The Sixth Avenue Experience or My New Fish

[fishstixs05]

A group crowds around the closed aquarium doors. The front of the store is a flower/plant stall, and the crowds leans in amongst the bamboo and orchids. They tense, each one with a shopping basket gripped tightly in their hands. Suddenly, the doors swing open, and like a tidal wave, everyone swarms into this tiny aquarium store in San Francisco. Why would so many people want to at such a small store on one day right when it opened? Two words, Wholesale Sunday.

If you have read my post "San Francisco Anyone" in the Lounge or "What to do" in the Saltwater&Reef, you saw I was in Berkeley this weekend, and went to SF on Saturday to check out a store called sixth avenue aquarium. Very cool, I would have taken pictures but they werent allowed. Anyway, they have a wholesale sale on Sunday where a fish farm comes in with prepackaged fish for sale at wholesale prices.

So, I went there today at 10:00, right before they open. I was the second person in there The entire saltwater fish section, a5x10 foot vat about 3 feet tall separated into plexi sections, was covered with bags of fish. They had things such as percula and clarkii clowns, 4 in a bag for $12 and pink skunk and Cinnamon clowns 4 for $20. They also had snowflake moray($8), clown triggers (8) ribbon eels (25) and a ton of other stuff.

The fish that I got were: A maroon clown (for my tank with another maroon) for $8, A scissortail goby ($4), a lawnmower blenny ($9), a Rusty Angelfish ($9), and a Wheeler's Shrimp Goby ($9). The fish besides the maroon are in my 35 gallon hexagon tank, and are all doing great. Pictures will be coming soon. Please, post any tips you have on these fish from past experiences. TIA!

 

[fishstixs05]

8) =8, it just reads them as a cool face.

 

[fishstixs05]

Here is the mower blenny

 

[greenfish]

How did the fish do in the trip from San Francisco to El Dorado Hills? That's a pretty long drive. You do anything special for them or did they just make the ride in their baggies?

Do they do the sale every Sunday? Any cool/cheap freshwater stuff there?

 

[fishstixs05]

They did fine on the trip, the bags have pure oxygen in them, and the fish were fine. As for the freshwater fish, they had some great deals, and I would have got some if I had more money They had stuff like neons and tiger barbs 20 for 5 bucks, and white cloud feeders 100 for 5 bucks. They had a wide range of discus, malawi cichlids, and other good deals, like 4 clown loaches for 10 bucks.
P.S. how to i put image links on my post.

 

[julicat]

I live by the Sixth/Clement Aquarium and go there all the time. Never been on Wholesale Sunday, though. They are less expensive in all respects compared to the other fish stores I've been to in the City.

What was very striking for me is the difference in prices between them and Petco. My friend went to Petco when we were setting up a tank in her house. I suppose many people in smaller towns go to Petcos 'cause that's the only choice for fish and supplies. So I happened in the Petco at 16th and Potrero a month ago interested to see how a huge chain store presented their fish, and hoping that because it was so large, Petco would have really cheap prices on everything.

I was so so so wrong! Fish were notably more expensive. Cat litter was more expensive. And fish supplies were way way etc more expensive. Seems that Petco applies the principal of "where the hell else are the 'consumers' going to buy pet supplies" without taking into account their store is in a city with many, many other options. I priced basic things like filters for small tanks (e.g. mine) and bottles of water conditioner...6th Ave has much better prices on everything.

When I looked on some of the mail order fish stores refered to on aa.com site, I noticed the fish were shockingly expensive. And I was only looking at fairly common fw species.

So, fishstix05, how did you like the neighborhood?

 

[bungle]

So, fishstix05, how did you like the neighborhood?

Is that a bit of sarcasm, julicat? SF is ahead of Oakland in homicides so far this year!

I've heard a lot about this LFS, but haven't made it out there yet. Sounds like a Sunday may be the day to do it!

 

[fishstixs05]

The neighborhood was nice . What beat that store though was one called ocean's Aguarium, which ironically had no marine fish. This place was a ratty old dump that looked liked someones garage who had too many aquariums. Half were filled with guppies, different varieties all breeding in all the tanks, and some Tangayika Cichlids, of course breeding like nuts. The thing was, this place had no prices, so you had to go up and ask for the price for every fish I was interested in. Most likely they did it so they can raise the prices on tourists like me without me finding out . The prices were pretty bad too, like 6 bucks a piece for guppies. The only good price was $12 a pair for killies, but I didnt get them.
As for hiomicide, there were three drive by shooting the night I was there. :|
P.S. Again, what do I do to attach a link to a picture. It says they must be 100kg, but that is too small for anyone to see!

 

[greenfish]

Hey I noticed you were still having trouble posting images. I am new to this site so I am not sure but I think linking with the img needs to be a fully qualified web path ie http://blahblahblahblah/P6270672.JPG. If you don't have a website to host your images then you have to conform to the website restrictions and use the attachements.

PS: Someone with more experience with this site can feel free to elaborate on this or correct me if I am wrong.

 

[julicat]

Was not being sarcastic re the neighborhood - how might my question seem sarcastic? I love this neighborhood, I live less than a block from the Clement Street aquarium.

There are a number of fish stores in the city, but there are far fewer than when I was young...this is sad.

One thing I DON'T like about Clement Street Aquarium: they rarely have any kind of variety of corydoras.

Back to work!

 

[bungle]

Was not being sarcastic re the neighborhood - how might my question seem sarcastic?

Don't worry, I didn't detect any sarcasm, was just curious. I live in Oakland, and the local news makes SF out to be a warzone these days.

Back to work!

Me too

 

[fishstixs05]

It sucked getting out of that place. I planned it on the WRONG weekend. It was a gay pride parade there on Sunday, and it was packed. We drove down street just to see huge crowds coming at, so a couple of bask allies and tiny street got us out of there. The cars were double parked on the street, and everyone was running around. Not the greastest timeto try and rush fish home.

 

[medge00]

I loved that neighborhood last i was there. great atmosphere. glad to hear you had a good experience. Its so crowded and crazy there, I was sure about buying fish last I was there. I did notice they had some major not recommend fish (parrot fish, moorish idol) which bummed me a little. Its so different from any other lfs i've been too. Everyone should experience it!

 

[fishstixs05]

I didnt realize there were so many people from CA here, guess I know who to buy stuff from for cheap shipping or pickup

 

[steve-s]

Again, what do I do to attach a link to a picture. It says they must be 100kg, but that is too small for anyone to see!

Your gallery will allow pics as large as 250 kb. You can post it there and then link to it. 100 kb is not too small for viewing as long as the pic quality is high to begin with.

When using an image editor, first reduce the pixel size to 640x480. That in itself reduces the file size a fair amount. From there if necessary you can crop out some extra pixels. Most types of software also allow you to reduce file size at time of saving or allows you to export for web purposes.

Cheers
Steve

 

[fishstixs05]

Thanks, I am hoping to post some pics soon, but I am having trouble with my computer, not the web site.

 

[fishstixs05]

Okay, I am trying again with the pics.

 

[fishstixs05]

oops, sorry about that . Here are some more

 

[fishstixs05]

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[fishstixs05]

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