WARNING when buying fish from Walmart

small fry

Hello.

You guys are probably thinking that I am going to talk about how TERRIBLE walmart's fish dept. is, and to check fish VERY throgholy for any signs of ich, fungus, and finrot, which are all common fish diesases found on fish that are at walmart. Although those things are highly important, and I never recomend buying a fish at walmart unless you have to (have to?), that is not what this warning is about.

I can't prove this is true because it is something I heard from an employee, but better safe than sorry! It sounds logical so I will report it...

The checker said passively as I was walking away,"oh, when you get to the sensor gates on either side of the door, lift the shrimp over the electronic gate or they will die." She explained that the electronic field between the gates would send an electric charge throught the water and kill the fish!

WHY DIDN'T ANYONE EXPLAIN THAT EARLIER!?

She said that it wasn't likely to kill fish (I was buying shrimp, that appearently would have been killed), so nobody really says anything.

WHAT KIND OF RESPONSIBILTY IS THAT?

Way Walmart sees it, if the fish dies, chances are you will come back to the walmart to get more fish. That is a shame. Why does walmart have to be that way...so selfish.

stevenjohn21

Hmmm sounds like an urban legend to me ! If that is true then wouldnt anything flammable go Boom when the "electric charge" zaps it ?

small fry

Well, supposedly the "elecrtic charge" will show no noticeable signs of shock. It sorta makes since with water, but with flamables, it is the vapor that is flamable, not the liquid. Without a spark to agnite the vapor, there will be no effect, perhaps even if the liquid was electrically charged.

Anyone had any negative effects walking through the gates w/ live fish/inverts?

koda22

ive heard that too! but i dont really care, im one of the guys that walmart is the only place with fish within 125miles....but they thing about walmart is they have a 72hr replacement....if it dies within 72hr take it back and get a new one...

small fry

I forgot they had a policy.. Maybe they can't help being bad.

zof

I hate to tell you this but the sensors at the door are magnetic based not electric based, the chances of them killing anything living even if it sat inside the sensor bars for a day would be less then one half of one percent. It sounds like this lady is just very misinformed or she was yanking your chain.

So lets go theoretical here for a moment and say they were electrical, and were pumping enough energy out to harm some water creature. Well first of all the charge would be so great you would feel the static electricity in that area as the hair on your arm would stand up. And electrical devices such as phones and pacemakers would short out.

In short there pretty much no danger from the magnetic tag sensors, in fact you probably have a better chance of dead fish from getting ran over while walking to your car in the walmart parking lot.

Edit: Heres a wiki link about these magnetic strips http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electro...gnetic_systems

small fry

No, that is good news.. That means walmart is 1/2 of 1% better at fish keeping than I thought they were.

Mikaila31

I don't even know were to begin with this...

keowa

ok, i work at walmart in the pets department. AND i have a tropical fish tank (45gal) all fish of wich i have bought from my store. i have never had a fish die from taking threw the securitie gate however i have been told that the fish should not be taken over the scanner at the register. i have no proof that this is true BUT i do mention to every person i bag fish for that they should not let the casheer take the bad over the scanner.

Inga

Walmart here doesn't have much in the way of fish or fish supplies anymore. Admittedly, I am a little sad about the supplies. A few years ago, I was able to purchase a 29 gallon tank with the heater, filter, lights for less then $100. at Walmart. It was a pretty nice set up for the money. If I try to get that same set up here now, it would be close to twice that.

I hate the idea of them selling fish though. Many years ago before I knew better I bought fish there. The pet area person wasn't around so someone from pharmacy came to dish up the fish. She had no clue and put a dozen largish fish in one bag. Her catching skills were not good and most were injured. All of them died within a very short time. I gave up on Walmart fish after that.