Maidenhead Aquatics............

[Fishshopworker]

After reading this post, I had to go and double-check one of my LFS which I thought was a MA. It is. And it isn't that great. The MA in question is in Hillingdon/Uxbridge and both 2 days ago and yesterday had dead fish in the tanks. They also had a guppy tank with a crayfish at the bottom (needless to say, the guppies where half-shredded... the store clerk said that "as there were so many guppies, the crayfish couldn't catch them"). There was an eel in a gravel-bototmed tank.

I'm assuming this is just the case with the hillingdon MA... I hope?

MA Hillingdon has had to content with a lot of problems over the summer, i just hope customers recognise the improvem ents that have been made in recent months.
The dead fish are often 'whitebait' and the guppies in question have since been moved!

Maidenhead Hillingdon and Iver are by far the best!!

 

[Bex]

The MA I go too is excellent. Tanks are always clean, only ever seen 1 dead fish and it was being scooped out when I saw it. The selection is also very good. They have some really nice fish that I never see anywhere else. Their display salt water tank is amazing too.

The staff are excellent and not just the ones that know us. They are very knowledgable. An even when I wanted to buy some things, they advised me against it and pointed me towards the cheaper ones.

And the guy who orders the fish in is a bit of a plec head so they have loads of cool plecs and can order me in ones that I want.

I go to the MA in Binfield/Bracknell, Berkshire. It's now the only place I feel comfortable buying fish as nearly all the others in my area are pretty awful.

Lets all big up our local MA's

 

[Themuleous]

Ive been to 4 different ones now, and my favourite is the one at Oxford (Wheatley)

Agreed! Its my local, and since Jeremay Gay (PFK bloke) started working there part time the fish selection have gone throught the roof, always interesting stuff to see so I tend to visit it weekly even though I've got no room in my tanks!

I guess the problem is that even though they are a chain, each shop is managed by different people so the quality varies just as it does with none chain stores. Have visited some very crap ones and some very good ones. If you find one thats good, stick with it. If not, take your money elsewhere!

Sam

 

[CFC]

To be honest ive never been particularly taken with any MA branch i've been too, i have 7 branches within a 30 minute drive of my house and rarely see anything that takes my interest. The shops seem clean and usually well run but seem to be pre occupied with stocking small common community fish and African Cichlids or Discus rather than any unusual catfish or oddballs, when the occasional oddity does turn up from a customer trade in they are usually quite over priced and end up sitting in sump tanks for many months.
I find myself being increasingly pushed toward mail order sites to find the fish that i like to keep as fewer and fewer shops cater for the less conventional fish keeper and concentrate on the "oh isnt it pretty" crowd.

 

[nmonks]

You're a hard man to please, CFC!

The thing with good fish shops is you can have ones that give good care to ordinary and newbie fishkeepers, and you can have stores that get in a ton of cool, unusual stuff. Rarely do the two overlap, in my experience.

I've been to fish shops that had really boring stock compared with what I'd like to keep -- but they care about their customers, and only stock sensible community fish that will get along with the minimum of fuss.

The shops that most often have the cool cichlids and catfish and oddballs are often the ones that either don't know what they're selling (e.g. "freshwater flatfish") or else prefer to cater to clients who know what they're doing and won't need much hands-on help. Some of the best fish I've bought have been from really rubbish tropical fish shops.

If I had to choose, I'd sooner more shops gave good advice, stocked sensible community species, and spent time with newbies explaining things like filters carefully. Conversely, it's a lot of the shops experienced aquarists like that seem to import the giant catfish, fish that come from fish farms, impossible-to-keep-alive characins, butterflyfish that only eat corals, and so on.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[my fat fish]

maidenhead rules i use them all the time now i found them

 

[TheRedDarren]

yea they are really good, my local branch is 2 hours away in pontardulais near swansea, and i went there to get my botia striata, the manager gave me a big polystyrene box to get them home and offered me a money back guarantee through the post if any fatalities occured within 48 hours to save me travelling all the way back. all survived and are very happy, he was also full of helpful advice to various problems i was having, cant rate him highly enough! so itook my mate back down with me a few weeks later and we bought a load more fish between us purely because of the service!

 

[CFC]

You're a hard man to please, CFC!

The thing with good fish shops is you can have ones that give good care to ordinary and newbie fishkeepers, and you can have stores that get in a ton of cool, unusual stuff. Rarely do the two overlap, in my experience.

I've been to fish shops that had really boring stock compared with what I'd like to keep -- but they care about their customers, and only stock sensible community fish that will get along with the minimum of fuss.

The shops that most often have the cool cichlids and catfish and oddballs are often the ones that either don't know what they're selling (e.g. "freshwater flatfish") or else prefer to cater to clients who know what they're doing and won't need much hands-on help. Some of the best fish I've bought have been from really rubbish tropical fish shops.

If I had to choose, I'd sooner more shops gave good advice, stocked sensible community species, and spent time with newbies explaining things like filters carefully. Conversely, it's a lot of the shops experienced aquarists like that seem to import the giant catfish, fish that come from fish farms, impossible-to-keep-alive characins, butterflyfish that only eat corals, and so on.

Cheers,

Neale

This is very true, we have a lovely little fish store near us called Marks Water Garden in Teddington High Street, the staff are really friendly and do their best to help you with anything and their prices are very reasonable. Unfortunately their fish stock is so boring that i havent bought a fish from them in over 3 years which means i go else where when i get the bug to go looking for new fish and as a result end up buying food and equipment at these other stores too as it saves making another trip later in the week. I would love to support my local little shop that has helped with so much over the years but by only catering for the newbie and non hobbiest i am pushed into traveling to other shops to find the species that interest me.
Really the only shop that has passed the CFC test in recent years is Wildwoods which always has a great selection of odd, rare and interesting fish, though as you say also has a fair few mega tankbusters which should maybe not be available to the average hobbiest.

Me hard to please? Nooooo, try next to impossible

 

[OohFeeshy]

Same problem with me. A fair few shops, but anything interesting is either un-ID'd or generally gets too big/wouldn't go with the current oddballs. Plus most of the fish I want are only available from country renowned oddball shops (I really want a few indian torrent cats) or I'd pretty much have to get someone to collect for me (parasitic cats).

 

[Callum]

The MA at Hare Hatch is my favourite it has some of the most amazing and wierd south American cichlids. but i dont like to keep cories with cichlids.

 

[George Farmer]

I've visited seven or eight MA stores. Crowland is my LFS and Steve, the co-manager is a top bloke, will bend over backwards to help in anyway he can. I've not had the pleasure of meeting Emma yet.

Each store tends to have its specialaties to an extent, but they all cater very well for the "bread and butter" hobbyist.

CFC - what do you think to Wharf Aquatics?

 

[Disco]

CFC if you are after unusual catfish can I recommend MA @ Oxford they always have some interesting bits in I was talking with the manager the other day a he said he had a brachyplatystoma platynemum and a platystominicthys notatus coming in from peru for one customer this week (hope i spelt those names correctly).

 

[Arfie]

CFC - what do you think to Wharf Aquatics?

It's up t'north, he'll not venture this far it'll be too cold for him

Actually, I think CFC would like the right hand side of the freshwater room at Wharf, there's loads of things with big teeth in there

Arfie

 

[joloco]

have to say i've been to MA hillingdon and i wouldn't buy fish from there
also doubtful is the one at iver - yes nice stock, yes nice tanks - clean etc buuuut i've fish from there which have died before i've even got home so not all good.

to make up for it though the st albans one is great


cfc have you tried wildwoods? they had a hairy puffer in there until very recently! couldn't believe my eyes.
although the guy on the phone today told me they weren't stocking dwarf puffers anymore as they'd found they were 'expensive community fish' ie they ate their other stock......
i don't think he was best pleased when i laughed

 

[littlelegs]

i have used the one local to me in cambridge, and it is fantastic. The guy knew exactly what he was talking about and helped me choose a really good piece of bogwood. Defo reccomeded

Clean tanks, healthy fish and they even rehomed my goldfish for me.