yea, me and my gf recently went to Melbourne to look for a few fish after hearing on an Australian fish forum that the aquariums in Melb are "awesome", "fantastic" and "have the best range ever". To say the least, we were pretty disappointed. Tank and stand-wise the prices crap all over Ballarat, but fish-wise, well, yeah...prices and range aren't as "fantastic" as they're cracked up to be we found. Sure, a couple of the fish are cheaper than Ballarat, but not cheap enough to warrant a 3 hour drive to the Dandenongs to just buy fish. As far as range, all that they had that was any more of a bigger range was their cichlids, and even then, there wasn't a great deal more. Besides which, we can get them ordered in here in Ballarat if we wanted them. As far as we're concerned, if it wasn't for the 2 three foot tanks we picked up for 45 bucks each, with foam and cover glass; and the 2 stands for them, also around the 50 buck mark, it would have been a complete waste of time driving to Boronia and Belgrave. B.T.W the tank stands were in St. Albans. If you're interested in exactly where I got the tanks and stands just post again and I'll find up the addresses and post em up here for you. As for advice from aquariums there though, don't listen to a word some of them say in Melb, some dude tried telling my gf that an African tangerine cichlid is placid and it'd go fine in a community tank lol Against better judgement though, my gf took it home out of pity because it was being bullied by the other Tangerines whom were bigger in it's tank. No sooner was it home and into her tank, it decided to turn from the bullied into the bully, her poor fish still have a few shredded fins
He took a nice long walk down lfs lane though....losing around three quarters of the price she paid for it in the process
But all in all, as far as fish buying around central vic goes, tanks and stands are a must buy in Melb, fish are a definate Ballarat or Geelong trip for us two.