Why are my plants dying?
FAQ
How do I set up a tank for plants?
Being unable to find Amano shrimp or SAEs locally, I decided to take the
plunge, and buy them online. AquariumFish.net charges a $22.75 shipping fee,
whether you order one fish or a hundred, so I also ordered some other critters
I've been meaning to buy.
I'm very pleased. These people are good. They e-mail you to let you know when
the fish will arrive, so you can be home to receive them. The fish are very
well-packed. (Fish double-bagged, only a few to each bag, styrofoam lined
boxes, heat packs. The shrimp bags even had little squares of polyester filter
material floating in them, since shrimp are stressed if they don't have
something to cling to.) And they give you extras, in case they don't all make
it.
The fish all arrived very healthy and active. There were only three Amano
shrimp in one bag that was supposed to contain four, but since they gave me a
free one, I got everything I ordered. They gave me two extra SAEs as well, so
I have eleven instead of the nine I ordered.
I also got three freshwater clams. Hard to tell with clams, but they, too,
seem healthy. Shortly after I put them in the tank, they stuck their feet out
and kind of kicked themselves under the gravel.
Also got six panda corys and two bristlenose plecos. They, too, are doing well.
Highly recommended. Though the shipping fee may seem high, the fish prices are reasonable, and they have fish that often
aren't available at your LFS. If you order a lot of fish, it's definitely worth it. (Consider getting together with others in your area and combining orders.)
Good prices, great selection, very speedy service, and no minimum order! What more could you ask?
I've ordered from this place twice now, and both times I was very
happy with the purchase. Their plants are
beautiful. The communication is good, too. If
you e-mail them, they e-mail you back very quickly.
Big Al's is currently my favorite online fish supply place. They have a huge selection, and for most items,
their prices are the lowest.
They are very speedy, and their people know their stuff.
Their customer service is excellent.
They called me up the day after I placed my first order. They noticed I had
ordered reef lighting along with freshwater plant supplements. They wanted to
make sure it was reef lighting I wanted, and not plant lighting. As it turned
out, it was the plant lighting I wanted. I was amazed that they noticed, and that they took the time to call and ask me about it.
They only made a mistake once. I ordered 4' of aquarium background. When it
arrived, it was one inch too short. I called and complained, and they sent a
replacement background out that day, free of charge. This one had a good 6"
extra length. :-)
A good company, not to be confused with PetSwarehouse.com.
Good service and selection, but their prices are generally higher than, say, Big Al's. They do carry some items that aren't available from other places. If Big Al's doesn't have it, try this place.
Rehoboth Aquatics doesn't have a huge selection, but what they have is unusual.
Some beautiful photos, too! (Minor nit: their website has a lot of Java, which makes it inaccessible to people with older browsers,
and annoying to people with newer ones.)
I've found their communication, service, prices, and plants to be excellent.
I wanted five Nymphaea daubenyana. They e-mailed me back and told me they only
had two, and they were small. I said I'd take them. When my order arrived,
there were five! Even though I'd only paid for two.
Highly recommended!
I ordered a bunch of plants from this place, and I'm quite happy with them. The
prices are a little higher than you might pay elsewhere, but they give you
lot of plants! The portions are quite generous. One plant, the Hygrophila
difformis, arrived in less than terrific shape, but she did kind of warn me
that they weren't the best the week I ordered. (Indeed, the communication here
was terrific. I got a personal order confirmation, was asked about
substitutions, and was told when the order was shipping and when it would
arrive.)
An extra plant was included, a bit of lagniappe, and it was a nice one. Not
the cheap bunch plants I'd have expected, but a very large, healthy
Anubias barteri, which now has a place of honor at the front of my tank.
Ordering is easy via their website. There's a $35 minimum, so for very small
orders, you'd probably be better off at AquaticPlantDepot.com.
Tri-Ess Sciences sells chemicals for cosmetic use. This means you can buy in smaller quantities than most other chemical supply places require. You can buy only two ounces, if you want. There is a $25 minimum order. I bought calcium carbonate and potassium nitrate for my tanks, and it arrived promptly, in great condition.
What's the best way to treat ich?
Information
Chuck Gadd's Planted Aquarium Pages -
A great resource for anyone who keeps a planted tank, or would like to.
The Krib - Everything you ever wanted to know about fish and fishkeeping.
rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants (Usenet)
- The planted tank newsgroup.
Tropica - Even though they don't sell plants in the U.S., their plant catalog is a useful reference.
Utilities
Convert -
A beautifully simple and easy to use program, that does instant unit
conversions among just about every unit known to man. Inches to cm, liters to
gallons, ml to teaspoons, joules to BTUs, you name it. Very useful when you're
wondering what a 130 liter aquarium would be in gallons, or need to convert the ml dosages on fertilizer bottles
to the teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, and ounces that are easier to measure (at
least for Americans without metric graduated cylinders in their kitchens ;-). And it's totally free!
All-Glass Tech Info -
A useful page that lists the dimensions and weights of All-Glass aquariums. It's handy even for other brands of tanks, since most aquarium sizes are standardized.
Where To Buy
AquariumFish.net
(out of five)
AquaticPlantDepot.com
(out of five)
Big Al's
(out of five)
Foster & Smith/Pet Warehouse
(out of five)
Pet Solutions
(out of five)
Rehoboth Aquatics
(out of five)
TrueAquariumPlants.com
(out of five)
Tri-Ess Sciences, Inc.
(out of five)
Product Reviews
| NAME & ADDRESS | COMMENTS |
|
Animabilia
107 East Main Street Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 (845) 298-0308 | This place is not much to look at from the outside, but it's probably the best selection of fish, invertebrates, plants, and supplies of any pet store in the area. They've got a lot of pet store crammed into a tiny little shop. Currently the only pet shop in the area (that I know of) that regularly carries live blackworms. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, and the prices very good. The main drawback is that is so cramped, it's hard to find anything. It's difficult to even see the tanks, if there are more than a few people in the store. Also, the proprietor allows smoking, which makes it hard for me to stay in this store for long. |
| B & G Pet Shop
2 Little Britain Road Newburgh, NY 12550 (845) 863-0900 | I used to like this shop, but the last few times I've been in it, they didn't have many fish in their tanks. They do have a nice selection of driftwood. |
|
The Birdcage
Haviland Shopping Center Hyde Park, NY 12538 (845) 229-2426 | My favorite LFS. In general, their fish seem the healthiest, and their selection is small but varied. They often have shrimp - sold as pets, not food. And they sometimes have locally-raised fish. The plant selection isn't very good, though. |
Family Pet Center | It's at the mall. Need I say more? Small selection, way overpriced. |
|
Exotic Fish & Aquarium
1211 Route 9, Wappingers Falls, NY 12590 | A new place that just opened up across Rte. 9 from Animabilia. I looked around, and they seem to specialize in saltwater tanks. They did have a few of the more exotic freshwater fish when I was there, such as hillstream loaches and large cichlids. |
| The Pet Set
Main St., Poughkeepsie | This is the store that was at 44 Plaza for years. They've moved to larger digs on Main St. now. They still don't have a particularly large fish or plant section, but it's worth stopping in anyway. The owner's own pets are on display in the fish room: some huge pythons and lizards. |
| PetCo
818 South Road Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 (845) 298-0081 | Usually the best prices of any store in the area, especially for fishtanks, and a pretty good selection of fish and fish supplies. They've got a huge aquarium full of plants, but many of them are bog plants, or very difficult. And be careful buying fish from them. IME, they are often sick. (Thanks to the huge number of tanks, all sharing the same filtration system, if a fish in one tank is sick, all the fish are exposed.) Quarantine any fish you buy, and apply a prophylactic ich treatment. |
| Tropical World & Pet Center
5208 Route 9W Newburgh, NY 12550 (845) 863-0900 | This place often has a decent selection of plants. They have a large fishroom with a lot of tanks, but the three or four times I've been in there, there weren't many fish in the tanks. It always looked like there had just been a big sale, and I missed it. |
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