I live in a small rural community where WM is the biggest thing going. Except for keeping a few bettas, my real introduction to fishkeeping was when my husband came across the mother of all yard sales and bought this 55 gallon tank with fish. The tank was crammed with four grown oscars, two 15" pacu and two large plecos.
Because there's not much going on around here, I am positive that our fish came out of this WalMart tank.
Why shouldn't people purchase these cute pacus who "grow to 10 inches"?
My husband bought the tank, because he was impressed with the big pacu. We had to get online to figure out which were the pacu and which were the oscars.
Once I learned about fishkeeping, and specifically, keeping pacu, I did my share of WM bashing. (There's a asian restaurant here that had a 29 gallon tank with about 5 pacu and 7 oscars). I finally realized that I should be more proactive, and I went and talked with the WM manager, who said that at our local store, they controlled what fish were ordered. I told him how big pacu could get, showed him pictures of our pacu in their 300 gallon tank, and gave him this picture
I am happy to report that my local WM stopped selling pacu.
Sometimes we can make a difference.
As an aside, when my husband made his $85 purchase 4 1/2 years ago, he had no idea it was going to turn into this:
Start of the new fishroom....we are trying to be responsible fishkeepers. If WM had not sold pacus, we'd be $$$$$$$ ahead now! I don't know if I should thank WM or bash them for what we currently have to do.