what are the fish shops in everyones area & how good are they?? for a city the size of palmy we only have wet pets & animates, abit sad really!! im looking forward to going to auckland in a few months & checking out what they have up there.

yeah they have cool display tanks but nothing really cool to buy, i go in there alot & the fish i read about in here ive never seen at WP.

ive only been keeping tropicals for about 6 months & wonder where people get all these fish from as we dont have them here, i saw the post you have for flying foxes, never seen them & plecos, i didn't know there were so many, i seen about 3 different ones here & thats it.

Hutt Pets on Petoria St Lower Hutt have a good selection of the larger guys (although god damn those new oscars are hideous, Gavin tried to eat me through the glass last weekend haha), and last visit I'm pertty sure there were flying foxes. They've got in a whole bunch of baby gold severums (so cute).

Any fish store at all will order in for ya, so if you see something you like, best to go in and talk to them

I've only been to wet pets once, they had at least 5 types of pleco when I visited, locally I only ever see common plecs or redspot plecs. Hutt pets has some borneo suckers though.

The store in Paraparaumu was great. Its nothing compared to wet pets, displays are 'meh' and dirty but the prices are good and they were the first store I managed to find Gold Severums in (got a male and female too!) so they got my thumbs up haha.

Animates is a good quality store, but you wont find anything in there that you dont find at every other pet store in the country, and the prices often leave a lot to be desired. Very clean, friendly, and they quarantene their fish.

Hutt Pets is a controversial topic. They're not known for quality but the prices are great and they take fish from non-suppliers so you get suprises every once and a while too. I purchase from them on a very regular basis. I'd say its certainly worth a visit, if not to buy fish, at least visit Gavin He's a 22 (?) year old Giant Gourami. They also stock the Jebo 819 for $150ish which is a good buy IMHO.

Only good fings should be said. :-D

I personally beleive that kind of defeats the purpose of being asked though, this isn't an advert for shops. Its a far cry from slander, which would be a big prob I imagine.

what are the fish shops in everyones area & how good are they??

i dont want to cause trouble, just wondering what everyone else has in their towns, but thanks for the info spidersweb, i was going to ask about prices but dont want to cuase grief, ive just found one shop here alot dearer than the other but in some cases a higher standard of fish in it. was hoping to get an idea on any that are worth visiting on the way to aucks.

if you dont mind me asking?

the reason most LFS stock run of the mill fish is because they sell well. not every person is able to fork out 150+ for a fancy pleco or a baby arowana so normally the special ones get ordered in. also some of the larger fish dont get in much because they are so agro and cant share a tank, also if they dont get sold quickly the shop could end up with a very large fish that they dont want. if your after something in particular ask around here, alot of people have contacts or know of the whereabouts of quite a few less common species

welcome aboard too by the way :lol:

i just love going to fish shops & wondered why i can never find fish that are mentioned on here, tm seem to have a good selection but never round palmy & not all people will ship. i have a big community tank & want something colourful in there, i have a wanted post up for some rams, hopefully someone will have some.

alot of the time it can totally depend on individual experiences and when you go as to what fish they have, I guess if you don't see what you want you could ask if they could get them in for you. There are quite a few shops in Chch, we are quite lucky, some better than others, and one I will never set foot in again due to poor service.

Yeah I had some suspect service in a CHCH shop. Not rude, and they were busy (Saturday afternoon) but I think they could have done better

i live in nelson and its so hard to get good products and fish.

there is two shops one is small and only have a few tanks but have quite good fish in sometimes but theyre really expencive and they have really poor water conditions

the other shop is ok but they dont have much products like seachem ect that im afta. there prices are ok tho. and they only stock the standard fish eg tetras and livebearers.

i do most of my shoping off the trademe and i got just about all my africans from the net to as i have never seen one in nelson for sale

there was a really good place that has been shut for a few months now as it was run out of his gargae and hes looking for a new bigger place for his shop. he quite often had a good fish selection(cichilds too) and product range.

i would love to go up north and go shopping in some of the shops i hear about (would need a large buget tho :lol: )

Rather than go up north you would be better to head to ChCh.

Although, if it is Africans, they seem to have more of a selection in the North Is.

I used to use redwood aquatics but tend to use organisms now, anyone else used these places?

Yes 8)

Me too I goto Both.. but mostly organisms as its nearer.. Redwood Ag is a bit too drive for me but still go there

I'm only one km away from Organism - bit of a deadly combination really.

I'd agree that between Organism and Redwood Aquatics they have it fairly well covered here - and both have good water conditions, good fish stock etc. (and great service)

with Redwood Aquatics & tankgirl3 on tm & both are great, i got a price list from Redwood Aquatics on their fish & they are very good compared to what we pay up here for fish. still looking forward to going to aucks to have a look later in the year!

lol, the top of my message was chopped off!!! its meant to read that ive traded with Redwood Aquatics & tankgril3!!!

Magenta that would be like me saying I was 1km away from the chocolate factory - difficult to avoid. Hang on a minute, I do live within 1km of a chocolate factory!!