The Fish Store

I must say that I do enjoy the hell out of the cichlid world and the staore does have some cool and rare ones. The problem with these guy are that they are assholes about almost eveything. I had bought a few fish from them and once I had them home and in the established tanks, the lil bastards developed ick. Now I had a problem once before with ick. That was my bad when I stressed the first aquarium with high nitrate levels and over stocking. A lesson hard learned and well remembered. I did fix that mess with meds and splitting the colonies into a total of four large tanks. But the thing that pissed me off was that when I purchased the Peacock cichlid and the sweet Julidochromis from them and watched the two go down fast with ick, I freaked and went into the medicine cabinet to treat two tanks I remembered how much time and effort was before me. The cost of these meds are not cheap either and it will stress everything in the tank to probably develop some kind of secondary infection. Iworked hard for weeks months ridding this pest.
The real kicker hear is that when I went in to tell the schmuck that I lost the Juli and the Peacock was later consumed by the others after passing on, he looked at me and said "Oh yeah, we have ick sometimes but treat the systems with meds, and it is easy to rid". I looked at him asking if the others were infect as well and as the guy shows the tank that held the Peacock that i bought, I could see the ick was all over the whole system..
Anyway, long story short, I think the pretencious assholes are not very helpful at all. I would not recommend this store to anyone..
CODE 21:24:20 4/05/2008
 

At first, I thought this was a good store despite the condescending manner in which many of the staff treat you. Seemed to be great quality fish and good if you knew the right questions to ask.

Wrong. First mistake, when asking what chemicals I needed to monitor in my tank, they told me ammonia and pH and that everything else would be fine.

Later, as my tank is progressing, set up a good five months, I buy two fish there. Bring them home, they die within four hours. I bring in the fish, the receipt and a water sample. The won't replace the $30 fish because the nitrates are too high, when I was never informed (having asked what i needed to know) this could be a problem.

I go on to find out that in fact, in any well established tank of my size, 30G, the ammonia and pH will NEVER fluctuate and that nitrate levels are the ONLY thing you need to worry about.

Not only did they sell me two completely useless chemical testing kits for their own profit, they did not inform me of the one I actually did need when asking for help.

Now, this may not seem like the worst thing, right? Lesson learned in fishkeeping and all that.

Bring it up to present day... Last week I bought 6 cardinal tetras from them... which apparently had a parasitic infection of the gills.... surprise, surprise not healthy fish.

This infection spread through most of my tank like wildfire before I could diagnose the problem, losing as many as 5 fish within 3 hours. Net loss: 5 penguin tetras, 2 black neon tetras, 3 cardinal tetras, and my 5 month old angel fish and the jewel of my tank.

Best part about this story..... they refuse to do anything to make reparations for the fact that their diseased fish have killed off the better part of my community tank.

Overall, the staff are pretentious and rude, the fish are diseased and the customer service sucks.
Very Disgruntled 23:57:51 12/11/2007
 

great store good stock for sw and fresh!
very good sale prices...ex $180 protie skimmer on sale for $110
justin bales 22:07:47 9/01/2005
 

This is a high end store for those who know what they want and what they are doing. they don't sell all the useless crap. the fresh wwater fish need a litttle attentionlast time i went in i saw a large amount of ick. there seemed to have been a hike in prices for some fish that needed attention.
james 22:30:51 2/21/2005
 

I love The Fish Store! They sell high quality fish in great condition. The prices for equipment is much lower than at other local stores, and their staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and always go out of their way to save me money. I have a 125 gal freshwater tank, and never shop anywhere else.
Sara Waters 15:59:58 2/13/2005
 

Best place in town for live plants, great selection. Some of their staff are amazingly arrogant! I stick with Trenton he's knowledgeable and funny, I don't even talk to any of the others any longer.
The fish are in very so so condition right now 08-04, they used to be great, hope they get better.
sara aruguete 20:15:16 8/11/2004
 

It was heartbreaking. First, they carry dyed fish. (red-bronze corydoras--not natural and will not stay that color). Secondly, they had over 2 dozen pufferfish in one small tank, half were dead or near dead and almost all of them were maimed. Almost all the tanks had at least one dead fish in them. It was crowded and the service people were seemingly trying to avoid the customers. The saltwater tanks looked great and nothing was dead...I was just shocked that the store which had probably 75% freshwater tanks was allowing them to be such an afterthought.
Sue 23:24:55 8/06/2004
 

This is a great place if you know what you want. The staff is not very outgoing and helpful, they will answer questions if you want but they will not come up and bug you about stuff while you are browsing. They have tons of saltwater fish, so if you are into saltwater aquaria, it is a great place. Also, their equipment inventory is extensive. Not a great place to start your first aquarium, but if you know what you're doing, it's a good resource.
Kat Reinhart 19:50:50 8/06/2004