Cinci shops overview

[jake]

 Got to go down to cinci to check out a few stores with a buddy today  the good and bad


Monfort:

 Old school substance not flash. Seemed to have a large selection of corals frag and colonies all at resonable prices. One super nice display tank. Lots of nice decent fish at nice prices. They also had some of the dark orange sponge covered florida rock ,but I didn't get the price. Well worth the trip.


Wet Pets:

 A bit smaller than Monfort , less selection and borderline insane pricing. Who pays $70 and $80 for mushroom rocks and fingerleathers right? They had one sharp blasto ,but to be honest I was affraid to ask the price for fear I'd go into shock. IMO not worth the time

Aquatics and Exotics:

  Nice store they have a couple of at least 4' sharks in a huge tank in the back. Lots of nice tonga branch.$7.99lb ,but worth it IMO if your looking for a few nice branches. More than a few nice corals and prices that were with in reason.


Verdict says its worth the time just to hit the 2 if its not to far for you to venture,but wet pets was pretty much a waste of time.
 

[lazylivin]

Nice post, Thank you

[jake]

NP. I figured if I was gonna drive an hr that I might as well save people some second guessing the trip. Especially if they are going from further away.

[verper]

Your pretty much spot on.  Nothing has changed with those shops since I've been in the hobby.  Only thing to remember with Wet Pets is the owner will cut a deal for cash and volume buying.  Don't know why he doesn't just give a good price to begin with as he scares many people away with the Aquarium Adventure pricing.

[jake]

I'm already thinking when I can take the family. Gives us something to do together ya know. I still think we have a better selection of shops ,but monfort suprised me a bit.

[verper]

I still think we have a better selection of shops

Shhhhh...... don't tell them that!  They started raising prices right after your post!   

[rayk]

The reason he cuts a good price for cash is two fold.  First, there is a charge per transaction and a fee that the retailer pays to the credit card company.  It can be 1% to 3%.  I usually try to pay with my USAA Mastercard which has a lower rate.  I leave my Discover card for Home Depot and Lowes, cause it has a higher rate.  The second problem with credit cards is that the retailer doesn't get the cash transfered to him right away, and the person can file a dispute with the credit card company that the retailer may have to deal with, and potentially not get money at all.  My dad's golf shop was victim of this quite a bit, and I imagine aquarium and livestock is worse.  He'd cut a great deal on a set up clubs and the guy would whip out his American Express card (used to be the worst, but not sure anymore), so his 10% margin would turn to 7% just like that.  Also, he'd have folks use some clubs for the weekend and not hit the ball any better, and want to return them.  Of course he couldn't take them back, so they'd file a claim with the credit card company.  Not sure my dad lost any money, but I know completing and faxing those dispute forms was a pain in the arse.

- Rayk

[Arcade_Guy]

i live apparently south from most of you lol

monfort is the closest place to me... i pretty much rely on them for most of my shopping, with the exception of a pre-planned trip up to the dayton area.

there is another place, in west chester/sharonville on US-42 that is half way decent. They have like a handful of corals, i wouldn't buy any from there, but the fish are decent and fairly priced.. It's called "All About Pets". I bought my mom a puffer for xmas from there, and I bought a dragon goby from them. Nice people and the fish doing great so far.

I am totally jealous of all you northerners for your coral shops up there tho.

agreed with jake on wet pets tho, i wont go back...

[cloran]

Man, u guys are lucky...I have to drive and hour to ge ANYTHING salt related other then the usual fish at insane prices.

[apelaston]

Ditto. i am goin to cinci for 3 days at the end of the month and plan on doin some afterwedding shopping lol for myself.

[jeblin]

"All About Pets" has a lot of used equipment as well....I believe the owners name is Dave. When my stock pump died on my Eclipse 6 they were recommended as the only fairly local place that might have it in stock. When I called and talked to Dave, he put me on hold and went to the "backroom" to look. They had one and it was cheaper than online. The "backroom" is an adventure in itself....if you ever get over to it, take a look...mainly storage...the employees don't know where anything is back there...but Dave does

I've never been over to Montfort, but I've only heard good things about them...I would say that Wet Pets is the Cincinnati equivalent to Dayton's Gerbers (atleast the old Gerbers). There's another shop that used to be very good, but I've heard they've declined recently and thats the House of Tropicals (if I remember it correctly).

[lightningfront]

Ya, I went down to House of Tropicals last weeek. I wouldn't recommend it, nasty tanks and not much salt stuff mostly fresh water.

[cloran]

wheres this all about pets at?

[Arcade_Guy]

on US-42(aka cincinnati-columbus rd, aka reading rd) in sharonville (very close to west chester)

here's a google map of it

[lightningfront]

I'm cursed, I live 2 minutes from Monfort. I'm in there at least 3 or 4 times a week.

[Arcade_Guy]

lol you call that cursed?

cursed is having to wait weeks to hit the "LFS" a half hour+ away and instead of a frag or a fish here or there, it all builds up and i spend hundreds every trip. lol

ok maybe not hundreds plural, but still. if i went every other day like you i probably wouldnt spend as much...  i sit around and research all this stuff and by the time i get to go to the store it's like xmas morning or something.

 you could practically throw a rock from your house and hit monfort. you suck

[jake]

Ya like he if gave you guys gerbers can we have monforts

[Revaltion131]

Gerber's has been improving, there were no dead fish last time I was there.  For the most part, everything was clean.  At least as opposed to Jack's, they do have employees that actually know their stuff, at least partially.  The Jack's by my work has this beautiful Halichoeres wrasse of some sort in and I was asking about it when I went for fish food.  It was a "Green Parrot Wrasse", a Thalossoma species, and no, it does not sleep in the sand, it floats near the surface.  They also think that CC stars are reef-safe.     If they still have the little guy in two weeks, which I'm sure they won't, I'll have to go pick it up.

[micki]

I too have heard some "good" things about Gerbers lately. 

[kattz]

The last time I was in Gerber's (two weeks ago), the livestock looked healthy and there was a much larger amount of variety to choose from versus a year ago.

Kev

[jake]

Negative. There fish are over priced there corals are way over priced. It doesn't matter how well it is kept if they want a kidney for a coral. IMO the only people that go there are people that dont know about NDR,AQUA ETC and marine solutions.

[JSLeedy]

They have a new manager I understand.  So they should be improving.  They are still over priced and they still dose all their fish tanks with copper.  Be carful getting fish there you don't want that water in your reef.  Their fish are also not very hardy.  I personaly wouldn't recommend going there.  YOu will get much healthier specimans at a much better price at Aquarium Ect. and NDR.   Just my opinion.  Not that it's worth much.

[MechanicalEngineer]

Off topic a touch, but AdvancedAquarist had a very interesting article on the effects of copper on orchid dottybacks and flame angelfish.  Highly recommended.  I never knew that copper could affect development and life of some fish to that extent before (I know some fish can't take it at all tho.)

[Revaltion131]

I agree that just about everything is overpriced.  However, they get "unknown" Fairy Wrasses in from time to time that are usually terminal males for ~$50.

[micki]

I haven't been there, but one of our sponsors told me who the new manager is and I know him.  In fact I purchased my first reef set up from him 5 years ago.  The sponsor is the one that had nice things to say about the store (how they are improving things etc.) we didn't talk about prices.  I'm fine to use our sponsors, but I thought it was very commendable of our sponsor to share a positive note about a competitor.