Do you guys think the aquarium hobby is growing or dying out?

[duanes]

Not only LFSs, but many brick and mortar stores no matter what the items are or business is in the U.S. are floundering, Covid or not.
It's obvious that catering to rare specialty items without the brick and mortar overhead, is the name of the game these days, and bringing in specialty fish to a store that's major sales items are generic community aquarium fish like guppies and neons, can't compete with an operation that sells "only" new world cichlids, " only" rift lake Africans, or Asian odd balls. (and can actually know the difference between an H carpintus and an H deppii, or get me that rare Madagascan).
I stopped buying from LFSs years ago when they didn't, or wouldn't get what I wanted, and when I began to mistrust that the species they had, were what they said they had, and not some mutt hybrid..
And the on-line suppliers fish were just as healthy (or even more so) than a LFS that crammed stuff together, and could be shipped just as efficiently to my door.
I do understand the LFS dilemma, they perceive there might only be 2 customers out of a million people in a city that want what I want.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

Covid was a disaster for store which only sold in store and did not ship and did not have an maintenance business. I have been working with a couple of seller for my plecos as well as selling a few myself. From about the end of spring 2020 to the present I heave sent out or allowed picking up of a lot of fish. I had expected the reverse so I was very surprised.

But neither I nor the sellers with whom I worked have retail locations. Covid has changed the shipping paradigm as well. When we do not shop in stores, we shop online. And that demand increase has impacted shipping as well. But every box I have sent via FedEx during the pandemic arrived the next day and a few went to CA from NY.

Covid also shut down club meetings and weekend events. It all went to Zoom etc. or went away entirely. Zoom draws way fewer participants than a weekend even in Hotel or a similar large venue.

I do not think the hobby is shrinking. I do think it has gotten more expensive lately. My fish club resumed masked meeting with some distancing Sept. I went, was out of town visiting a good friend in Oct. but was there for the Nov. meeting and will attend the Xmas dinner a week from Friday. Each time there have been more folks there and we even had some new potential members show up last month. i think there is a decent amount of pent up demand but fewer chances to see it.

For my part I do not go to social media for fish information. What I watch in that respect on Youtube often has English subtitles. I do not follow any of the so-called fish folks with lots of subscribers. Most of them have not got a clue. IMO, of course.

 

[MultipleTankSyndrome]

I will say that the COVID pandemic is what helped me get me really get going in terms of aquariums.

Back in 2018 is when I got started with the fish in my existing 473 liter - although they were in a 240 liter growout at that point. I had been intending to get them an appropriately sized tank after only a few months of growing them out, but there was always something 'more important' (in the eyes of my cousin) to do at the times (summer) I saw fit to get the tank the fish needed.

This caused getting the tank to be put off in favor of various other things (visiting friends, going on vacations, etc) that at the time were not hindered as they are now by COVID.

But when COVID hit, those things got ground to a halt. And come summer 2021, they were not in the way of me getting an appropriate tank - so I took my chance.

All things considered, I cannot comment on whether the hobby is declining. But I wonder if anyone had similar aquarium experiences to mine that were COVID-related which caused them to take the next step in the hobby.

 

[SharptoothBass]

Well...

A pond shop I go to often for plants is going out of business along with a garden store next to it with lots of ponds and animals. However, platforms such as Youtube and TikTok have got young people into the hobby. I feel forums are growing and growing, which helps people stay in the hobby. On nextdoor (app) I see many people giving away goldfish and various tetras as if they are getting rid of their fish tanks. An LFS near me called Coral Cove is going out of business. Coral Cove is a strictly brackish and salt store, so not a big impact on me. If you pop over on fishforums.net you will notice the thousands of young fish keepers keeping mainly small community tanks. TBH, I don't know and can't answer your question.

Most of the stuff on YouTube and tik tok are jokes. The forums are not growing but have declined and disappeared for the most part. This site was very active when I started I've been gone from here for a year and pretty much missed nothing. I used to see so many interesting things on the forums of the past. Forums like predatory fish keepers who had one of the most knowledgeable fish keepers I've ever known now is gone. Waterwolves is gone, piranha forums gone. The breeding section is dead as far as breeding new and rare stuff. When I got into fish I literally had a choice of about 25 stores to use. Most of the rare and exotic fish I have owned came right from local stores now I probably have 4 and 3 of them have poor quality and high prices. The traffic on this site is more fish chat than fish keeping. With the animal rights people, destruction of habitat, invasive species problems, financial issues and uncertainty covid has caused I doubt the hobby will ever be what it was. Fortunately for me fish was my second hobby and I have gotten back into dogs. My sons used to like fish but prefer reptiles. I hope the hobby can bounce back but I just don't see it happening. Forgot to add I also know of a few fish stores who have been shut down by the humane society they are starting to really get into the fish stuff and they can really hurt the trade with the power and money they have backing them.

 

[PhishMon84]

I think all home based hobbies are on blue streaks

My LFS's that i'm close with have all said that they grew during COVID. Tanks became scarce and hard to source, as did other equipment. Yes, fewer imports occurred but like most homebased hobbies, the QT allowed for ppl to focus on making their homes their castles. gardening and home improvement took off too. As i was already introverted, this was my time... no more making excuses for outings i never wanted to go to in the first place and more time at home with my animals, fish or otherwise. i hope the lesson we take from the past two years, is that the hype of going out all the time is very overblown, exhausting and vapid.

 

[DrownedFishonFire]

Number of LFS went up in my area. It depends on the area as well too? During the pandemic it was a huge hit. People were at home and bored out of their minds. They found this hobby. The FB group I’m part of its thriving very well.

 

[SharptoothBass]

I think all home based hobbies are on blue streaks

My LFS's that i'm close with have all said that they grew during COVID. Tanks became scarce and hard to source, as did other equipment. Yes, fewer imports occurred but like most homebased hobbies, the QT allowed for ppl to focus on making their homes their castles. gardening and home improvement took off too. As i was already introverted, this was my time... no more making excuses for outings i never wanted to go to in the first place and more time at home with my animals, fish or otherwise. i hope the lesson we take from the past two years, is that the hype of going out all the time is very overblown, exhausting and vapid.

Qt allowed people with money to focus on their homes but many more people were struggling. The guy I mentioned was struggling with his store is in one of the wealthiest counties in Maryland and he did not do good in the pandemic. Every place is different but you can look at vendors like aquascape online and see how the stock looks weak compared to the past. People buying goldfish and glowfish who will move on when things open up is not the hobby to me. Last time a looked around I didn't even see a fish worth buying after 30 years of keeping. https://youtube.com/user/amiidae I'm looking for stuff like this not convicts from a different location it's still just a convict. I have one kid in elementary, one in middle school and one in high school and their is almost zero interest in fishkeeping from their peers. When I was young everyone had a fish tank or reptile. Also sites like this itself that used to excite people now scare them away with all the your tank is to small talk. The game has changed and not for the better.

 

[SharptoothBass]

Number of LFS went up in my area. It depends on the area as well too? During the pandemic it was a huge hit. People were at home and bored out of their minds. They found this hobby. The FB group I’m part of its thriving very well.

Yea a bunch of people adopted dogs during the pandemic now that things are opening up lots of those dogs are being returned https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...urned-months-after-their-adoption/5038295001/

 

[cmsbthebest]

Most of the stuff on YouTube and tik tok are jokes. The forums are not growing but have declined and disappeared for the most part. This site was very active when I started I've been gone from here for a year and pretty much missed nothing. I used to see so many interesting things on the forums of the past. Forums like predatory fish keepers who had one of the most knowledgeable fish keepers I've ever known now is gone. Waterwolves is gone, piranha forums gone. The breeding section is dead as far as breeding new and rare stuff. When I got into fish I literally had a choice of about 25 stores to use. Most of the rare and exotic fish I have owned came right from local stores now I probably have 4 and 3 of them have poor quality and high prices. The traffic on this site is more fish chat than fish keeping. With the animal rights people, destruction of habitat, invasive species problems, financial issues and uncertainty covid has caused I doubt the hobby will ever be what it was. Fortunately for me fish was my second hobby and I have gotten back into dogs. My sons used to like fish but prefer reptiles. I hope the hobby can bounce back but I just don't see it happening. Forgot to add I also know of a few fish stores who have been shut down by the humane society they are starting to really get into the fish stuff and they can really hurt the trade with the power and money they have backing them.

Sure forums are dying, but online discussion of aquariums is way more prevalent than its ever been.

Reddit has hundreds of thousands of people, and facebook and instagram have over a million.

 

[cmsbthebest]

I would say overall the hobby is up.

Keeping large tank busters is dying, but people keeping small planted tanks are way up (and for good reason). As others have pointed out, online fish stores are thriving. In my area, we have 2 LFS. One is absolutely terrible and the other while having good stock and knowledgeable staff, is so unbelievably overpriced that I can never again justify buying a single fish from them vs purchasing from trusted online sources.