Exotic Fish & Pets — Local services in Muhlenberg Township

I want so badly to give this place more stars, but I can't. Here is why: #1 When I went in to purchase fish, there was a little banjo catfish laying at the bottom of one of the tanks. And I mean, little, like baby little. It was struggling to breathe, so I pointed it out to one of the employees. He came over, stuck his hand in the tank, pulled out the catfish and threw it on the floor. THE FLOOR. That's disgusting to do with a little life.While scooping fish out, he also smashed one of the fish. #2 I decided to purchase some red cherry shrimp. They were looking nice and vibrant. Some of them looked to be buried. I asked if there were any buried (meaning has eggs), that I'd like them. I got home, and one of the shrimp had what looked like something kinda green under its tail. I thought, weird looking eggs. I waited for them to hatch.... And they just didn't. In fact, it started looking weird like spores. I looked it up and it was green fungus, aka, cladogonium! It will kill the shrimp if you can't get it under control and potentially kill your others if they're susceptible. I pulled her out and started salt dipping and treating with a fungicide. She lived alone in a little tank for weeks while I treated her. She started to look better... There was none left, so stopped treatment. Wrong. It came back. I tried to get rid of it again .. it came back again. Then two shrimp had it. I lost them both. #3 in the process of purchasing the cherry shrimp, there was some kind of hairy algae in the bag. When I scooped out the shrimp for release, a tiny bit went with them. And I mean miniscule. I never dealt with it before and didn't know what it was. I have now been battling hair algae for months. MONTHS. I can't seem to eradicate it no matter what I do. I've had to rip up my entire aquarium trying to get it all, and somehow I never do. Everytime I look in my tank, I see more wrapped around my plants and even in my substrate. I am SO OVER THIS #4 I purchased ember tetras, neons and gold neons. Everytime I'd get home.. one was dead in the bag before I even could put it in the tank. Now I know that neons are wacky little sensitive fish, but this was ridiculous. I'd take it back, and it would happen again..... And again. The ember tetras looked a bit funny. Then one started EATING the other one. I took Jaws and the injured fish back to the store. They put them in their tank and I received no refund. This was just a couple days past purchase. And within a few minutes, they both looked terrible. I can't imagine they made it :( meanwhile, three of the ember tetras at my house still looked bad. They had some kind of bacteria or something. I took them along as well in hopes they could tell me what it was. They tested my water and my water was perfect. The fish just don't seem to be very healthy or hardy. I treated with Pimafix and Melafix in hopes to cure them (I couldn't use anything else since I had shrimp). It didn't work. I did a massive water change and tried the next thing. I then had most of them die off. The cherry shrimp died too.

I went to Petco which I did not want to do and to my surprise, they had ember tetras. I purchased a small school of them as well as more neon tetras. All my fish are now doing great. They are happy and the embers are even breeding! So I have all of these little adorable red fish fry swimming around in the back of my tank.

And I'm STILL battling this hair algae. I'm beyond frustrated with it and don't know what else to do to get rid of it. I've tried everything short of emptying the entire tank which I am close to doing. It's in the water, so even when I think I got it all, surprise! There's more!

The manager I worked with was a very nice man. I just wish the outcome of ALL of this was different and I could write a positive review. But I have no fish or shrimp even left from their store, the fungus wiped out my entire colony of female cherry shrimp, and I’m still battling hair algae. And when I think about their store, I just think about the little banjo catfish that was thrown on the...

My mom and I went to get a present for my dad and saw a beautiful clown triggerfish. It was kinda hiding so we asked if he was ok and the one guy there said "yes he's fine, we just got him today though so he's adjusting" (Most places require a 14 day wait before selling a fish). So we asked to get him but asked about a return policy in case he was in fact not fine. When we asked to get him the employee went to another and said "they want the trigger" and the other employee whispered something back to him while putting a lot of medicine into his bag. 2 days after we took him home, he was almost white and barely moving. I called the store to bring him back and they said to bring him and a sample of water back for a refund. We did so and they tried to tell us our nitrates or nitrites were too high (they couldnt decide which one they were testing for). Our 150 gallon tank had only been running for a month with only 2 fish in it. My dad (who had been running different tanks longer than the employee was alive) ran the same tests and all came up 0 so we knew they were wrong or trying to scam us. I argued for the refund they said we could have and after finally being able to speak to the owner we got store credit only. We tried going back again about a week later and got a volitan lionfish and a mimic tang (for 2 different tanks). The day after we brought home the lionfish he died. We called and asked about another refund and they asked for the same procedure. We took a sample of water and the dead fish back. They tested our water for ammonia and nitrate which we did before leaving the house and took pics of our tests (ammonia came up 0 and nitrate came up as 5- maximum healthy levels is 10). When they tested it, they used their FINGER as the cap when mixing the ammonia test and got a level of 60. My dad corrected him and said to use the actual lid and not his finger. When doing the test correctly, twice, the employee got the same level as my dad- 5- but still said the levels were too high because the original one was high. They refused a refund or the option to talk to the owner. Now today (the day after going to drop off our dead liongish) our mimic tang died. All of our tanks are clean, the fish are fed and the fish we got from other places are thriving. The only fish we've had die are from this store. One of the other fish we got from them that hasnt died has a large spot of ich on his eye that we have been treating (in a separate tank from the others). They clearly dont know what they are doing and will sell you any fish no matter how new or sick to make money. Will not be buying anything from them ever again. Losing fish is very upsetting and we will not keep buying fish from a place we know will only give us that outcome. If there was a zero stars option I wouldve...

🐠🐠🐠🐠Can’t figure out how to delete this so update.... Joel you are awesome and I appreciate you taking the time out to talk to me and fix the situation!! You went above and beyond and for that I am grateful🐠🐠🐠

I was in a week ago and the staff was very pleasant, after walking around for about 30 minutes I decided to buy an axolotl, not knowing anything about them I asked the man working a ton of questions, housing, feeding, general care. He told me that they can have a sand bottom or clear bottom, to feed it blood worms and that the most important part is keeping the temperature below 70 degrees. I came home with the axolotl set the tank up using water that had been cycling for over 4 months, I went with the sand bottom and everything was fine took some proud owner photos and posted them in an aquatics group Thw next day I had comments saying that he is to little for sand, that he should be eating cut up red wigglers and blood worms should only be a treat. As soon as I got home I put him in different water drained the tank and took all the sand out. I thought everything was gonna be ok until I noticed he wasn’t eating or pooping, my only guess is that he ate the sand and was now suffering from am impaction. I went to my axolotl group asking for help they all suggested fridging him in hopes it would help pass the sand, it did not and he passed away.

Today my daughter and I went back to the store bought one of the full grown axolotl and hoping for the best. This time however the 2 ladies that were working possible overwhelmed but they were pretty rude and not as helpful. If offered a discount for the one that I lost in less then a week I would of walked out with 2 of them, but the man I spoke with prior to my visit said that it was up to the owner if he gives any discounts on the axolotl. If I would have had the same service as I did the 1st week and had better information on my axolotl and it was still alive I would have...