Aquarium Outfitters Carolina — Local services in Wake Forest

Being a frequent customer and quite frankly, a huge fan of Aquarium Outfitters, I'm both confused and saddened by the negative reviews that I've read here. Ever since I discovered this hidden gem, it's quickly and easily become not only my absolute go-to for aquarium supplies and healthy fish, but also for advice and guidance.

STAFF: These guys know their stuff and have always been friendly and helpful. Even with such a large collection of all different species of fish, they are always a source of interesting and valuable information. I'm a pretty big worrier when it comes to my fish being happy and they have always been attentive when I’m asking a million different questions about different species of fish, water quality, maintenance etc. The owner, Kurt (aka: “The Fish Guru”) definitely lives up to his name. If you have the chance, pick his brain about fish. You’ll leave with lots of knowledge (and probably with a few big laughs) under your belt. He’s entertaining, friendly and is an expert in just about any aquarium. Such a great resource to have for any level of fish hobbyist.

STOCK: I've always had freshwater community tanks growing up, but never really had much of a variety because larger retail chain pet stores typically carry the same stock of fish species...all of the time. I can't even begin to tell you how excited me and my fiancé were when we walked through the front doors of the eclectic exterior building into what I can only describe as an aquatic candy store. SO MANY TANKS! And all teeming with beautiful and healthy fish. (I was also very pleasantly surprised to learn that each and every one of the tanks are INDIVIDUALLY filtered. For those of you who are seasoned fish hobbyists...you know how great this is. For those of you who are checking out AO because you want to get into the hobby, having individually filtered tanks for all of these fish is pretty impressive considering the amount of time and effort that it has to take to maintain them all. It’s also extremely important in the event that any fish have an illness (this does happen, guys) that it doesn’t spread to the other tanks. Anyway…back to their selection. They have so many different species and variations of species that I’ve never seen before. If you’re an experienced hobbyist and are looking for something new, this is the place!

After years of sticking to just freshwater community tanks, we decided to venture into the world of Cichlids. We wanted to make sure that we were doing everything right prior to stocking our new tank - everything from water quality to decor and fish selection. Not only did they pump us full of knowledge, they had everything in stock that we would need, walked us through the details and gave specifics about each product. They also have a pretty sizable selection of natural rocks and substrates for those of you who like a more natural feel to your aquariums. When we were finally ready, we got some pretty beautiful fish there!

Long story short (or short story, long?) I highly recommend Aquarium Outfitters to anyone in the Triangle area who is looking for more that just a “Pet Store.” 
You won’t be...

Never going back to this store. It may be rude, but I always go into a fish store acting as if I know nothing to see how helpful the staff is (I'd much rather go to a store that's helpful to people who are new to fish and aquariums and are happy to help than a store that could care less). The staff here seemed to care less. When I was there, me and my boyfriend were the only customers there and the two staff members were just going around cleaning and vacuuming tanks. So I figured yeah they're busy doing something but surely since there's no one else here they wouldn't mind helping just two people. Nope. Whether they realized it or not they came across with an attitude of 'I could care less can't you see I'm doing something'. We only saw them perk up when their friends walked in, which became a social hour rather than actually helping the customers right there wanting to buy stuff. I asked about the availability of a type of fish I wanted and was told they had everything else but that (even though it was recently posted on the website that they did have them). But that's fine, I'm aware someone could have came in before and got them but instead of just saying what else you have, a better show of excellent customer service that they say they have would have been to actually show where the other fish mentioned were. The other fish that I wanted in place of the original were just babies and when asked where they were the guy acted short like he couldn't believe I hadn't spotted them. On top of that I asked about a few plants I wanted and was answered with short responses all being about how the ones I wanted were expensive, hard to get and difficult to maintain which was completely false. And lastly the prices that are crudely handwritten on labels are not what they charge you. My boyfriend purchased 3 fish that were priced at about 5 dollars each and at the register was charged a total of about 22 dollars. And they did the same thing to me. One last thing, maybe the guy didn't realize or whatever, but if you're a girl don't go alone unless you're prepared to deal with more of the guy looking down than actual eye contact. Morale of the story, they may have an array of different fish you can't find in many places, but listen to the other negative reviews, go somewhere else or just buy online from companies that know what they're doing and actually have great customer service :)

Side note: the other reviews about the smells of the store and conditions of the tanks, yeah it's...

As a long time hobbyist in this area I’ve watched many fantastic local fish stores go out of business, and I’m sad that this one is still up and running while the good ones have closed. First, when you walk into the store, you’re slammed with an overpowering smell of feces. The one star I’m giving this place is for the large variety of fish. That being said, very few of the tanks had labels, so if you’re not familiar with fish, you don’t know what you’re looking at, or how much it costs. Hardscape materials (the few that are there) are poor quality and very overpriced. There are some hamsters in the back who are obese and very neglected. The snakes he has never get their cages cleaned, (the same shed skin has been in the large pythons cage for almost a year now). Now we get to the owner. Sexist, sexist, sexist and RUDE. Here’s a direct quote as he was talking to a woman at checkout, “you’re pretty smart for a female”. I’ve been in here a few times and all the advice I hear him give to people about discus is very incorrect, as well as having very overpriced and poor quality discus. Lets just take a minute to talk about the dead fish everywhere on the floor. I get it, fish jump, it happens, however, there are dried up fish EVERYWHERE. I had my best friend with me and I reached into a box of (very overpriced) spider wood, and on one of the branches was a large dried up African cichlid who had clearly been there for awhile. We were repulsed! It wasn’t until then, that we began to notice all of the other dozens of fish dried up on the floor. This place has the potential to be great, but I don’t foresee that happening. The few other local fish stores are worth the drive to get to. I tried giving this place a chance, but I just can’t support it or the man who runs it. Abysmal.....

Edit: came into the store on 3/16/18 to get these pictures. All the poop and shed skin is still in the snakes cages making it over a year since they’ve been cleaned. Not to mention the plethora of dead fish. Once again, I questioned the workers on the discus and in addition to them giving the wrong names for the colors, they were...