Artistic Aquariums, Inc — Attraction in Chandler

Artistic Aquariums was my go to store for fish. They were knowledgeable and always friendly. Up until recently, we had a major problem and will never return. We have been coming here for almost 3 years now with no issues. We bought 4 new fish on the first weekend in April. Two days later the 4 fish we bought all had symptoms of ich. Within hours all 4 died. The next morning all of my fish (who some I have had for 2 to 3 years) had ich spots. We went down to the store and were sold Nox Ich and told it would cure the problem. No sympathy from any of the staff (as you know, ich is not something that just appears, its has to be introduced to your tank/environment in some way, in our case, ours was introduced to our already established/healthy tank from the infected fish we bought from this store). We used the medication as directed. 1 drop per gallon, per day, on day 3 do a half water change. Two more dead fish (who we have had for easily a year). We called the store and spoke to Chris, who was helpful but again, no sympathy for our now extremely ill tank caused by their product. He told us they could control ich and if the fish they sold us had it, it must have been dormant until we took it home. He suggested we continue the medication. We have continued the medication as directed. We currently have 2 fish left now out of 20. One is a pleco I have had for 3 years, that is now covered in ich. I understand things happen, and maybe they didn't know their fish were sick in the first place, that's not what is frustrating. What is frustrating is that none of the staff or ownership showed any sympathy after their product infected our healthy/established tank. Fish we have had for years and loved are now dead thanks to a new fish we bought from here. Even some sympathy or offer of a discount on new fish after our tank has been DESTROYED by this store would have been nice.

Update, all the fish have now died and I have emailed the owner. Was floored by his response, which I have attached in a photo. To clarify, this is not a nasty review. This is sheer and honest truth from a consumer regarding a product sold by you, the seller. Not a single thing it in was nasty or in any way intended this way. This is not "blasting" you. This is warning your consumers of an issue I experienced with you the seller and your goods and services provided. Which is exactly what a "google review" is for. To express your concern or satisfaction with a good/service that was provided, as a consumer. Regarding posting this before speaking with the owner, I shouldnt have to. I went down there twice to get advice from his trained and hired staff. Once was with the store manager. I then called three separate times, and spoke with the manager again...

Great store with amazing staff. All employees are friendly and very knowledgeable. All corals and fish are very healthy. I have had corals and fish from them for years and they are all still alive and thriving.

Julia Werb, you are giving an amazing store a bad review because you want a private business to enforce rules that you believe, but the owners, employees, a majority of their customers, and many doctors know to not work? Your health issues are your responsibility and no one else’s. I’m sorry that you have an irrational fear of something that is known to not be as bad as you are trying to make it out to be, but you shouldn’t be leaving a bad review of a store and potentially putting employees out of work and their families into a bad financial situation. With that being said, if you do not feel safe going into a store for that reason, you should just stay home. There are plenty of online retailers that sell all the fish supplies, equipment, and livestock that you may want and need. I hope with all the information that has come to light and been proven true, as well as all the false narratives that you have been trying to push makes you feel horrible about leaving such an undeserved bad review of a great store. This last paragraph is also directed to the others that have given bad reviews over their PERSONAL BELIEFS. I have worked everyday since this "global pandemic" has started, myself and almost everyone of the 6,000+ people that work on the site have not gotten sick at all. If you want to give a poor review on customer service, livestock, or equipment I would understand, but giving a poor review based on a privately owned business not believing the same things as you is very shameful and shows a lot about your character. Artistic Aquariums and just about every other business will be doing great by not having selfish customers like you guys shopping in...

As far as the shop and staff it is a great place. Very clean and everyone in the place knows what they are talking about. I really liked my experience with them when I first went in to get some new members of my clean up crew. I returned a week or so later to get fish because they had some that I have had a hard time finding elsewhere and because they had a sale.

When I got home as I was floating the bags I saw that the Royal Gramma was missing some scales that it had prior to bagging in the store. I read up and figured that he would recover in my qt if I kept him comfortable and fed. I put the new fish in my quarantine to observe them and let them de-stress as I always do. Within the first 24 hours my Tiger Goby was floating upside down, dead as could be, no damage to him, just... dead. I freaked out and retested everything to make sure the water was ok. All was well with the tank, no idea what happened. 3 days later I lost the Royal Gramma, he just didn't make the recovery after being damaged (I guess during the bagging at the store). My blenny is perfectly fine and hasn't shown issues at all which if there was a problem with my QT I think he would have passed/struggled as well. I'm super disappointed with this experience because I like the shop a lot but losing $60 worth of fish without reason within 3 days isn't what I want to do in an already expensive hobby. Think I will stick with the shop where I've got my other 6 fish as none of them have had any issues.

Edit: In response to my acclimation process it is pretty standard. Float bag for 15-20 min for temp acclimation, place fish in store water in bucket, drip acclimate at 4 drops per second for 30-45 minutes. QT water was pulled straight from the DT so held the same properties as the drip including temp. Same thing I've done with all my other fish and none have had a problem....