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Scottish Fish Store Directory

I was in the 'Aquatic Rooms' today and noticed they had some tropica plants in, maybe worth adding that they sometimes stock tropica? :)
 
If it hasn't been done already I agree that it would be nice if there was a link to this in the Uk Directory to save those of us that are north of the border going through the whole list. :)

So here are my reviews:

Acorn,
Donibristle Industrial Estate,
Dalgety Bay.


Variety: 6/10

No more than 20 Tropical tanks and 10 Coldwater, No Marine tanks.

Tropical: Mostly Tetras, Barbs, Danio's and Livebearers. They usually have a few nice Gourami and a small selection of Cichlids, usually Kribensis and a few Mbuna's surprisingly enough to me. Occasionally one or two pleco's but I don't recall ever seeing corys, hoplo's or otto's. I have never seen any shrimp, loaches, crabs or frogs either. Also they stock a few others, alge eaters (the aggressive kind), sharks etc but nothing too out of the ordinary that you wouldnt expect to find at a small fish shop.

Coldwater: Your run of the mill Goldfish, Koi, Moors, Fantails and shubumpkins (spelling). Also occasionally have Apple Snails in coldwater.


Quality: 7/10

I have never bought any fish from here that have died in a short time after purchase. The gourami are usually nicely coloured however the rest of the fish are distinctly average but most are usually in good health and they are quite good at identifying disease and quarantining tanks. Wouldn't expect to find wild caughts here, hehe.


Service: 5/10

As Glod says there is a woman who takes care of the fish section of these shops and when she is not there then it is a gamble as to the quality of service you will get as the shop caters to most common pets and does not specialise in fish. Most of the staff are friendly enough and polite.

There is no information in the fish room about the fish and the identification of their fish is not 100% reliable. Some of what is sold, some of the plecs etc, are not entirely suitable for the type of novices that frequent the shop and you sometimes see foot long plecs returned to the shop. The staff don't really take much time to inform or warn you about suitability of tank size and tank mates :/ .

However they do seem to be more than happy to take fish back off you in an emergency and will also buy certain species whether that is because you want to try something different and wish to sell the originals back to them or if you successfully breed and wish to sell juveniles.

Furthermore, sometimes what is listed in the tank is not always reflective of what is actually in there which I guess you would put down to the fact that the woman that specialises in the fish is only in the shop one or two days a week and they might have had more fish come in or all of their stock in one species sold since she was last there. That just makes it a little harder for proper newbies to identify what they have bought though.

I've never seen dead fish in the tanks in the Dalgety Bay Acorn store though and they will take the time to catch exactly the one you want if you only have your mind set on one individual in particular. Which is nice :) .


Plants: 7/10

They usually have a few healthy plants for sale and I can't identify all of what they have but among others are java fern, duck weed, cabomba and the asian varieties (forget the name of the genus or family), some large broad leaf plants that I can't identify and some small leaf or grass varieties. All come with lead weights wrapped around a peice of foam to protect the stems from the metal I guess. Unless they are just about to get new plants in, then as I say, they are generally pretty healthy without dieing leaves/stems but the only gripe I have about them is that they are all kept in coldwater so this may be a shock to them when you move them to tropical water but I'm no expert on plants and like any excuse to pass the buck for my poor performance in keeping healthy plants :D .


Dry Goods: 6/10

Just the basics, a few varieties of food (mostly Waltham and tetra) and some intrapet water treatments, a few pond supplies and some basic ornaments, gravels (don't think I've seen bogwood, natural rock, sand substrates or plant substrates on offer however they always stock the hideous neon coloured varieties of gravel, hehe) spare bulbs etc. They have everything you would need to setup a tank and keep one but nothing out of the ordinary or too specific and unfortunately for our local shops you can find most of this stuff cheaper online which I have to admit is what I do.


Overall: 7/10

I would recommend this shop to anyone that wasnt after anything specific but I would advise them to have done their own research first or at least take the first Baensch Atlas with them. I buy plants and occasionally some fish from here, I also occasionally sell fish to the shop and as I say I can find the dry goods cheaper online and there are less ethical quanderies to consider when buying inanimate objects by mail ;) .



Also, I was there yesterday for the first time so I would like to give my review of Ultimate Aquatics even though it has already been done.


Ultimate Aquatics,
Prestonhall Industrial Estate,
Cupar.


Variety: 8/10

They weren't lieing when they boast online that they have 500 tanks, if they have less then it is not many although when I was there yesterday they had a lot that were empty and a good few were quarantine tanks.

Marine: One wall of the fish room was dedicated to marine fish although as I was not there for marine fish, have no interest in keeping them at the moment and was in a hurry so I just skipped past them and didnt get an accurate count of the tanks, at least 20-50 though.

Tropical: These make up the majority of their tanks, easily over 300 but as I say not all of them have fish in them (maybe 1/3 were empty when i was there). In terms of variety: all the usual suspects and more but as one of the assistants informed me it is a bit of a gamble what stock they will get in. However with that said I wasn't overly impressed but that is probably not because the selection wasnt impressive but that they did not have the individual species of certain families of fish that I am interested in and would have chosen to buy, which is obviously subjective and nothing to base an objective opinion on. In particular, they had very nice selections of catfish and discus but the 2 galaxy rasbora they had left were unimpressive to say the least. I would be surprised if you couldnt get wild caught fish from here but I didnt see any that jumped out and were obviously wild caught. They had Amano and Cherry shrimp and some variety that was a mountain something or other (I forget exactly as I wasnt interested in them) but I did not notice any other alternatives to fish for the tropical tanks. The only thing to note that I would have expected but did not see in such a large selection were betta's. Still, an excellent and varied selection for sure.

Coldwater: Again like the Marine I just skipped these and couldnt even make a guesstimate at how many tanks they have allocated to them.


Quality: 8/10

Again I'll have to skip over the Marine and Coldwater fields and move back to their Tropical tanks. As I said I wasn't blown away by the selection even though they had a large variety of Tropical fish and must have had 100-200 different species easily and probably nearer 300 in the tropical tanks. The fish all seemed healthy and most were nice specimens but I didnt see any that were so spectacular that they just struck me as being something really special. The only trouble I noticed was in their tank of Oscars, a few of them were having a go at each other but otherwise I was very impressed that in so many tanks there were no casualties floating or half dead fish limping around.

I purchased 6 white cloud mountain minnows and 4 amano shrimp, they have been in the tank for about 30 hours now and all appear healthy, the white clouds are very nicely coloured. Also they will guarantee any fish purchased for 48 hrs.


Service: 9/10

In the fish room they had a colour code of red/amber/green to identify the aggressiveness of each fish which would be very useful to someone who hadnt done their homework previously or who were new to the hobby. Also I liked that they had a few closeup analysis on certain fish like a 'fish of the month' etc to give you some more information. I knew what my options were and what would be suitable in my tank before going so I didn't have to ask anyone for information about my purchases. The minnows are peaceful and so are Amano Shrimp so I can't say if they would go so far as to warn you and possibly not sell you aggressive/unsuitable fish if they thought you were not going to house them responsibly.

They had at least 4 members of staff working when I was there on Friday morning so they had plenty of people to help out and I'm sure at least one would have made an attempt to answer any query I had. Plus, I was quite smitten with the cute girl that was helping me out. :wub: My mind was busy constructing some sort of tasteful joke about offering to buy her and take her home but she was concentrating so much on catching the fish I didnt want to interrupt and risk getting slapped by her wet hands. :lol:


Plants: 5/10

Not sure if it was just that they had had the tank of plants they were selling for some time or not but you would do well to take their advice from the website and just buy from Greenline if not. That said I did buy a tray of their java moss and it is the proper java moss (Vesicularia Dubyana).

Dry Goods: 9/10

They had a whole room of the warehouse floor, couldnt guess to the actual size in square feet but it was impressive to say the least, dedicated to dry goods and I'm confident they would have at least one option of any upgrade you were looking for and I assume they will cater to everything you need for a marine setup. Also they will cut tanks to the exact size you want. The only thing I bought/paid much attention too was the rocks and bogwood, bought a 1kg peice of bogwood (roughly 10x4x6) for £5. Wasn't very impressed with their rocks though, they seemed to be too 'fancy' for me and they were quite considerable chunks too (I was after some plain looking slate chunks or perhaps some dull granite).


Overall: 8/10

I'll definately be back to check out their stock again the next time I'm thinking on restocking or setting up a new tank as it has a very large and impressive selection of everything except the plants. Also, remember it was my first time in the shop and I didnt have a chance to give every section the attention it deserved. I'd recommend it to anyone that asks though. :good:
 
Dobbies Garden Centre, Stirling
- I know, I know, but truely they are really good!!!

Ye, I also heard they order in any fish they can find on request for you, and the fish is quarantined from their providers. if the fish isn't the best of quality when they recive it they will refuse to sell it to you! which in my opinion is great...especially from a garden centre! I haven't actually visited any of the Dobbies gcs before, but they have a good reputation!

any chance of a pin or even a link in the "UK directory" for the topic?

cheers, greg :good:
 
!!!!!!!!!!!information on aquatic rooms has been updated, please read, including the note at the bottom!!!!

thanks,

greg
 
Thats great, i would say the aquatic rooms is the best place iv been to yet , didnt realise that the owner was a member on here :D
 
up you go!



anymore updates/opinions on Scottish shops??


Aquatic Rooms had a good selection of Tanganyikans in stock on saturday! Got a trio of Occelatus shell dwellers! lovely little guys!


greg
 
Hey, its been a while since anyones posted here but having been round lots of the shops in Edinburgh I thought I should give my opinions.

The Aquatics Rooms - I agree with the current review, always seems good to me, the staff are helpful and seem to give good advice.
VARIETY OF STOCK - 8-9/10
QUALITY OF STOCK - 7-8/10 One dead dwarf goruami, a few ill looking possibly dead fish in one tank. Note this is from several visits.
SERVICE PROVIDED - 7/10 Good advice about products although advised againist a fishless cycle, gave good advice about planaria worms.

The Aquatic Center(a.k.a Aquacadabra2) I found it pretty poor in general. Several tanks with dead fish, some where the majority of the fish had been eaten and only slight remains were left, bettas in tanks where they were getting eaten away and the plants generally looked low quality.
VARIETY OF STOCK - 5/10 - Didn't seem great, nothing too special
QUALITY OF STOCK - 4/10 As above, every visit saw dead fish in more than one tank, lots of stressed looking fish. (If not lower I don't have lots to compare it to)
SERVICE PROVIDED - N/A/10

Outside Inside Aquatics - Haddington http://www.outsideinsideaquatics.co.uk/ -
Found it to be Excellent, the owner gave great advice and clearly really knew his stuff., very ethical seller as well, he won't sell fish without asking about the tank and checking the size, tankmates etc are all ok. Generally more expensive than other shops and the plant selection was very expensive although had a lot of large plants I hadn't seen before (May not have been expensive to what you'd pay elsewhere for the same plants but compared to what I had seen it seemed expensive generally for a plant).
VARIETY OF STOCK - 8-9/10 - Had a few fish I hadn't seen before and some that other shops had told me would be hard to find. Lots of pond fish as well.
QUALITY OF STOCK - 9.5/10 - All looked great, tanks seemed very nice with regards to size, substrate, plants, tankmates etc. All fish are quarantined for (I think) at least a week before being put on sale.
SERVICE PROVIDED - 10/10 - Fantastic took a long time telling me about the fish and lots of other useful bits of advice about fishkeeping.

I've also been to other shops around Edinburgh but can't judge as well since I haven't had the time to look round them in the same way or I've only been there once.
 
I've also been to other shops around Edinburgh but can't judge as well since I haven't had the time to look round them in the same way or I've only been there once.

There aren't many aquatic shops left in Edinburgh! When I first kept fish in the early 90's, there were a few. It was kewl to come back to fishkeeping and finding so many young guys interested in the hobby.

I went into Dofos at the end of London Road earlier in the year, don't know what possessed me! I was horrified at the state of their tanks. The staff hadn't a clue what they were doing and it was all I could do to console my kids who wanted to take home every fish in the shop to save them from the cruelty. I wrote to the shop and expressed my horror, but of course I didn't get a reply. These places should be inspected and banned from selling livestock they can't take care off. It's disgusting.
 
The Aquarium
Unit 5, Castlelaurie Works, Bankside, Falkirk. Telephone 01324 631110



VARIETY OF STOCK (7/10)

Cold and Tropical Fish , They hold the usual suspects , neon guppies ect, they always seem to have a not bad selection of oddballs , the also have a nice selection of catfish and starting to get more cichlids in.

QUALITY OF STOCK (10/10)

Never seen a dead or ill fish in there yet , they seem to quarantine there fish before they sell them , every fish iv had from them are still going strong, in fact out of all the shops iv bought fish from there stock has been the best so far..


SERVICE PROVIDED (9/10)

Great service , Johns usually the guy who deals in the fish room , he always has time for a good old natter lol

PLANTS (4/10)

They have a very small selection , never really had a look

DRY GOODS (7/10)

Not the biggest selection but they have everything you would need , they always have a good selection of tanks, they also do custom tanks

Im sorry Kev i would have to disagree with you. They overprice a lot of the rarer fish which is ok as you will pay for them if you want them. The normal everyday fish they sell cheap but your buying cheap fish. I have stopped using this shop as the fish i get either die within a few days (waterstats are always fine) or disease my tank. I have reported this to the guy at the shop and he blames my water everytime even though i bring some so he can test it and it proves its ok.

He also let my friend buy a discus (one on its own) two oscars, a columbian catfish (or shark) thing (which grows to over a foot and has ate everything in his tank including the oscars) at the same time to go into a juwel vision 180! I think that he saw the money signs on that wee sale (my friend should have known better).

I'm sorry for disagreeing but think its a poor shop.

C
 
well m8 that was over a year ago i wrote that and tbh my opinion has changed some what about that place.

Iv not been there for about 4 months due to John being a right tosser, he was basically trying to embarrass me in front of a whole load of his m8's, that's not the way to talk to you customers if you want them to come back.

Also the month running up to the last time i was there i seen a big drop in the quality, there was dead fish, ill fish and the tanks were no where near as clean as they used to be, i think this has been down to them opening there other shop in Dunfermline, even though i view John as a tosser now he did do a fantastic job of keeping the tanks clean, due to him being over at the Dunfermline shop most of the time i recon that's partly the reason why its went down hill.

As for you friend maybe because there not doing so well there just selling what ever they can to make some cash..

I now do 90% of my fish shopping at Riverside in Stirling, only thing i don't like about them is that they sell dyed fish, other than that the quality of the fish iv had has been good..
 
Hey Kevstir, do you know where his shop is? We had a new one open a while back, went down there, looked dirty after just 2 weeks and fish were all muddled up and had things like Hammerhead Dolphin Sharks? I'll post info about the 2 shops I've been to in Dunfermline tomorrow :)
 

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