dons hobby and tropical fish??

[dodgefreak8]

anyone been there yet?? any reports?? it's in greeley

[waltuba]

They have been open as an addition to the famous Don's Hobby (which moved west on 10th from downtown Greeley) and are working hard to be a good shop. They are both friendly and helpful carrying fw & sw. The shop seems small but they are also getting involved in the northern Co area. They hosted a meet at their shop (I believe for a reef club). They also take orders (last week flying to LA to shop). I hope they make a go of it - it seems they will!!
PS - not much in live plants

[Manolito]

Been there many time. Not impressed at all - especially with the FW and live plants. Not very well taken care at all.

They have some good SW set up, tanks, canopy and cabinets. But they are outrages in prices.

[discus21]

Was in Dons Hobbies/Fish the other day. What a joke. Freshwater was empty.. lights turned off on many tanks.... almost no fish that I could find. Plant section was a joke.. only a few of the real basic items and lots of hair algae.

Saltwater looked OK but not as sweet as I expected since they say they are "hand picking" fish and coral. Nothing that I have not seen a million times over at every other shop.

The guy who was working was rude. Said nothing the entire time I was in the shop. He was too busy working on the frag table. Finally I asked him a question and got a rude answer. It seems that he was too busy and my question was not important to him.

I WILL NEVER GO BACK

[vibes_jedi99]

I went in last week. Most of the Stuff (liquid fertilizer, excel, fluorite) I find cheaper than PETSMART and other LFS in the area. But the fish selection are poor, same with the services if their are any.

[dodgefreak8]

I went there last weekend and belive it or not they had some of the harder to find species. they had celestial pearl danios, scarlet badis, olive nerite snails, dwarf cory's, and more. I would say they have some work to do but these are rarely seen fish and the prices were right on

[waltuba]

Went in today and found Excel at a decent price. I can now begin some dosing. I was in a hurry so I didn't get to see much but I did notice a marked improvement in supplies for planted tanks and they had just received a shipment of new plants.

[vibes_jedi99]

Yeah, They have nice price for those stuff. I'm glad that you got your excel there waltuba.

[waltuba]

Time to sadly update this one - here is an e-mail I received from the shop:

Dons Hobbies and Tropical Fish. If you have or havent heard, let me take this time to let you know that the store is no more. On Thursday, March 30th, we were informed by the property managers that we had 3 days to vacate the premises because of unpaid rent. I have no idea how far behind Don was in paying rent, but according to him, he had been working with the landlord to try and reduce our payment to keep the shop in place. I can honestly say that I had no idea that anything like this was coming. I knew that sales werent where Don wanted them to be, and that we were all trying to do whatever we could to keep the business afloat. Don had even gone so far as to put the fish business up for sale on craigslist at the beginning of March. Don had one very interested buyer, but after messing around with paperwork, the deal fell through. On Friday of last week, Nick and I scrambled to find homes for all of the livestock, including the hundreds of frags that we had left at the shop. We managed to get the entire store, (both fish and hobby sides) out of the shop by the deadline. All of the livestock has good homes, and the tanks, shelves, etc are all gone. I wanted to send everyone on our email list a newsletter letting them know what had happened. As of Monday this week I am jobless, but nevertheless see this as an opportunity for career expansion, the ability to put my degree to use, and even the opportunity to agan become a hobbyist! I plan on being in the are, and will continue to service the maintenance accounts that I acquired through the shop. I am also in the process of setting up a frag tank at my house, and will continue to propagate corals. I purchased all of the "not for sale" corals that we had set aside at the shop. I will be setting up a business name and retail sales license shortly to provide my maintenance accounts with their goods, and want to extend this offer to my former customers. I will not be stocking anything at my house, but will still be able to order anything in for you, and may even be putting together livestock group buys in the future. It has been one heck of a ride at the shop for the last year and a half, and I thank you all for your kind words and support. Please keep in touch, and if anything ever springs up with the opening of a new shop, or even when I have frags available, I will let you all know!
Cheers~!
It is very sad to see this happen not only from the fish side but the modeling side as well.. The economy bites another one!! Don's Hobbies has been around for decades - a sad day for many . . .