some of them.

Last time a salesperson was netting fish for me, they dropped one on the floor. She never bothered to even bend over and look for it. I found it and put it back but didn't want to buy that one.

[Incredulous_Ed]

One time I netted my own fish, put them in the bag, and wrote the upc code on the bag and went and made my purchase. I was tired of waiting.

[Rue]

...when I bought my goldies there on Thursday...

...the guy from Paint and Hardware came to bag the fish for me...

...he was a Fish Expert!!! :19: He breeds fish...even Oscars!!! We had the bestest talk!!! :hmm3grin2orange:

[cocoa_pleco]

One time I netted my own fish, put them in the bag, and wrote the upc code on the bag and went and made my purchase. I was tired of waiting.


I Almost did that once.

They paged for a worker 5 times, and noone came. I got so dam mad i was ready to grab the bag and do it myself, but i saw a security camera

[Nautilus29]

they dont leave those security cameras on all of the time.

One friday I was at walmart looking around. And I guess the walmart has alot of problems with kids comming in on weekends and messing around. And I saw some kids running around and then a few minutes later I hear,"please turn on the security cameras." on the loud speakers.

[*Sarah*]

That's maddening. I hope the fish are ok.

[Tails]

My dad can tell you about our shock when we witnessed a woman (who knows about fish, mind you! She's not just an assistant in a big store, she actually manages, possibly owns, that fish store!) catch a pleco. Wow was she rough!!

If it were me buying that fish, I would have yelled out "Hey! Stop! Can I catch my fish please?!?" I felt horrible for the poor lil pleco!

[kimmers318]

I would think you would also need to be cautious about someone coming from other departments, esp. lawn and garden as they handle pesticides and other things that can be toxic to fish. Make sure they wash their hands.

[A340]

I bought 10 Zebra Danio's from Wallyworld about 2 weeks ago, all are fine. The same weekend I bought 10 Head and Tail Light Tetra's from a LFS and all died within one week. Got my money back even though she said my ammonia levels were way too high (funny thing is, when she tested my water sample, she just put 2 drops of the first testing solution in, shoke it up abit and that was it, WTF?), anyway, went over to Wallyworld and bought some Platies and all are accounted for.

There is another LFS that I bought a couple of Clown Loaches from, anyway, to help her catch them, she took all the plants and decorations out of the tank, through them on the muddy floor and when she was done, just threw them back in the tank. Yikes.

[Abbeys_Mom]

My dad can tell you about our shock when we witnessed a woman (who knows about fish, mind you! She's not just an assistant in a big store, she actually manages, possibly owns, that fish store!) catch a pleco. Wow was she rough!!

If it were me buying that fish, I would have yelled out "Hey! Stop! Can I catch my fish please?!?" I felt horrible for the poor lil pleco!


I had the same sort of problem when I bought my Weather Loaches. The guy couldn't get them to come out from behind the plants, so he start jabbing the net into the gravel at the back of the tank. One fish was so badly injured that it stunted his growth. I didn't buy him then, I bought him discount over a year later, because I felt sorry for him.

Our LFS is horrible for for mistreatment of fish. I was walking by the tank on day and they had left the barb tank open after getting some bagged for someone. The barbs we starting to jump out, all over the floor. There were twitching fish everywhere. People we just stepping over them and trying to ignore it. I called the staff over and started picking them up myself!

[cocoa_pleco]

i cant stand it when they roughly handle fish. Once at wal-mart when they were getting me a sailfin molly, they were being so rough i just had to look away.