So I did a health check on another Walmart today... I guess it was alright. They did have 13 dead fish and some really bad ich problems, but it didn't look as bad as I've seen others.

ANYWHO, so I go look at the bettas. The boys look alright, but my god... they had 2 girls... my guess is they're between 6-8 weeks old. The smaller one is the size of the first segment of my index finger. The bigger one is maybe an eighth of an inch bigger... making them just over an inch long.

You guessed it... I brought them both home. I decided getting them a breeder net and putting it in my 20-gallon would be the best bet. They're about HALF the size of my biggest ones, so I'm not chancing it quite yet. Here they are!!

The girls in the breeder


Sharky in front of them for a size comparison


And the girls!! Yes, the one girl is REALLY green like that


Seriuosly, these fish should still be in the fry tank, not on the shelves being sold. AND they had fruit tetras... UGH. Dye-injected white-skirt tetras... the poor things.

Wow I guess I'm the lucky one out of WM stories. I have two walmarts less than 5 miles away from each other. Anyways, the one nearest to my house has lots of bettas and none of them are dead like Petcos. Yesterday I went there and I saw MELANO, as in BLACK, female, just sitting there and beggin for me to buy her. I'd love to see the side of the green female, she looks really nice.

It's just your Petco. I work at Petco... and believe me, they get water changes 3 times a week and are fed all the time. Most of the time, it's the way they ship them that kills them... it's so sad.

Make some phone calls.
It works!

OH, and btw- they're adorable :)

Awww, they're so petite and cute :wub:
It's actually perfectly fine to sell them at that size though, and many breeders sell their stock young on purpose so the buyer knows they're getting a young, healthy fish and not some old geezer betta :lol: . If I had to guess I'd say they're around 3 months, maybe a little younger? My juvies are about that size and several have already been shipped off to their permanent homes :)

Well, compared to the betta growth chart, they're MAYBE, at the most, 8 weeks. Yeev's girls were bigger than these guys. Honestly, I doubt they could eat anything Walmart was feeding them. They're really skinny. Adorably cute, though.

I'm definitely going to make a call to the corporate Walmart about the dyed fish, though... it's just cruel to do that.

What WM was it?
I will call and bitch too, if ya want.

Wow, poor little babies.

i see babies at mine too..they are all either dead sick or they are kinda werid and deformed.if i get a female id get one from petco since they have some that dont look deformed for once at mine.ive seen a female dead white pure white female dead at walamart it looked like it was 6 weeks old and looked someone drew in its eyes w/ a pen!

I wish my Walmart got young fish... a lot of the females that show up at mine are obviously at the midlife crisis stage :P

HAH! Our Petco doesn't ever get females in... and when we do, it's about 4 of them. Yeah, they really do look really skinny. In fact, they couldn't even eat my TINY Tetra granules... so I had to go get the Hikari Micro pellets for them. There is WAY too much inbreeding going on with their breeders that they're getting deformed.

I may have to call them next week...