Store Review for July/August!

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Exotic Aquarium

    When I travel United States I like to stop and check out local aquarium stores when time permits. The difficulty of such an endeavor usually comes in blindly choosing from the Yellow Pages an aquarium shop that a high quality store. I mean it’s really hard to judge a store from a little 2" x 2". After looking at an ad the most I can usually tell you about a Pet store is whether or not they carry fish. Some ads list other useful information like the total gallons of fish they have, though I’ve always figured the number of fish you carry would be a better measure. Most lakes in the United States still only have a dozen species of fish in them regardless of the number of gallons of water in the lake.

    However, sometimes looking through the yellow pages and picking at near random can pull great dividends. Such was the experience I had in Sacramento last Memorial day when I stumbled into a store called Exotic Aquarium. After looking in the yellow pages while visiting in-laws in Sacramento, I had a decent list of stores that I thought might be interesting.

    Considering my time I chose Exotic Aquarium from my list feeling that it would be easy to find for out-of-towner. I actually thought twice about my decision while trying to hunt down the actual address. I found that it was difficult to find the actual store as the block-long strip mall where the store is located is undergoing major renovations and was 60% vacant and closed. Nevertheless I persevered through the mostly fenced off parking lot and found Exotic Aquarium at the other side.

    Exotic Aquarium carried a very impressive number of aquariums and great equipment that you could use with the aquariums. Almost half of the floor space in the store is dedicated to Aquariums and equipment. I would estimate that there was more than 500sq ft. of aquariums. I found the number and selection of aquariums to be well above average. Even though I was out of town and unable to take home another aquarium I was tempted by some of the uncommon sizes that they carried.

    Of course the real rating of any aquarium store has to be based on the fish it carries and the people who sell them. In both areas I was more than pleasantly surprised. The selection at Exotic-Aquarium was truly amazing, especially for my tastes.  They carry a wide variety of Central and South American cichlids, African cichlids and Gourami that are right up my isle.  I found many fish at the store that are typically very difficult to find in stores such as the chocolate and royal gourami.  What's more the fish were in very good condition.   The American cichlids all showed very good color, and the Discus were obviously well cared for.

    In addition to having a great selection, I was impressed with the sales representative whom I spoke with.  Though they were obviously busy doing other things, they were more than polite and willing to discuss how they were keeping the soft water fish in such good condition, though the water of Sacramento varies on the harder side. 

    Overall this is a store I highly recommend to anyone in the area, or just to anyone passing through Sacramento.  Though I had the advantage of only visiting a store once, and not buying anything, I'm confident patrons of the store would agree that it's about 5 notches above your average aquarium store.

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