My experience with Aquarium Arts

[joe bendel]

Just wanted to share my experience with Aquarium Arts.

One month ago, I talked to a sales rep there and told him i had a 6-7 inch lunar wrasse i wanted to trade in he was getting too big and starting to really push his weight around my tank. He was extremely healthy and very energetic. The sales rep told me he would give me half and that they would sell it for around 80 dollars. I am no math genius but i figured that at 40 dollars in store credit and confirmed that with the rep. A week later i brought my wrasse into the store and the rep recognized me and immediately took my wrasse and started acclimating him.......Then he wrote a store credit receipt for 20 dollars!!!!! What a rip off i reminded him of our conversation and he said well its 20 dollars thats all we are willing to do. Not wanting to subject the fish to more stress i walked out with 20 dollars store credit, I have had other bad situations in that store and i refuse to go there again not to mention i asked them one time about advice i got from Reef Central and he stated that reef central is a place where people really don't know what they are talking about that it is mainly newbies to the hobby! I wont shop there again!

 

[Garage1217]

Bummer man. I have had mixed experiences at AA. I will not go into them, but I feel your pain. I only take a visit now maybe twice a year at the most just to see what is new. Then again I think we have all had mixed experiences with every store in the valley.

And yeah... Sad that they view forum members as noobs. I have gotten the high and mighty treatment before in that store, again will not go into details as your post gets the point across. However you should have stood your ground. I learned long ago not to let people BS you. I would have made them bag my fish back up, gotten quite loud so other shoppers would know what is up. Then called around to other stores in the area to see what they would do. The fish traveled a ways to get to you, it can handle a short drive around town... you know... stretch his fins, see the sights!

I do find it funny in all my noob glory that my display fuge has more color than their whole coral section on the south wall *LOL* I think they must import from the Bland Seas, south of Brownsville... You know the place...... on the N.W. corner of boring & basic.

Good prices on fish & great fish selection. Will give them that. & on a normal day I am treated good at AA. If I am looking for a certain fish, I would definitely still stop in to take a look. In closing, they could definitely improve quite a bit, we all could improve a bit

 

[kcz712k]

Yea I agree on the treatment at AA. Every fish that I have bought from them I have had bad luck with. I feel that they really do not know who the customer is. As we all know everyone votes with their pocket book on where they decided to shop. Anyways I have heard that there is to be a new fish store opening at the old ABTR building.

 

[Mystik Koralz]

I like AA. They've improved on there customer service. There prices are okay. They do need to improve on coral selection but have decent selection of fish. Everyone has the right to an opinion, it was probably a newbee hire..

 

[joe bendel]

Greg?

 

[jerryz]

lol Isn't there a thread right around here where AAs "cheap prices" were being held up as a competitive advantage over the other stores

 

[joe bendel]

what do ya mean?

 

[kcz712k]

Greg is the person that I think this thread is talking about?

 

[joe bendel]

yep

 

[LoneRegister]

AA has been good to me so far...

 

[4218kris]

I went there awhile ago and a guy came in and said he didnt want a coral he had and greg (i believe kinda heavyset guy ) said he didnt want it either so i said id take it then he grabbed it up really quick and put it in the back of the store what a ................ I hate that store. only 2 people i ever liked there that where eager to help.

 

[azrednex]

I have had nothing but good experience with Aquarium Arts.
I have never had an issue with any of the staff.
I've bought many fish there and very rarely had problems.
There are very good deals in the coral section, you just have to look and ask.

 

[dream54ing]

funny, i had the exact same thing happen to me, but at a larger $$ amount.
though i didnt care much about the $$ (cause it was a fish that was given to me), it was the principle.

 

[coralreefer2110]

AA

AA

Having just moved here about a year ago I spent a lot of time in all of the stores in the valley just getting to know everyone.

I think it is important to distinguish between a bad store and a bad employee. I have had many positive experieces with the staff there but consistently poor treatment from the aformentioned individual.

Granted, a store is only as good as its employees in many ways but they have a great selection of fish at very reasonable prices. And ultimately we, as hobbyists, still need to know what we are capable of keeping and how to do it. Many of the staff there are very pleasant and know at least the basics of reefkeeping. (I don't know about you all, but I learn something almost every day...so I can't criticize others)

The coral selection is not all that stellar but then again no one is forcing us to buy them. If we don't buy, they'll get the hint.

I guess we just need to know to avoid the person most likely to cause us problems. I am always glad to have more stores than fewer and hope they can address the problem.

 

[0rbital]

Always had good experiences at AA but have not traded in fish there.

Jerryz we won't go into that again you spread plenty of misinformation about ATR to try justify their expensive prices in comparison to AA.

 

[AR_Clint]

I had the same experience there. I had a 4" Black Chromis that I took in. They took it, started acclimating it, and then gave me store credit for $2. Nice, huh. Haven't gone back since.

 

[robot2222]

i have never been there , but now that i have read this i never will go there.

 

[Philwd]

It's been a while since I was in AA. I know the owner doesn't like RC. His perogative. Stems from back when you couldn't get Tunze. He is an authorized dealer and folks here bought up pumps to sell across the country. They spent quite a bit of time with me when I was researching tanks. I always did appreciate that. Before Greg's time.

On the fish front well let's just say not only did they refuse several opportunities to special order business from me every fish I did end up getting had some disease or parasite and died. The mandarins ended up wiping out almost all my fish (single biggest reason wife turned against the tank). None of the fish I bought at ATR or AT died from disease or parasites. As I said before ATR special ordered me several wrasses at or below on line prices.

Do you get what you pay for? Sometimes. I'm not going to say all of ATR's fish are parasite free. But for me 4 of 4 AA fish diseased. 11 of 11 from ATR and 3 of 3 from AT disease free. Actually a better track record than I got from Live Aquaria.

 

[gillies]

I don't know... I've been frequenting the area fish stores since about 1985 and have known Kingsly since that time. AA is okay. Sometimes I really like it there; some times I leave kinda' ****ed off. Thing is - I can say the same thing about every other LFS in metro Phoenix, including a couple FRAG swaps I've attended. I just get over it. Why limit yourself?

 

[FLIPxSIDE]

LOL. Oh lordy I was just discussing this with my buddy nic on how unhappy mr. greg the so called manager of the store is and how he bitterly treats people like there idiots. All the chicks that work there are super helpful and way cool. Even the hippie new guy with the long hair, well its short now, but yall seen him, hes cool as hell too. Greg is a hatemongerer and has no regard for treating people like human beings, let alone paying customers. That guys a douche.