Decorating the Aquarium

[wildgator25]

My wife and I have decided to go with plastic decorations for her new aquarium. We didn't even want as 1st time aquarium owners to have to get into all the headaches that live plants pose. Now I know those of you with live plants are saying, "There's nothing to it.", but we'd rather stick to the fake stuff to begin with.
Anyways, on to my question. In my quest to find how to begin a new aquarium, I ran across a website that sells fish and supplies, www.liveaquaria.com. Does anyone know if this, or any, website is a reputable site for buying fish and supplies from. They have very good prices for artificial plants, and seems like they would be a very nice place to buy fish. However, I know that shipping is rather pricey, but if you are getting healthy fish from a respectable source, isn't it worth it? If you recognize my username and helped me in my first post(thank you to those who did ) you would know that the guy from the Petsmart gave me some insanely false readings on my water test. Now I know that one bad apple doesn't necessarily spoil the whole bunch, but should I still put my trust in a place that employ's idiots? Or should I trust any of the retail stores for that matter? Please help me if you can, cause we've got our fingers crossed that the fishless cycle is gonna end soon and we can load that 37 gallon down!

 

[125gJoe]

Originally posted by wildgator25
.. .....the guy from the Petsmart gave me some insanely false readings on my water test. .....should I still put my trust in a place that employ's idiots? ....

Try not to discuss aquarium air hoses with the likes of this "employee"....

Much can be learned right here, at your leisure, on Aquaria Central!

 

[Malakhov]

Wow they have good prices indeed especially looking at the bettas. My local pet shops are thieves!

 

[wildgator25]

My thoughts exactly Malakhov. Petsmart's prices are outrageous, but they have a great deal of items to sell. I went to Petsmart to buy a Python 25ft. set, and their price was $40. The same set was $30 at Walmart, and $26 on the internet. I bought the Walmart one, cause shipping would have evened out to be about the same. However, Walmart doesn't have much of a selection to choose from and they sure don't have anyone with a great deal of experience to help either. Thanks for the replies and I hope some more of you on this board can let me know your thoughts on internet buying as well!
Oh yeah, very funny 125gJoe

 

[RobUK]

IMO if you know what your buying and the only place thats available is somewhere where the knowledge of the employees is questionable it isnt that important as you can do your reserch and ask questions on here before hand and then ignore the rubbish they tell you at the FS

 

[holyherbiness]

In addition to liveaquaria and drsfostersmith, www.bigalsonline.com is also a fine place where I buy much of my supplies at half price. (ripoff lfs)

 

[dwayne]

The prices on that website look great, I have never bought anything fish-related online other than my Python though, so I can't comment on the reliability of the site. Have you checked out BigAlsonline.com? They have a wide variety of things on there, and they are very reputable.

As far as your plants go, I too used to have plastic plants in my aquarium (from day 1), and just recently moved 'up' to live plants. If I may make one suggestion - use silk plants instead of plastic. That was my one biggest regret when I set up my tank. When we first set up the tank, we were 'heavily planted' with plastic plants... I had always wished I'd used silk plants. I could never keep a betta in there, because their fins would get a bit shredded, and even my guppies fins would get shredded.

That's my $.02... if you think you may, at any time, have fish with fancy/longer fins, then you may want to look into silk (not to mention, they look just as nice as live plants).

Good luck!!!

~Tara

 

[brookelyn]

bigalsonline.com and thatfishplace.com are super online stores, and I have done business with all of them with any issues.

I would have to second dwayne's suggestion on silk plants over plastic ones. I too also originally started out with the plastic kind, and soon regretted it after seeing how much nicer the silk variety looked, not to mention, plastic plants are a no no with fancy finned fish.

As for Petsmart, and the like being overpriced. They are. I went to purchase a water testing kit, and online (at thatfishplace.com) it was $14, but at my local Petco is was $30! Talking about a rip off.

Anyway, online shopping is great as long as you buy more than a few items, otherwise, the shipping quickly makes it not worth it.

Best of luck with your new aquarium, and on a completely off topic note, I was born in Greenville so it's awesome to see someone else from there on the forums here.