this cruel stuff must stop!?

Question

I have a petsmart across the street and their goldfish are dieing at the bottom of the tank. its because they dont feed them enough and pay no attention to them. it is very sad to see a cute little inasent goldfish die because of these mean people not caring for them properly. and one is only 67 cents, so I say we shall buy as many as we can and give them nice homes that will care for them. please help.

Answer 1

hello, i seen that someone called you a moron your not! i agree totally with you. i have a walmart that sells fish. and i can say i have saved the most prettiest goldfish from them. i have 3 red cap orandas, 5 fancy fantails that i bought from them. when i bought them i knew that i could save them. check out my 360 profile i have a pic in there of 2 of my fish from walmart. my red cap orandas are finally growing their caps now that i own them. i know its hard to see these amazing species in these tanks of death. its ppl like us that care enough to notice that there not just dumb goldfish there living animals that deserve a good home and best chance in life! goldfish rule!

Answer 2

You need to do a little more research methinks. The goldfish are most likely dying due to overcrowding and stress rather than underfeeding. Overcrowding can lead to the rapid spread of disease and the stress will make them more susceptible to infection.

Buying up the lot of them and having not having enough room to keep them will result in the same thing happening in your own home as will giving them away to people who think that you can keep a goldfish happy and a alive in a fishbowl when you should really have a minimum of a 20 gallon with a filter or undergravel so that even a handful can grow up happily. I doubt many of the people you are going to try to give them away to are willing to spend the $200+ on the tank and supplies plus upkeep costs and take time out to clean the tank as needed.

Also, you must also realize that these fish are meant as feeders. That is to be fed to larger fish, snakes etc. or as starter fish to get a tanks biology started without risking more expensive fish.

Aye, it is a cruel world we live in... but thinking realistically, you can't save them all. Buy them out and they'll order more, then those fish will be doomed to the same fate. I appreciate that you care for animals so deeply- even fish. But there's not much you can do.

Answer 3

I do agree with you. We have a petstore in Canada called Pet Cetera, and they have feeder fish, of course. I stand the overstocking at petsmart, but at petcetera they CRAM the tank, literally, the fish can't move and always touching other fish. AND there is a huge plecostomous on the bottom, as if that's going to help anything.

I do not recommend calling PETA. They're nuts, absolutely and positively. They believe that no animals should be kept as pets, or eaten as food.

Instead, contact the manager of the store or someone who works at Petstore (not the store, but the actual company). Don't go on about how cruel it is; write about how it affects their business. I told petcetera that I saw kids go by the display and say "Oh my gosh, mommy, why are all those poor fish crammed in there! and look at the dead ones!" and the mothers rushing their children out of the store. It really did happen, and it struck a cord, because next now the tank are only half as full as they used to be, and they sold the pleco.

Whatever you do, DON'T buy them to 'rescue' them. First of all, you are probably not equipped to take care of feeder goldfish, which are commons / comets and can grow to an astonishing 12-18". They need to live in ponds, or at worst, huge 300 gallon tanks. Second, if you buy them, you'll only be giving money to the petstore, encouraging them to buy more feeder fish. They don't starve them, they just don't take care of them. They put 100s in a tank and don't care if they live or die because the store buys them for a penny. Feeder goldfish are always sickly and full of parasites. Frankly, I'd never feed them to my fish.

Answer 4

Its not from a lack of feeding! Disease and normally a lot die from shipping unfortunately. I bet you where in the store the day after delivery day or later in the day when they put the new fish out.

As for the buy as many as you can comment, I am still rolling on the floor laughing! I bet if everyone buys all of the goldfish at all of the PetSmarts more will magically appear in a week but there will be twice as many as the week before.

Answer 5

goldfish are also sold as feeders for other fish like oscars jack dempseys, ect..... although im sure some of those goldfish were purchased as pets, it is no differant that the fact they sell crickets for lizards/frogs as a staple diet. Im sure when they order hundreds to thousands of either that not all of them are going to make it through the shipping process, especially fish due to the acclimating process. fish hold water internall much like our bodies hold water. fish can change the water inside them to match the water they are now in. If they fishes body does not acclimate to the new water the internal organs shut down. this process happens to everyones fish that they purchase and bring home to a new enviroment, only they are usually not acclimating hundreds so therefore loss would naturally be lower. Make sense?

Answer 6

i have a petsmart in town and whenever i go in they are cleaning the tanks, feeding the fish, or removing the dead fish. i would not say it's because the salespeople are mean or starving them - it's because they are fish with a very short shelf life (bad pun but accurate). buying all the fish is just going to break your wallet (even 67 cents each adds up) and leave you with a stores worth of fish to then clean up after, feed, and remove when they die. i say only buy the fish you want to care for not all to prove a point.

Answer 7

A lot of the gold fish you see bunched up in those small tanks are feeder fish.

There are many reasons that they die.

They are to crowded
If one fish has a disease then all 100 have it or are going to get it.
They could have been handled poorly in shipping process.


If it makes you feel any better they would stock 100's of them at one time if they don't get bought!

And I have 2 in a 55 gal tank for the purpose of eating pest snails.

All you can do is call the manger and complain, But its not going to do any good. Like I said before they wouldn't stock so many if they didn't get bought!

Answer 8

I feel the same way! It is the same story at Wal-Mart I bought a 265 gallon tank at Amazon.com and I have a good 250 saved fish in it. But we all must help them! I have urged my family to do the same thing ( we have no Petsmart here but we do have a Wal-Mart here worse! ) but I am glad to see somebody thinks the same way I do.

Answer 9

Besides everything everyone else said:
Petsmart also adds aquarium SALT to almost all it's FRESHwater fish. They say it's to help live bearer's, keep the diseases down. No freshwater fish needs salt. I'd be more worried about that then some feeder goldfish. Not that they're not as important but Petsmart recommends and sells people salt for fish that don't need it thus spreading the salt ignorance and harming fish even more.

Answer 10

I have worked in the pet trade for years. The goldfish you are speaking of are comets. Most are used for feeders. You must understand what these fish go through just to get to the store. The facility that they come from usually ship them in bags that have 50 to 200 fish per bag. They arrive half dead, stressed, etc. Alot of these fish die, regardless of the care they recieve in the store, due to the fact that they were either sick to begin with, or are soo stressed, they have become to weak to fight off an illness. Granted, it is sad to see them die, but without knowing what exactly is going on, you shouldn't blame the store itself. Did you ask what care is given? Do you know if they ARE trying to treat them for a disease? A lot of these fish get sold as food for other fish..does this bother you too?
I love all animals, and I will honestly say, I have seen some very pretty "feeder comets" come into the store and have bought them and given them a life in one of my tanks, as I hated to see them get fed. But that isn't for everyone. I DO know the stores I worked in DID take care of their comets..changing their water more frequently than the water of any other tanks due to the overcrowding and stress, etc. Regardless of recieving the best care possible, many died. All the time. Some batches were just bad..fish coming in with fungus, etc. Your best bet for change would be to look at the wholesale fish SUPPLIERS..the ones who send these fish sick and crammed into bags to die. It is really them that the most fault lies on.

Answer 11

No matter where you are, there is a group called PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) around there somewhere. Give them a call or Google them and tell them what is happening at this store. They will send a representative or call the store and usually this is enough to get the store to take better care of their fish and animals.

Sometimes it takes a demonstration, and PETA will do that too. Keep in touch with them and keep them informed of what is happening. They may even ask you to help them if you are interested.

If you keep buying them to give them good homes, the store will bring more and more in to sell you. Result....overcrowding and more deaths in the tanks.