Best Way to Purchase Fish?

[sheajared]

What is the cheapest/best way to buy aquarium fish?

I mainly ask this question for an armatus, which I see on average is about $125 for a 3" hydrolycus armatus. Would I be better off having my LFS special order this in for me, or ordering it directly from a vendor online? Which would be cheaper? Which would you suggest?

Also any + or - personal experience stories would be great.

PLEASE REPLY.
Thanks ahead of time,
Jared

 

[Ancient_Fish_Master]

What is the cheapest/best way to buy aquarium fish?

I mainly ask this question for an armatus, which I see on average is about $125 for a 3" hydrolycus armatus. Would I be better off having my LFS special order this in for me, or ordering it directly from a vendor online? Which would be cheaper? Which would you suggest?

Also any + or - personal experience stories would be great.

PLEASE REPLY.
Thanks ahead of time,
Jared

its usually cheaper to buy from a vendor, but there is shipping costs, which can be a good amount of money. if you do the math and buying one locally, do that. just look around the vendor section and ask for quotes shipped to your place and figure it out from there.

 

[nikond70s]

online vendor, especially small private vendors. cuz most of the time they have the best price. normally LFS cost more. however, if the LFS is only charging a lil more. go with the LFS since you dont gotta deal with shipping and can just go pick it up.

 

[Barracuda37]

Online vendors because they can work out a deal with you also a LFS can also charge extra for a special order or shipping to so i say vendor. There could be a vendor near you that can meet up with you.

 

[Gill Blue]

locally bred. that way the fish don't have to go through the shipping.

If you get from a vendor you may pay less than from the store, but with shipping for the fish I've ordered it comes out about the same fairly often. The LFS does sometimes cost less because they get a deal from the vendor for buying so many fish on a regular basis.
You do want to support your LFS, unless you want to pay 50$ in shipping to get that medicine shipped overnight for a sick fish.

 

[Redskins forever 21]

Check out Aquabid.com. Awesome site, just remember it is like eBay, so it all depends on the seller reliability. I have personally used this site with great success.

 

[bigcatlover]

Great question!!! I haven't ever bought fish online, but am running into problems getting the fish I want. One thing I do though with the local vendors is call around. I know that sounds obvious, but I have found that there are sometimes HUGE price discrepencies from one store to the next. It's definitely worth making some calls and shopping around. Can't wait to try aquabid.com!