North West ohio LFS rundown.

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Hey koop, congratulations on the baby boy. We just got to bring our son home on wed., future MFK'er LOL... I think during x-mas layoff, we should try to make a road trip happen. If you meet me up here, I can take you to atleast three of the already mentioned stores that I don't think youve been to. Rms, AA in cleveland, and tropical aquarium. All of which have great stuff at certain times. There's also some others that are real nice, two turtles, wet pet's, and fish city. All of which are great for self owned stores. If there is still time we could try to find some of the others you listed in this area, a couple of which I think I might have stopped at once or twice, but would need assistance finding again. Alot of the best monsters we would see for the day though are here in the house, LOL... I'll get ahold of you soon.
 
doubledragon;2556248; said:
Hey koop, congratulations on the baby boy. We just got to bring our son home on wed., future MFK'er LOL... I think during x-mas layoff, we should try to make a road trip happen. If you meet me up here, I can take you to atleast three of the already mentioned stores that I don't think youve been to. Rms, AA in cleveland, and tropical aquarium. All of which have great stuff at certain times. There's also some others that are real nice, two turtles, wet pet's, and fish city. All of which are great for self owned stores. If there is still time we could try to find some of the others you listed in this area, a couple of which I think I might have stopped at once or twice, but would need assistance finding again. Alot of the best monsters we would see for the day though are here in the house, LOL... I'll get ahold of you soon.


Pm'ed you already sounds good. I hope to make it that way maybe even today if this guy comes through on wanting one of my fish.
 
2004exrider;2477873; said:
Very good post! It'd be cool if everyone in Ohio wrote a review on the stores in their area. If you dont mind ill add a couple ive went too.

North East Ohio

Pet Supply Plus: Located in Lorain. For a chain store i was very surprised! Every tank was clean, no dead fish/uneaten food and poop in substrate, fish were labled correctly with descriptive tags, and a very knowledgable crew working in the fish department. They have plenty of supplies like decoraton, food, chemicals, etc for descent prices. It was actually refreshing to see a chain store that cares enough to learn about what they sell.


Jimmy


I feel I should say thanks for this comment. I am head of the Animal Dept. at that exact store, and I try my best to make it better then the rest of the chain stores. I can order pretty much anything you guys want (except dats, and a few other exotics)

Anyhow seems you like guys have pretty much narrowed down all the stores in northern ohio I was going to mention. Great thread!
 
koop171;2495809; said:
P.S. I like the bellfountaine store but the only thing that gets me is they have that huge open top tank with tiny @$$ koi in it. and only like 12 a that. why not some monsters.
Haha. I haven't checked this thread in a while....
I know what you mean about the big tank. At the beginning of pond season, it was stocked with a bunch of koi and bigger goldfish. Right now, it's down to a handful. Now that the season is over, it would be sweet if we could put some bigger fish in it. Right now there is a gar that someone brought back that is miserable in one of the 75 gallons and would do so much better in the "pond". Before I worked there, it used to be full-size oscars, some pacu, and a big arowana and stuff like that. If I had more of a say, that's what would still be in there.

Also, speaking of gar the Belle. store has a couple ~10" Floridas right now. If they were a little smaller, I'd probably think about getting another to grow out and pass on to one of the displays at the hatchery where I worked (since my last one had to jump in the middle of the night)

Also, today I went into the Petland on Sawmill in Columbus today (after stopping by AA) and left in a very bad mood. I felt so sorry for everything living there. All the tanks were SO dirty (about on or below Walmart par) -not to mention the terrible selection-and the reptiles weren't in much better shape (they had tons of beardies in these tropical rainforest setups with a tag on the front clearly marked "low humidity" for their habitat). The prices on some stuff was also outrageous. You'd think being just down the road from AA, they'd put some effort into their aquarium section and have similar prices (they are owned by the same company). While AA had these gorgeous, decent-sized pearl gouramis for about $5, Petland had tiny sickly ones for $9 and a lot of other animals and supplies showed similar high prices. I truely do not know how those people can work at that store and not be embarassed showing customers around....
 
andyjs;2586550; said:
Haha. I haven't checked this thread in a while....
I know what you mean about the big tank. At the beginning of pond season, it was stocked with a bunch of koi and bigger goldfish. Right now, it's down to a handful. Now that the season is over, it would be sweet if we could put some bigger fish in it. Right now there is a gar that someone brought back that is miserable in one of the 75 gallons and would do so much better in the "pond". Before I worked there, it used to be full-size oscars, some pacu, and a big arowana and stuff like that. If I had more of a say, that's what would still be in there.

Also, speaking of gar the Belle. store has a couple ~10" Floridas right now. If they were a little smaller, I'd probably think about getting another to grow out and pass on to one of the displays at the hatchery where I worked (since my last one had to jump in the middle of the night)

Also, today I went into the Petland on Sawmill in Columbus today (after stopping by AA) and left in a very bad mood. I felt so sorry for everything living there. All the tanks were SO dirty (about on or below Walmart par) -not to mention the terrible selection-and the reptiles weren't in much better shape (they had tons of beardies in these tropical rainforest setups with a tag on the front clearly marked "low humidity" for their habitat). The prices on some stuff was also outrageous. You'd think being just down the road from AA, they'd put some effort into their aquarium section and have similar prices (they are owned by the same company). While AA had these gorgeous, decent-sized pearl gouramis for about $5, Petland had tiny sickly ones for $9 and a lot of other animals and supplies showed similar high prices. I truely do not know how those people can work at that store and not be embarassed showing customers around....

although AA and petland are under the same company. many petlands are privately run instead of controlled corporately. thats why the stores show a lot of variation, because if a petland holds its own in sales it doesn't get much, if any attention by corporate. so some departments of a store suffer because they aren't considered "money makers" (i work at a corporately run petland, and they don't allow this to happen or everyone is in trouble)
 
Aquarium Adventure in Brooklyn is closing its doors tomorrow at 7. Everything is 50 percent off. I was waiting for the day it would close... I could have ran the place 100 times better myself. They just lacked the effort and their prices were sky high. I doubt that the Columbus store is closing. I've been there once and besides the prices, the store is amazing. I picked up a few things for dirty cheap, but most everything is gone. A lot of pond supplies for cheap too. That seems to be the only stuff left.

This is a really cool thread. I did, or just planned on starting one a while back. I enjoy surveying the area stores. I mostly shop at Something Fishy and RMS. Dave at SoemthingFishy is awesome and every cichlid freak needs to shop there. Its the only place to buy reasonably priced NLS. His fish are always top notch. It's mostly Africans but you can also find higher quality Americans. I shop at RMS for my dithers and non-cichlids mostly, along with supplies. They have a nice selection for pretty much everything. I do support the locals, but online pricing can't be beat, but they do try. Their $.1 fish sale is good, bogo is good, monthly tank sales keep me coming back, and their last month 20% sale was excellent. They involve themselves with local fish clubs, which is nice. I tend to go there every week to see what they have. I would agree, no polypterus. Right now they have a huge Buttikoferi :) They tend to get get quality big fish from locals who can't tank them.

My final comment: I walked into RMS yesterday and a 10gal tank was $17.00! Wow.

Jom
 
snyder810;2588310; said:
although AA and petland are under the same company. many petlands are privately run instead of controlled corporately. thats why the stores show a lot of variation, because if a petland holds its own in sales it doesn't get much, if any attention by corporate. so some departments of a store suffer because they aren't considered "money makers" (i work at a corporately run petland, and they don't allow this to happen or everyone is in trouble)
Then I would definitely assume the Sawmill Petland is privately run. I'm sure corporate Petland wouldn't let that happen to a corporate store (I'm surprised they allow that place to carry the Petland name)
 
I did get a chance to get to the KCs Aquaworld. It's a good store. They have alot of nice stuff but the really col stuff isn't for sale. I.E. Nice sized dat (not sure what type) a 8" ocells (sp) Pbass, Polleni (sp), SAL, and misc. africans. and a HUGE Giant Gorami. But they did have a nice Tig. for sale but the guy wanted $600 and tried to tell me it was a deal. It's $250 fish tops. Great condition but not $600 worth of fish.
They did also have a common wolf that was about 10" and a jag/dovi cross.

Also in the dry goods they do have sinking hikari. At $10 a bag for the 13oz. bags. It's the only store I have seen that carries the sinking in stock. So I had to buy two bags.


All and all it's worth a stop if you're in the area.
 
glad you finally made it there, i really like that store. and yea it's too bad that his best fish are only display. the owner is a good guy too, knows his stuff. and just to inform he is also usually pretty generous with trade ins. from my experience he is a store owner who really likes to trade to get larger fish in the store.
 
I have found a few up in the sandusky area throu yellowbook.com but Have yet to get the time to head up there. Now that we only have one vehicle in the house I can't just take off. so My LFS journey has been put on a hold untill I get a new ride. So it's up to you guys to fil us in on any new places to visit.
 
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