Good fish stores in Nebraska

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

Megalofyia

Aquarium Advice Freak
Joined
Jul 1, 2003
Messages
290
Location
Nebraska
Omaha
Aqua Pets Located on 108th and Maple It doesn't have a huge selection but it does have a pretty large selection and they will order fish for you at no extra charge. It is a clean store and the guy who works there is ubber friendly and very knowledgable.


Bellevue Pet Center off of 370 and Galvin Road I haven't been here but I have been told that they have a great selection of fish and will order fish at no extra cost.

Please feel free to add stores in your area!
 
all we have for tanks right now is salt water but we make it up to omaha atleast once every two weeks if not weekly, aqua pets is our favorite, bellevue used to be great but seem to be slipping a little, another great store in omaha is pet world. down here in lincoln I would have to say the fish store is top notch barely trailing would be fish world either will take time to help you in any way they can.
 
In Lincoln:

My favorite LFS is The Fish Store, just north of 48th and Vine. It's certainly not the biggest shop but they seem to handle their fish well and stock some unusual specimens from time to time.

Someone mentioned Fish World -- is that the one on Cotner and A in the Piedmont shops? I made my first, and last, visit there a couple weeks ago. They do have some unusual specimens too, but the tanks were poorly kept. I saw several tanks of Ich (oh yeah, there was fish in those tanks, too), dead fish, suffering fish, etc. They did have Bleeding Heart Tetras which I haven't seen for awhile.

The south Petco location, 56th and Hwy 2, is kept up nicely. The other location on O Street... not so much.

Petsmart has a decent selection and is kept up well too. I go there mostly for aquatic supplies more than I do fish.

There's a Pet Ark (or something like that) on 27th and Superior. TERRIBLE store. Every animal in there - fish, cats, birds especially - seem sick and don't present well.

I'll have to check out Aqua Pets next time I'm in Omaha.
 
I don't like the petco on Dodge in Omaha.. and since the fish store I do like is miles and miles away I find I now frequent petsmart for my fish needs.
 
Based on the enthusiastic advice here, I am making a special trip to Omaha tomorrow to visit Aqua Pets. I may also drop by the Bellevue Pet Center since Bellevue is where I grew up -- I'm feeling nostalgic and want to check out all my old stomping grounds :)
 
Aqua pets i did like quite a bit .. it's just so far away.. PetOmine sucks like no other.. and it's in a shady part of town..
 
As stated, I visited Aqua Pets today. Truth be told, I was not impressed at all, at least in the freshwater department. They do have a good selection of saltwater fish. I also felt they were very lacking in the aquatic supplies. No Fluval media? The whole place had a very disorganized, or organized chaos, feel to it.

I did not get down to Bellevue.

Based on what I saw, if you like Aqua Pets you are going to LOVE The Fish Store in Lincoln. Same type of super-knowledgeable people, many more supplies, a similar selection of saltwater fishes, and more freshwater fish. And they tend to have unusual/rare specimens.
 
i bought a Koran Angel from The Fish Store and it got Ich pretty much the day after i bought it. Not for sure if he got infected before or after i bought him but i put him in a qt tank and administered hypo. He ended up dieing cause this guardian heater i bought from Petco went bizerk and cooked him to death. But the suspicion remains that the fish may have been infested with c. irritans already before i purchased it. The one other thing i don't like so much about the fish store is a few of the people that work there are rude at times. I've asked a question before and recieved a reponse that made me not want to ask another question. Some of those guys aren't the friendliest and seemed to be quite annoyed with inquisitive customers. Aside from the crammed space in there, i don't have any other problems with them. Unfortunatly, Lincoln really doesn't have any other real SW fish stores so The Fish Store sort of has the corner on the market.

I do most of my supply shopping online. Sometimes i'll get something from the lfs though. Just depends. I need to check out aqua pets in omaha though.
 
Yes, the Fish Store has really gone downhill in the last year. Almost all the tanks are Ich-ridden, and even if they do not look like it, consider that the staff there just use the same nets in multiple tanks. And yes, the help there has become total CRAP. There's one guy, probably in his 30s, that really knows his stuff and is very helpful. I often wonder if he is the owner. He is usually there on weekdays in the early hours. Evenings and weekends are just terrible, though -- bunch of punk kids who act like they don't have the time of day for you and are disrespectful. I remember one guy was sitting on the counter reading magazines, and he didn't even move when another guy was ringing up my total.

Conversely, Fish World (Cotner) has become quite excellent. I haven't seen any Ich in there for a long time. It's a nice, quiet store with very helpful staff. I'd go there any day before stepping foot in Fish Store now.
 
werd, Fish World seems to try harder and they have better water quality. I bought my percs from there. I just wish he'd make the store a bit more up-to-date and have a bigger SW selection. He really doesn't have much for SW stuff.
 
I still shop for various snails, and crabs at Fish Store, simply because they have a selection. Otherwise, I stick to Fish World. They give me store credit for fish and low light plants, and chaeto....Fish Store won't even take my plants for FREE, let alone store credit.
The 30'ish guy at fish store is the owner, and does know his stuff. Heaven help you if you walk in, and only attractive girls are working. They're girlfriends to the other employees, and know as much about fish as I know about giving someone a perm. :roll:

Funny thing is, John the owner of Fish World, used to work at Fish Store many many many moons ago when the original owner ran Store.
 
I actually just purchased a blue crayfish from Fish Store. The owner was there, very helpful as always. But I would bet 80% of the fish tanks there have Ich.

I'm going to Fish World tonight sometime; haven't been there for about a month. They are the only place in Lincoln I have ever found Kuhli loaches that look like they're supposed to -- alternating black and orange stripes. It seems everywhere else can only get in the solid black Kuhlis.

You know what I like about Fish World? Their location is more... cozy. The place isn't crowded, plenty of parking, no hoards of cars to contend with when trying to leave.

Malkore, what sort of plants do you try to give up? I'm the world's worst aquascaper but love the look of live plants (I have some crypts and some cool plant I don't know the name of). I have one of those 75 gallon bowfront tanks. Advice always welcome. BTW, I took all the carbon out of my canister. :mrgreen:
 
Just back from Fish World. As usual, all the fish look great, no sign of disease anywhere.
Most of the stock was typical and I ended up not buying anything. They do have some Gold Rams, which I hardly ever see anywhere (online or otherwise), but at $10.99 each I had to pass for now. Loads of baby neon tetras for 79 cents each.
 
I usually bring in handfulls of mature java ferns to fish world, because I know they'll survive long enough to get purchased, adn that they should survive in the customers tank as well.


speaking of which, if you need/want java ferns, let me know. I have a 'wad' I need to get rid of. If you live in lincoln, I'll deliver (another excuse to ride my Ninja).

Just PM me if you want any.
 
Bellevue Pet Center is closed. I went up to Omaha yesterday to putt around and do whatever. I tried stopping by Aqua Pets but they were closed for MLK day. THen we found out that Bellevue Pet Center has closed their doors permanentally. Then we tried finding Paradise Pets but had difficulty finding it after stopping for directions. So I ended up not getting to any fish stores while i was up there but oh well.
 
Just looking through old threads and was wondering if anyone knew the price of live rock at fish world. Do they also sell live sand and base rock?
 
Does anyone know were to find the best selection of fish tank stands in omaha ne? I need one for a 29 gal.
 
just thought an update was in order there is a newish fish store in Lincoln on the south side around 11th and arapaho in indian village its a small store with a fair selection from time to time. I still like fish world and have not stepped in fish store 3 times in the past 4 years.
 
I'm in Omaha & it's a sad state of affairs here these days. A year or two ago Pet World in Millard had a husband/wife couple who managed the fish area & they did a wonderful job. The tanks were well-kept & the fish healthy. They had nice stock at reasonable prices ad were really developing a following.

They had awesome discus there, too. There's a BIG difference between discus with a little d and Discus with a big D. You can find discus in Omaha stores - but pricy & often low quality. Ever since they left, though....not so hot.

Honestly from what's left I probably go to Aqua Pets most often - and that's maybe every other month. And MANY of the 'fish geeks' I know in the area are in the same boat. That's one of the main reasons I started bringin fish in, quarentining them, & selling them myself.

As far as Lincoln goes - I've never really shopped there, but I have a buddy who likes The Fish Store quite a bit. I'd venture to say just based on what we (don't) have here - that Lincoln has to be better than Omaha.
 
Back
Top Bottom