New To The Site

[sad_rocc]

Hola, I've decided to join here to get some advice on what direction to take my tanks in. Fish shops are always pushy and seem like they want to sell you what they would like to have as a setup, not what you want. At least that's my experience.

But anyways, I currently have 1 55gal tank, 1 29gal tank and 1 20gal long (I think) tank. All are empty for the time being. At one time or another, I have had african cichlid tanks, oscar/jack dempsey tanks and my favorite, a red-bellied pirahna tank. Now those were some damn cool fish! Now, I'm not really sure what direction I want to go in and now that I've discovered Ebay for fish, I can finally get something!

Well, I don't want to get into a ton of boring detail, just a little intro. You'll probably see a lot of my name throughout the forums and I hope I can be of some assistance to others as well.

 

[Ethos]

Well hello, and !

 

[rdd1952]

Hello and welcome to the forum.

All fish stores aren't like that but some are, especially the pet stores that sell fish. It's more a matter of what makes them money. I know how hard it is to decide. When I got my 75 gallon, it took me forever to decide what I wanted in it. Well, actually, it took the 3 weeks it took to cycle the tank but at least that gave me time to put my stock list together. Good luck on deciding what you want.

 

[sad_rocc]

Thanks! I'm not planning on starting anything besides a cycle before the new year so I have a bit of time. Plus, I work a desk job so lots of time to research (sometimes)!

I know not all fish shops are like what I described, but the ones I'm familiar with seem comparable to a car dealership. I live in the far north of Colorado, so we don't have any PetSmarts or stuff like that and due to the shipping cost to the fish store, their prices are pretty high. ($12 for a ~2" cichlid!) Has anyone had ebay experiences with buying fish? Aside from the $35 or more overnight shipping cost, it seems like you can get a good amount and variety of fish from 1 source.

 

[rdd1952]

I personally haven't bought fish online but I know quite a few of our members have. As you said, the shipping cost is high but if you bought your full stock of fish for all those tanks at once, it would probably only come out 50 cents or so per fish for shipping. Realy not that bad if you can find them all at the same place. If you do a search, I'm sure you can find some threads about buying fish online.