Lfs'

problem is---the petsmart and petcos of the world sell (usually) lesser quality fish, and thus they're cheaper...but more so: they sell things in considerably greater amounts so they can drop the prices. lfs just can't compete...if they drop their prices to compete with 'petuniverse/wal-store,' they risk losing any chance at profit. you can't maintain your business on quality livestock alone a lot of the time, unfortunately. i mean...raise your hand if you buy all your hardware at your lfs? i certainly don't...i can buy it at petsmart for 3/4 the price...or online for 1/2 the price. i would love to support the mom and pop stores of the world, but...i'm poor, too.

i find the small stores that survive are staying in business thanks to service contracts for doctors, dentists, professional type offices. its darn hard to pay rent, insurance, utilities, wages, taxes, suppliers, etc etc when you compete with walmart with the novices and big als with the experienced fish keepers. the only fish seller in my mom's town was a toystore with a little fish room in the back and they just went out of business also.

my town [50,000 people?] supports 3 lfs. one has service contracts and is also a dive shop. one is a lfs/pet store. and the third specializes in mail order africans cichlids. without their other business ventures none would survive solely as a fish store.
i feel very fortunate to have this much choice.

actually i find my lfs have better quality and alot cheaper fish than big chain stores(walmart,petsmart,petco), the hardware is about the same price between the big stores and my lfs

i always see at least a few dozen people at my lfs, so i know they are doin good business and is no bigger than a normal 1 story house.

Move to asia! Everything is local run, and the quality is outstanding (once you find the right spots, of course). A little more inconvenient than driving to walmart though. I actaully never knew that people bought from large chains like that until I joined this forum. I have yet to go to one. Are the people who work there knowledgable at least?

we have tons of LFS and only a few chain stores. most of the LFS, well the bigger ones they all have their specialties. and alot of them has been around since i was a kid; though some are gone now. i guess it depends on where you live, its probably because im in a big city.

I have two LFS's in my area and I don't know about the other fish but they sell neons cheaper than the petsmart upstate. My LFS's seem to be doing pretty well, but I think it might be due to the fact that wally-world doesn't carry fish and there are no petsmarts or petcos within a 15min drive. I know at least one tries to keep healthy fish (they do large water changes once a week, etc) but they have problems getting healthy fish from their wholesaler.

The lfs I go too just moved into a bigger shore about six months ago. It's better located, and they have really good filter systems on the tanks and a nice selection (150 tanks). They've grown in the last year, they have great quality fish and a nice selection of products and hardware. While, yes, I admit, it usually about $.50-1.00 more then petsmart/petco/wal-mart, it's much better quality and I want to keep supporting them.


Adam's Aquatics if anyone lives in Des Moines Iowa.