Be Careful To Select The Right Aquarium Store

The aquarium stores are extremely convenient for any aquarist who wants to keep fish at home or in the office. It is here that you find a wide selection of fish tanks, and at the same time pick up any needed accessories to build a healthy ecosystem. Such necessities available will include fish food, water tester kits, nets, gravel, cleaning equipment, corals and plant life. A few aquarium stores also sell manuals and books on fish keeping that can be very helpful for the novice and experienced alike.

When visiting an aquarium store you will have the choice of selecting from either a clean empty fish tank or the ready to install aquarium. This will depend on the style of fish tank you are after and your intended budget, you can buy aquariums shaped like hexagons, octagons, pentagons and towers. You may even be interested in finding sphere aquariums or half round aquariums, not to mention the highly popular standard glass tanks that are box shaped or bowl shaped.

There are several ways that should allow you to determine if an aquarium store is good or not. The first thing you should take note of when you walk into the aquarium store is the general maintenance. If you notice that the aquarium store you are visiting seems to have dirty aquariums, aquariums with no water or poorly staffed stores, than it is best to avoid buying from there. In these circumstances you are unlikely to be given healthy fish.

You should be able to learn a lot from the staff at the aquarium stores. They can give you guidance regarding the size of the fish tank as well as the types of fish that you need to keep. Try asking a few generalized questions regarding fish keeping and how to take care of fishes if they fall sick. If the member of staff that you are chatting to does not seem too knowledgeable, than this may be a sign to shop elsewhere.

It may be a wise choice to spend some time visiting a few aquarium stores so that you can get a better idea of all options available to you. You must remember that you will hopefully be building a long term relationship, and need to find a trustworthy aquarium store.

Just be doing some simple homework on aquarium fish keeping prior to visiting the aquarium store, will save you so much time on what to lookout for and what you actually need.

If you are purchasing fish from any particular store for the first time then you should closely inspect the aquariums and find out if the fishes in the tank are healthy and happy. An easy way to determine if the fishes are active is by placing a finger just above the tank. If they are very active they will swim to the top expecting your finger to be food. This in most cases is a good sign. Do not buy those fishes that remain near the bottom of the tank and show lethargy.

If the aquarium store that you are visiting has more than ten fish tanks then it is not unusual to find a few dead or old fish. However, this should not by all means be a regular occurrence in all of the tanks. Take notice, if you can on how the store keeper or other assistants feed the fish. This will often reveal whether they have the required expertise to take care of the fish or not.

When making the final choice on which aquarium store to use you should always base your decision on which one can help you in taking care of the fish as well as the general maintenance of the fish tank.