Hi All,
I live in Chicago and am looking for LFS suggestions. I know there is a sticky on this but as we all know fish stores come and go. The ones I currently am aware of are - Old Orchard Aquarium, Fish Planet, Living Sea Aquarium - now closed
.
I keep freshwater and mainly oddballs and South American Cichlids for reference.
Any help is appreciated, Thanks!
I live in the Chicago and I've been to almost all the LFS with the exception of one in Hammond Indiana and I heard there's one in the south suburbs in Crestwood.
I should say that I'm only interested in freshwater so I haven't looked at the saltwater section and I've only visited pure saltwater places by accident.
I'd only buy from the following and you mentioned two of them:
Old Town Aquariun (Chicago, on Wells in Old Town). It's a good store with good stock but the prices reflect the rent that you would expect such a location to pay.
Old orchard:
Tanks looked good the two times I've been there. Prices were similar to Old Town.
Fish Planet Deerfield:
I visited this place four times but unfortunately, on the day I was going to buy, I saw a Loach with skinny disease. That stock of Loaches had been there for over a month (I began touring stores before a vacation I had planned so I didn't want to buy anything prior). I still would buy from this place. The Loaches had just been there long enough for that problem to show up. (I don't expect stores to completely deworm clown Loaches. Even Aquarium Coop from YouTube does a med trio on all their fish, but they don't also dose levamisole to get everything).
They have the biggest selection of rainbowfish I've seen so far out of ten stores visited.
His prices are fair compared to other stores and cheaper than the two above.
Ocean Design Aquarium:
Ocean Design Aquarium
7542 W. Addison St.
Chicago, IL. 60634
Far west side of Chicago, near Norridge and Shiller Park and Franklin Park.
I recently discovered this place and have visited twice. The tanks looked good both times. They had good looking red laser and albino milleniums when I visited.
I keep missing the GCCA events. I've been out of town for the Swap meet events. I've been planning on checking it out as it appears there's someone who posted about selling rainbowfish at the event.
Online:
It's a decent option considering how high our prices are for fish. People on the forums complain about liveaquaria's prices but many are equal or better than LFS prices here and you can get free shipping for $99+ orders and have a 14 day guarantee. I tried their Divers Den after I made a bad impulsive buy at a place in Lombard. I wanted Loaches and bought even though I've seen dead fish in other tanks both times I visited and my plan was to only buy Loaches that had been at an LFS tank for awhile (these had been in for less than a week). I like Divers Den as they quarantine the fish and do a bath treatment for external parasites (I still do my own QT and deworming).
Wetspot in Oregon:
http://www.wetspottropicalfish.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=116
Tmif you search forum posts, you'll see a bunch of people raving about this place. Cory from Aquarium Coop has also mentioned this as a good place to order quanlity fish from a place that ships.
If you look at their prices (and Aquarium Coop near Seattle has similar prices on items but Cory doesn't ship fish), you can see how much cheaper the fish are in the Pacific Northwest compared to here For example, wild panda garra are $13, $19 at Ocean Design. I've seen bosemani selling for $50 a pair at Old Orchard and I think it's $20 or $24 at Wetspot.
Yeah, Shipping sucks and there's only a DOA arrival guarantee on next day shipping. I saw an unboxing video where the guy said in the comments that he paid like $52 shipping plus $5 insurance to Michigan so we could expect around the same
If you buy enough fish, the fish end up being the same or cheaper than here. I can easily price out enough fish that cost more here to cover $60 shipping. I'm pretty sure there's no sales tax so that's another 10.25% savings compared to buying from a Chicago city proper store.
Wetspot has a bigger selection than you'll find at any store here (even a place with a large selection like the Petland Aquarium sister store in Hoffman which has a big selection but I've seen too many dead fish there for my liking).
Imperial Tropicals:
I've been considering them for rainbowfish but they are sold out of what I want. I've heard good things about them from doing my forum searches. Shipping is $9.99 for $45+ orders and they do a live guarantee. People reported having no problem getting credit or refunds on DOA.
Me:
I'm at the end of a month long quarantine and deworming regiment so I'm ready to get more fish. I wanted albino millenium rainbowfish from Imperial but they sold out. I've been checking Divers Dens on Liveaquaria but nothing worth $99 has popped up.
I'm seriously considering Wetspot but I'm going to check out Fish Planet and Ocean Design this weekend to see what's available and price things out again. Three panda garra would already be a $24 savings... The new list of fish stock at Wetspot comes out Friday so I'm also waiting for that.
