Comments:
Aquarium gravel vacuums, self contained unit that creates it's own
vacuum. No more running hoses, carrying buckets, our removing your fish.
Thousands available.
Store name:
Aquarium Stock Company
Address:
Beverly Blvd. at Crescent Heights
Los Angeles, CA
Telephone:
213-653-8930
Comments:
An established store with a decent selection of fresh and salt water fish and plants. Also have a variety of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and rodents. Fish and herps seem to be their mainstay. Staff are more knowledgeable and helpful than you find in most stores. Prices are average. Parking could be better, but it sure beats Petco.
Store name:
Peninsula Tropicals, Inc.
Address:
971 Laurel Street
San Carlos, Ca 94070
Telephone:
650-591-6801
Comments:
Small store but very knowledable staff and freindly service. Good selection of freshwater & saltwater fish and plants. Not big enough to carry alot of supplies or tanks. Prices very competitive with other local fish stores.
Comments:
I am very impressed with Aquatic warehouse, their prices are very competitive with the stuff thats in Pet warehouse or That Fish Place catalogues, and they have a nice selection of fish too. The people that work there are great. They even have some locally bred Clownfish for sale and they clearly mark this on the tank. They also have a website and do some catalogue work-I dont know how good they are at that. If you are in the San Diego area, it's probably one of the best stores here----not that there's a lot of competition----all we seem to have are Pet-cos.
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They do mail order dry goods and do livestock out of their store, it's not
pretty, but have good prices and healthy fish.
Store name:
SAMMYS PET WORLD
Address:
16th st & Bryant San Francisco
Telephone:
(415) 863-1840
Comments:
Good prices, but lousey fish selection and really understaffed.
Store name:
Nippon Fish
Address:
3109 Geary Ave
San Francisco, CA
Telephone:
(415) 668-2203
Comments:
Good fish selection, but with some really high prices and some of the staff are downright rude.
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Well: I just got back from a short visit to Nippon Goldfish in San Francisco (sorry for taking up the bandwidth of people elsewhere...). I'm afraid I have to give this formerly good store a negative review.
The selection of saltwater fish was awful, Nippon used to carry a good selection but now their SW fish selection is pretty generic and it seems they've reduced the number of SW tanks. The selection of inverts is terrible and the health of the specimens was awful. I didn't see any corals that weren't showing some tissue recession and most of the specimens had multiple dead areas. They only have 2 tanks with any SPS in them and all of the SPS was advertised as "purple"; I would describe it as "brown and dying" with no new growth tips evident. Obviously they're saving pennies by not replacing the MH bulbs over these
tanks. The clams were in no better shape, every single t. crocea and maxima was gaping, the derasas looked good though which again is an indication that they need to change the bulbs on a tighter schedule. The general condition of the tanks was C-/D+, a 180 turn around from a year ago, now there are aptasias bigger than the corals they're trying to sell.
The prices are awful, of course the prices have always been awful but paying $39 for a fist sized bubble coral is different than paying the same amount for a dying thumb-sized specimen.
Nippon also used to have a good selection of dry goods, not so today. They used to carry a variety of lighting options, today it looked like no one had gone through that area in weeks. They used to carry RO/DI units in abundance, today I counted 1 spectrapure on a shelf 15' off the floor...so on and so forth.
Also, in 35 minutes of poking around no one asked if I needed any
assistance...this is typical for Nippon but it used to be understandable: they were busy, today they were just indifferent.
I'll probably check back in a month or so but it is sad to see a formerly B+/A- store turn in such a negative direction.-Ted
Comments:
Mostly tropical. Some quality fancy goldfish. Staff is friendly and very helpful.
Store name:
Strictly Fish
Address:
12227 Harbor Blvd.
Garden Grove
Telephone:
714-750-7151
Comments:
Pretty good selection, But they will sell you anything. If you have a problem they are helpful to an extent, but have sold me some stuff in the past that doesn't really work.
Store name:
Ocean Aquarium
Address:
120 Cedar
San Francisco, CA
Telephone:
(415) 771-3206
Comments:
I have a pet shop for you. The shops name is Ocean Aquarium. Owned by
Justin Hau, it is a small family run business. It's been in operation
for quite a while (at least 10 years) and has quite a good reputation in
the bay area. The shop is not fancy and parts look junky but the prices
and selection is really good. Justin specializes in hard to find fishes
that are not usually carried in the run of the mill LFS. Good examples
are Discus that are bred in the shop as well as imports, wild P. Altums
as well as many other hard to find wild fishes, and killies. Justin
will take in your sick discus, treat them, and return them back to you
in good health. He is a member of the San Francisco Aquarium Society.
Also bread and butter fishes like tetras, cichlids (including shell
dwellers), and livebearers (common and not so common) are available.
Deals can be made and he likes to buy locally bred stock! If a problem
is encountered with hardware, if he can't fix it, he will replace it. A
large selection of plants are available, and if he doesn't have
something in stock he will be glad to get it for you. Not your run of
the mill LFS.
Store name:
Octopuss's Garden
Address:
7975 Raytheon Rd
San Diego, CA.
Telephone:
(619)576-7449
Comments:
Smaller store, but good livestock and decent prices. Owner will talk your
ear off, but he's nice.
Comments:
This is owned and operated by a very knowlegable man (Brian) who keeps his fish tanks in very good condition. It's well stocked and friendly.
Store name:
Goldfish World
Address:
3860 Convoy St. # 113114
San Diego, CA
Telephone:
619-541-7878
Comments:
Decent Aquatic plant selection.
Some very nice Discus for sale.
Store name:
Pacific Reef
Address:
2877 W Lincoln Ave
Anaheim, CA 92801
Telephone:
(714) 821-8000
Comments:
Large selection of fresh and saltwater fish (too numerous to list). Carry high quality fresh and salt water plants and corals. It is family owned and operated and they are very knowledgeable on just about any subject you ask. They were very helpful to us when we were first setting up our aquarium.
Store name:
Atlantic Tropical
Address:
18343 pioneer Blvd.
Artesia, Ca
90701
Telephone:
562-924-7567
Comments:
This is a very small family owned shop. The owner,Jerry, is a very
nice guy who will help inform you about the fishes youy chose. He seem to stock
fish that he can sell for a good price. Like right now he's been selling
Jardines for 20 dollars and he can get fish that you usually can't find anywhere
Store name:
Ace Hardware- Garden And Pet
(Davis Lumber & Hardware)
Address:
815 3rd St
Davis, California, 95616
Telephone:
1-530-758-8000
Comments:
The fish are ALWAYS healthy, and there is a guy there, Doug, who is
there Tues-Sat. He knows EVERYTHING about fish. He will do all he can for you to
get a specific fish, I believe that he might even order a fish for you, and not
charge you for the order, but I'm not sure about that. He knows if two fish
might be a pair or not, if the fish is sick, or anything. He will also test your
water for you, so your fish aren't stressed out. He carries the common fish,
like danios, bettas (female and male), platy's, molly's, etc. He also has exotic
ones. He has gouramis, including a very large giant gourami, spiketail paradise
fish, roundtail bettas, badis badis, oscars, and catfish. He also carries algae
shrimp, and ghost shrimp. He also has a variety of salt water fish, although I
don't know what kind.
Store name:
Pet Club
Address:
2256 Westborough Blvd.
South San Fransisco, CA 94080
Telephone:
(650)583-2186
Comments:
Good variety of fish, fish are healthy compared to some other stores
in the area.Good pricesand helpful service.
My Rating:8 out of 10
