Where do you buy your fish?

[Davy Jones]

Interested to see where most people buy their fish from and what they prefer.

Divers den?
Local fish store?
Live aquaria?
Blue zoo Aquatics?
Other?

I have had good luck from divers den the couple of times i purchased from them. I have not ordered from live aquaria or other vendors for fish yet and was hoping to find some more places to keep an eye open!

 

[RichtheReefer21]

I do LFS, but have heard lots of positives regarding DD, Live aquaria, and Blue Zoo.

Many should chime in on this one.

 

[SingingSiren]

Petco or other local fish store, but there isn’t very many and they are at least an hour away. We have a local internet classified ad, kind of like Craigslist, most people use to buy and sell stuff including all kinds of fresh and saltwater stuff.

 

[cracker]

Iv'e not ordered any livestock . I really like to check out a fish or coral before I buy.
I understand an LFS isn't an option for a lot of Folks. I'm fortunate to have several in my town .

 

[Davy Jones]

My local petco is awesome (yes i get the irony, but they are a large sponsor of our local club and always bring awesome fish, coral and equipment to the frag swaps as give away items!) But they are currently re-doing their saltwater fish tanks (coral and anemone tanks are still up) so I cant order through them right now. My favorite LFS closed down last year due to a dispute among the owners.

 

[theKoolAidMan]

I will probably give an online place like Divers Den/Liveaquaria a try this build, but there are probably only 1 or 2 stores in my area that I trust. There are probably 6 or 7 shops in WNY that sell saltwater fish (not including Petco), but out of them only 1 or two keep their tanks in a condition that I would be comfortable buying from. While this limits my choices it also helps ensure that I am getting fish that I can be reasonably sure are healthy.

 

[Skep18]

LA so far. Good experience mostly.

 

[MTBake]

LFS usually. The Petco by me has a decent saltwater section. I do prefer the small mom and pop stores though.

I picked clown fish up directly from the breeder. Got to pick out the two that I wanted from a couple hundred fish. Sure was a cool experience!

 

[408Dartfish]

I’ve ordered around 15+ Fish from LA and have a 100% success rate. Most hardy Fish like cardinals, chromis, blenny, flasher wrasse. I live in Oregon shipping from California doesn’t seem to bad. Have had luck with ORA out of Florida also 3 for 3 2 clownfish and a orchid dotty. Dustin

 

[declanisadog]

I have had some truly terrible experiences with local stores over the years, so I try to stick with online vendors nowadays (incidentally I bought a foxface and mystery wrasse from the one i still trust earlier today).

LiveAquaria-I'll buy any fish that don't have a lot of variance from specimen to specimen from them (anthias, some tangs, Cardinalfish, Etc). Customer service is second to none.

Divers Den-Same as LA as far as customer service, but the WYSIWYG aspect is preferable for a lot of species.

Blue Zoo- Haven't ordered from them yet, but they seem to get a fair amount of rarer stuff, and their prices seem good.

 

[Davy Jones]

Nice to see everyone's experiences on this! Interesting to see that the LFS is the clear leader at this point in time. I totally would have lost that bet lol

 

[Geebs19]

Im just getting back into the hobby, but about 5 years ago I always purchased from LA, and shipping to the midwest was never an issue. The local petco's around here make me sad when I walk in, the fish are always dull in color, usually thick black algea, and almost guaranteed 1-2 fish are going to be dead.

 

[cracker]

I’ve ordered around 15+ Fish from LA and have a 100% success rate. Most hardy Fish like cardinals, chromis, blenny, flasher wrasse. I live in Oregon shipping from California doesn’t seem to bad. Have had luck with ORA out of Florida also 3 for 3 2 clownfish and a orchid dotty. Dustin

Thanks ! I'm in Florida & didn't know about ORA