I'm nervous about the Fishkeeping hobby.

[Morledzep]

seriously, what it means to me with the LFS' closing and stuff being more difficult to find locally is that i need to keep spares of everything including all of my canister filters and heaters.

i keep several filter cleanings' worth of foam pads for both the fluval 405's and the FX5's. i keep spare bags of bio-rings and bio-balls and filter floss. extra heaters, some new in boxes, some known good used ones. and i have enough spare FX5 parts that i could probably build a new one.. just in case.

same goes for the food, i keep at least a months supply of pellets, and i have 3 large(ish) chest freezers, one 1.5 for wolf chow, .5 of one for fish food, and 1 for people food. and i buy in bulk whenever possible and take advantage of all of the sales i find.

 

[Freezekougra]

Online shops offer much better deals on pretty much everything - both dry goods and livestock. The only exception would be buying a low amount of cheap fish, and in that case maybe going to a LFS would be better than paying shipping. But even then, prices are cheaper in chain stores rather than the privately owned family stores...

 

[DMD123]

even then, prices are cheaper in chain stores rather than the privately owned family stores...

This has to be one of the biggest reasons I have seen the demise of so many of the smaller shops in my area. They just can not compete with the prices of the chains.

Another thing is Craigslist. Years ago the only time you would find a used tank was at a garage sale or if somebody would post an ad in the newspaper. Needless to say lots of people bought new tanks at high prices from the LFS; it was a specialty item. Now you can find everything used including huge tanks for cheap compared to the LFS.

Yes by us all saving money with the way we purchase, we also change what the market needs are.

 

[MonsterMinis]

While I've seen a hand-ful of LFS go out of business when petco and petsmart moved in.. I've also seen good ones booming. Petsmart and Petco cater to the "beginner" hobbyist generally on it's aquatic aisle and tanks. Rarely do people sit on this forum or others and praise them... It's the well run private places that survive and even boom right now. A mom and pop shop that tries to compete with petco or petsmart prices on "standard" stuff is a poorly run business.

I run to petsmart or petco for they're conditioner or food sales. But the bulk of my money goes to the private shops. Because they carry what petco and petsmart don't and won't. Most petcos or petsmarts don't carry anything over 75 gallons.. and won't even order you one if you wanted to pay for it in advance. Thats the downside of being a big corporate business.. the private places that see this and cater to their customers are the ones who do ecellent even with one of the giants down the street.

 

[Fat Homer]

I know the economy over here is taking its toll on a lot of shops... a lot of places have closed down here due to raise in rent prices...

One shopping mall originally named an "Aquarium Mall" has now shrunk down from a mall filled with close to 20 shops, to now 2 lonely shops, with only one selling fish...

 

[Allan01230]

Hobby go away? Not likely. You know how long the chinese have been keeping goldfish and koi as ornamental pets. If you see cats and dogs go away as pets then worry until then gills galore! LOl