Before reading any of these reviews, assuming mine even makes it out of the graveyard of ghosted reviews, go ahead and scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Show hidden reviews" This is why Yelp is terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. It gives drastically altered impressions of businesses. Go read some of these hidden reviews of this fruitcake of a pet store. Do you really think the people leaving those reviews are robots? Come on Yelp. Why would you do this if you weren't in bed with businesses?
I concur that the selection of lifestock at this pet store is great for this area, but at what cost? Besides completely outragious pricing, they have lots of other things counting against them.
These guys with the exception of the owner himself are all dinguses with little knowledge of any of the subject matter in which they are supposed to reign supreme. I am to assume they are family members with no other applicable skills or capabilities. One is so close to "special" I feel guilty even identifying him for fear of public ridicule.
I have worked at a reputable (no, not a chain) pet store for many years of my life. The ONLY knowledge these guys possess are that of salesmen. I have witnessed them telling customers catestrophically wrong information that will inevitably result in loss of live animals. They will then rant and rave about their return/death policy on live merchandise luring you into a false sense of security, but will not tell you that they will not at all reimburse or replace anything to you in the fish department unless your water quality is PERFECT. And I mean perfect salinity, zero nitrates (near impossible), nitrites, and ammonia (with freshwater - nearly impossible). Water that would be safe for even the most picky animals will be trash talked and instead of fixing their clearly diseased fish, they'll try to sell you a huge pile of extremely expensive, harmful chemicals to "fix it."
They don't ask how old your tank is before selling you 200 dollars in fish. They don't ask how big the tank is or in any way try to make sure the animals will live until after you come back with them dead as a doornail and wanting an explanation.
Thankfully I didn't see many obvious signs of disease on the fish, but I did see some housed with incompatible tank mates and the resulting duress caused by fin nipping, aggression, and running into the tank decor, so I guess they at least possess moderate knowledge of the pet trade; they just have no interest in relaying this information to you, the buyer.
I am giving them 2 stars in hopes that yelp will actually allow this to show Aquarium Outfitter's true colors. PLEASE click on the bottom link to see all the people who gave these guys 1 star. Yes it's a mom and pop organization. Yes, Petco and Petsmart have bad reps, but both of them are trying and have come a very long way from the days of old. Having managed a pet store, I would turn people away from chains all day everyday, but these guys are doing it wrong. They are misleading people, and their prices are beyond asinine! 20 dollars for a Mbuna African Cichlid?
If you see a younger guy behind the desk, he is the worst and you should just leave. He is a complete idiot and a jerk, but you can tell the owner has had his fair share of problems with the guy, because he tries REALLY hard not to be a jerk. He does not have the authority to validate refunds or returns of dead fish, can't answer authoritative questions regarding their policies, and cannot test fish water. Yes, you heard me. HE CANNOT TEST AQUARIUM WATER AND WORKS AT A PET STORE. read more