good stores in Tampa ?

[Church]

^ True. But it should be mentioned that they pretty much always seem to get the same plants again and again, without ever really getting anything "exotic." A very minor complaint, I know... but the Fish World, even though they seem to carry less plants at a time, seem to get the occasional exotic plant. I just recently picked up a lonely bunch of Rotala walliichii from them, and it has been thriving in my high light 10 gallon.

I definitely wish they (either of the two stores!) would get more of a variety, because I think I've done all I can do with the typical rotalas, and the wisteria, and the wendtii's...

Time for some mailorder, I guess!

[Sponsors]

[forddna]

This plant place, are they helpful? Would a newb like me get good advice there?

[enzo]

Marine Warehouse--located on hillsborough ave. They recently renovated and that store has lots of starter plants. There focus is saltwater but they do have lots of stuff for freshwater.

Everglades exotic plants (aquaticplantdepot.com)--they are right by vandenberg airport. Huge selection of aquatic plants. Nothing exotic though--however they do order from Florida Aquatic Nurseries.

Fish World--located on waters ave. there plants are rather expensive but they have lots of fish to choose from. I got my bumblebee goby from them and its my favorite fish. I believe they get fish from Segrest Farms.

Aquarium Creations--located off Brandon blvd. They only have a couple plants but even though there focus is saltwater, they seem to have neat fauna. Recently I picked up some orange bee shrimp, cherries, and amano shrimp. One day they even had Boraras brigittae. They do order from Segrest Farms.

BTW Segrest Farms is open to hobbyists for tours and is off I-75 at the big bend road exit. I suppose if they had really neat fish that you wanted, you could go there, take notes, and then go to a local pet shop and have them ordered. The other night I looked through their catalog on there site and they have some neat shrimp! www.segrestfarms.com

[forddna]

I've been to Marine Warehouse several times now, and they are nothing but helpful. If someone can't answer my question, they will ask someone else. I've even seen them call someone on the phone to get an answer.

[cah925]

Originally Posted by Church

^ True. But it should be mentioned that they pretty much always seem to get the same plants again and again, without ever really getting anything "exotic." A very minor complaint, I know... but the Fish World, even though they seem to carry less plants at a time, seem to get the occasional exotic plant. I just recently picked up a lonely bunch of Rotala walliichii from them, and it has been thriving in my high light 10 gallon.

I definitely wish they (either of the two stores!) would get more of a variety, because I think I've done all I can do with the typical rotalas, and the wisteria, and the wendtii's...

Time for some mailorder, I guess!

That has always been a complaint of mine. i just moved to Gainesville from Tampa last year and the selection up here is worse than Tampa. All the stores up here carry the same plants, nothing even remotely exotic. I travel back to Tampa from time to time and check out the selections available at most of the stores everyone has suggested in this thread, just hoping to find something "new". I have found the swap-n-shop section on this board to be fantastic and much easier than driving all over the state to find something I want.

[thirston]

How is Coral Reef Aquariums off of Armenia Ave? Has anyone been there? Feel free to PM if you don't want to publicly rate. I'd love to hear about your experiences there.

[Church]

^ That's the one I commented on a couple posts up, where I couldn't remember the name at the time... I've since checked, and that's them. You're talking about the one in the Winn-Dixie shopping plaza, right? I don't know for sure if they are entirely bad, I just know I won't go back to them for any of my freshwater needs. Maybe they are just more focused on the salt-water side of things? All I know is I knew more about plants than the guy who was helping me, and I still consider myself a noob.

That, and I bought some cardinal tetras from them that gave my tank a bad case of ich.

[forddna]

church, I went last week and had a similar experience. I asked if the Discus were tank bred or wild. She went and asked the guy at the desk. She came back and said, "They're freshwater, not saltwater."

[Church]

^ LOL! Yeah, so, to anyone who shops there, the words "buyer beware" come to mind!

[Lovemylife]

Go to www.aquaticplantdepot.com They are an aquatic plant nursery. There website is great. I haven't made it there yet to see what they really have, but is worth a try.

[Me813]

There is a place on Bush Blvd (about a 1/2 mile west of 56th Street) called PetMart. I've been going there for a few weeks now and they are very helpful with a nice variety of FW plants and fish.

[forddna]

I've been to PetMart several times for dog food. I will have to go back and look at their fish and such!

[RTC 307]

Originally Posted by thirston

How is Coral Reef Aquariums off of Armenia Ave? Has anyone been there? Feel free to PM if you don't want to publicly rate. I'd love to hear about your experiences there.

I bought a few plants from there and they seem to be alright. but last time i went back it looked horrible. they had potted plants that didn't even have plants in them. a lot of there swords leaves were melted and had holes in them. very easy to see that they were not well looked after.
I recently visited Marine Warehouse on Jan 2 08 and they had taken out all the plants in there tank and got in a huge order of new plants. they just had the potted plants in the tank. they have not put the bunch plants in yet when i was there. everything was very nicely organized. and all there plants are in perfect health. i would go and check it out soon to get the best buys.

[Church]

^ Yeah as far as the typical LFS goes, Marine Warehouse is still the best place to go to for plants. I'm still waiting for a day off from work where I can visit Everglades (aquaticplantdepot.com), because they have crappy hours which absolutely do NOT coincide with my own work schedule. So I have to take a personal day or a floating holiday in order to visit them. I plan on doing that soon, because they have plenty of WONDERFUL plants according to their website, and they are fractions of the prices you find in the local fish stores!

[forddna]

I bought up a bunch of the plants Steve took out. That's funny..we were probably there about an hour apart!