around me, I have quite a few petco, petsmart, pet supplies plus & all pets club to choose from. Each store has approx 3 - 5 location within 1/2 drive of home. This is not a big deal, as I am used to driving over 45mins for work back in the day (stupid unemployment rate...).
Anyway, I've found that petcos tend to have a good variety of plants, but they are expensive. they also tend to stock decent fish at the 2 I hit regularly... they just dont get all the really cool stuff unless I convince Ron to special order for me, which is rare (he also volunteers at the nature center I volunteer at)
the pet supplies plus has only a few plants, but they are cheaper. they are also the best place for fancy guppies (my first love in fish). They have some pearl gourami atm tho, so I may hit that up tomorrow once I get my check (oh the wife will kill me...)
The best place I've found for plants & fish (but def not supplies) is All Pet's Club. they often have exotic fish that not even my mom & pop stores have, and the staff are pretty good about telling you what will actually fit in what and with whom (disclaimer to follow)... their plants are the cheapest around, and appear pretty hardy. They have the best prices on fancy shrimp hands-down. Their cherry shrimp are only $3/each and if you get a sales clerk who knows nothing about shrimp, he will throw in a few crystal shrimp & the black version of the crystal shrimp - name escapes me - for the same price (lol, totally wanted more shrimp when I saw him do this, but I was out of cash).
Anyway, I guess I am lucky to have at least 5 mom & pop stores near by, plus a bunch of the larger chains (All Pet's Club is local to CT, but considered a chain b/c they have over 5 stores throughout the state)
Anyway, that's my $0.02... I am so obsessed with this hobby atm it's hard to settle on exactly what I want in my tank, and wether it would be better to start another larger tank to move my longfin rosy barbs since they bully everyone else in the tank, and dessimate my ghost shrimp, even if I buy ones larger then they are... Oh, and a little ot, should I start a shrimp tank for breeding the ghosts? The other fancy shrimp are in my guppy/fry tank, but the ghosts get demolished in 5 mins flat by my 3 rosies... (bought 6x 2" ghosts (larger then any of my three rosies) and I managed to salvage one before he too was shredded... they didn't even get 5" into the tank before they were history...
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10g temp:
2 comets
10g (overstocked with all the fry, but that will change once they get re-homed)
3 adult guppies
~30 fry at about 2 months or so
~30 more on the way within the week
3 adult neon tetras
1 oto cat
3 cherry chrimp
1 crystal shrimp
1 black crystal shrimp-looking guy
3 ghost shrimp
about 50%-65% planted
29g
3 obnoxious longfin rosy barbs
4 red wag platy
3 mickymouse platy
4 cardinal tetras
2 zebra danios
4 oto cats
1 albino bushy nose pleco (only about 2.5" atm)
about 50% planted plus decore, driftwood & hides
possibly 1 surviving ghost shrimp... maybe...
