How to choose a LFS (Local Fish Store): By Quartapound

[revhtree]

How to choose a LFS (Local Fish Store)

image via AquaNerd

There are a number of things to consider when deciding which LFS deserves your hard earned money. Those of us who are lucky enough to live in a large city which supports multiple LFS’s have the luxury of choosing where you want spend your money. This article is directed at those individuals and will assist you in picking a LFS which will provide you the healthiest animals, best service and most accurate information possible, and hopefully for a reasonable price.

The 3 most common types of LFS:

Retail Chain Pet Store

This is a business or franchise which have a common brand and top management. It’s possible that the employees may have little to no experience or knowledge of saltwater aquariums or their complicated requirements. Commonly their livestock selection leaves much to be desired, and could be limited to some of the more basic, common saltwater species, which are guaranteed to move.

​

Privately Owned Pet Store

A business which has saltwater livestock, along with many other species (freshwater fish, reptiles, birds, small animals, cats/dogs). As you can imagine, this is a broad range of species to try and care for, and may not have a large staff. This may inadvertently lead to overlooking certain aspects of saltwater aquariums, either because they are simply too busy, or they don’t have experience with the saltwater hobby outside of selling.

​

Saltwater Hobby Specialty Stores

Usually a privately owned establishment which focuses on saltwater aquariums specifically. Most often they will have the largest variety of fish and coral, depending on the size of the establishment they may not have a lot in stock but they will often be able to order it for you. This is also the place where you’re most likely to receive knowledgeable information, it is not unusual to be interacting with the store owner directly, who is usually someone who has many years of experience and has developed good techniques for proper animal husbandry. They should be able to provide good information about compatibility, or any specific care a certain species man require.​

No matter where you decide to shop it’s in your best interest that the animal you’re about to buy is a healthy specimen, and the tank the specimen came out of was free of any unwanted hitchhikers. Take a minute to REALLY inspect their tanks, and look closely for anything you wouldn’t want to find in your own tank… I’m sure we’ve all heard at least one hitchhiker horror story. It’s also a good idea to ask if you can see the fish eat. It can be a great way to gauge the health of their livestock, as well as the reaction of the employee you just asked. If your request is denied, or you’re given a poor excuse, that could be an indicator to go elsewhere. Another great way to find out which LFS's are good or bad is through other hobbyists. When people have bad experiences, they'll often warn others about this, or just plain vent online. Google can be your friend to find these 'reviews', but these posts should obviously be read with a grain of salt, as you're only reading one side of the story. When it comes down to it, all of these establishments are in business to make money. However if you do a little searching you’ll find that there are those who are willing to go above and beyond, who aren’t just interested in your money and genuinely want to help you succeed in the hobby.

 

[revhtree]

What things do you look for?

 

[mayday610]

When i choose a LFS i'm wanting to know who i'm supporting with my purchases. I want to see my money go towards someone who cares about their reputation and their livestock. If i can't engage a store owner into friendly conversation, i'm not interested in buying there. I also like to see if i can get them to sell me things i know i can't have together. I respect a store owner that will not sell me livestock knowing they won't work in the same tank without asking me questions first to see what i have planned. I've been told no only a few times and afterwards, i would explain to them my intensions and thanked them for their care of the hobby. I think its key to have a somewhat personal relationship with your LFS owner and staff.

 

[WhoKnew]

This is great information. I wished I had payed more attention to this type of problems. I live in an area where there is only two stores and they are both over an hour from me. One would sell me the garbage can that he used to change his water. Lol. And the other just has to many things to deal with, such as dogs, cats, reptiles and birds. It's unfortunate Not to have more reefers in this area.

 

[Sacohen]

For those who line in remote area or areas without a lot of good LFS around their best option is online stores.
I'm lucky enough to live in South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale) and there are tons of places to choose from around here.

Up until about a year ago I never ordered livestock on live. I gave an online store a shot and had a very good experience with them.

I have ordered other animals from them, but I still prefer LFS because I hate to wait for the order to arrive.

Forums like this are a great place to find both local and online stores. There are enough people on here to get a very good idea about the reputation and reliability of an online store.
You can also go into the Local Reef Club section and ask about local stores in your area, there are probably more than you know about.

 

[olaf]

Sorry, it's sort of a rant...
Being a store owner that is actually closing the doors. It is EXTREMELY hard to please people. I have a saltwater ONLY aquarium shop. Very clean and modern with very healthy quarantined all MAC Cert. or CB livestock with competitive pricing to online. I get compliments all the time on how beautiful and clean my store is but still get beat up on price. I found that customers wanted something for nothing. Example: MAC Cert Medium Royal Gramma Basslet $18 was "too expensive"!

I now realize that my area just doesn't support a saltwater aquarium business (or local business, example below) even though I was the only SW Shop in 50 miles. I wish I knew this before I opened 2 years ago, It would have saved me 75+K and many months of work building everything. Business plan (wishful thinking plan) was totally wrong. Potential of 37,000 customers (that is 3% of population in the 50 mile radius) that might be interested in a saltwater aquarium.

I had customers that traveled outside my radius to shop at Petco and come in a few days later to my shop for medication because the fish has ich and now their whole tank is infected (TOO COMMON) or pay more for a fish at another LFS, then they would come in to my store and complain that their fish they got at another LSF is not eating and its health is declining. Another example customer comes in and tells me that they drove 120 miles to buy corals that were 3 times bigger for the same price as mine, later I get an emergency txt message with images, that there are small things on the corals (SPS) and they have all closed up and its effecting all the rest of their corals. Red bugs and flat worms. he ended up losing most of his corals. These examples of cheaper isn't because those individuals didn't take into consideration gas and drive time. I've also had customers tell me how I mark up my livestock, "you just double the wholesale price", so they want a discount = totally f*ing clueless! Most people don't know what expresses are involved in a small business. First off, ALL the equipment for the store setup, rent, utilities, internet, point of sale system, liability insurance, licensing (LLC, etc), marketing and advertising, the list keeps going. Most of the foot traffic is people just wanting to look, like I'm the local public aquarium, (yes, I was a main stop on the baby stroller route), I didn't mind so much because I thought it would be a good word of mouth marketing, didn't work. I asked everyone that entered my store how they knew about the store and the common answer was Facebook (free marketing).

SUPPORT YOUR LFS as long as they have good & clean husbandry, healthy livestock and good honest business practices! I ran my store as if I was the customer. I would take to everyone to find out about their setup, their livestock and husbandry, so that I can have knowledge on what livestock or equipment (if any needed) would be the best fit for their setup. I've denied purchases that would not be good or unnecessary, K.I.S.S.. My first concern is not for the customer, it is for the livestock. Sorry if that offends anyone, but that is how it should be. I want all my livestock to live a great, healthy, long and stress-free life. If someone that I knew would not take good care of the livestock I would tell them the things they were looking at were already purchased (that may or may not have been true). Since I did have customer and clients that purchased livestock and didn't want to take it with them at the moment since they were not going home right away or they wanted me to put it into their tank as a service call.

Even the school I graduated from (7 miles from my store and they had been in my store) decided to order an acrylic aquarium from out of state instead of even calling me to get a quote. I asked them why they didn't call me and they said they drove by on a day I was closed and "to call would have been just to difficult". 'WHAT?' My store number on the window goes right to my cell and I usually answer, unless I'm in a tank then I return the call when I see I missed a call. Instead they called several other places (closest 266 miles away, they ended up ordering from a place 500+ miles away). My other business does aquarium designing, manufacturing, installations, and service. I talked to that person some more and found out they have a small business. NICE, looks like I wont be doing business there, because 'it would be just too difficult'. As for advertising in their sports and events programs, no longer, neither of my businesses are going to spend advertising money to support that school any more, because 'it would be just too difficult'.

The same week, I had a neighboring high school come in and I told them I would help them out with anything they needed and give them a deep ED discount so that their tank would be the BEST.

 

[condiman]

I know exactly where you are comming from. I am in an area similar to yours and I always laugh when they go to the big boxes and find stuff cheeper and then get messages on FB or see posts on FB that there fish or coral has worms or red bugs or whatever and I have to chuckle a bit when they could have come to me and never had any of those issues

 

[RacingTiger03]

No joke, we have an INCREDIBLE LFS, that's been around (and outlived several in the area) for quite some time. Their prices are right in line when you factor in the overnight shipping most online sources require. They're a little high on EQ, so I grab that online usually if they can't compete on price.. I'm all for supporting a business, but I'm not going to spend an extra $100 on a skimmer to do it . I went to petco to look since they were having a big sale this next couple of weeks.. OMG... that is all I have to say, and trust me when I say it's in a negative context. As an example, this store carries flame angels for ~ $75-90 depending on fish size, and snowflake clowns for 60-70 each. Vs. Petco/Online at 45-50 for flames, and 59 for snowflakes. In cases like that, hands down I'm going to the good local guys. They also take the time to answer any questions you have, and will hold anything. Love them . They also have a display tank that they will frag off if you request most of the time, but they have certain times they will be "growing-out" a piece and won't sell off of it just as well! Used EQ.. they have better prices than some I see on here, LOL. In fact, I bought my current halide setup from them as they were transferring it off of a frag tank fairly cheap

Fwiw, half the store is S/W and the other half Fresh/Brakkish. I've never gone in and seen a problem aside from one time I walked in and they had just had one tank crash (noticed it was bare)