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It is difficult giving firm advice on choosing a fish dealer: however if you buy fish from a bad dealer, you are at much greater risk of introducing a nasty disease or of having your new fish die.
All dealers will have good days, and bad days. If you visit a dealer just after they have cleaned out their tanks - the tanks will be clean! So to assess any dealer properly you need to do it over a period of time!
The best things to look for are
Do the fish look well-fed or are their bellies empty and their bodies wasted?
A good tank will have weeds and decorations in - but these impede the catching of the stock, so often stock tanks are unfurnished.
No assistant can know that correct answers to everything you may ask: it's more the level of care and interest that you need to monitor. I suppose this must mean that the smaller, owner-run businesses have an advantage here as the owner is likely to be very interested in the fiish and is likely to know about them. But these businesses often are the smaller ones who possibly won't have so much variety of stock.
If you visit a dealer as a response to visiting this page, please tell them where you found out about them!
Be warned however that the information on this page could be out of date. Dealers cgange staff: a bad manager leaves and someone who really cares replaces then. I do not, and cannot, run regular checks!
They have a good selection of tanks and accessories, although their showroom is not huge. However avoid buying fish, at all costs. Almost all visits here have showed many dead corpses, in all stages of decomposition, in many of the tanks. This is evidence that their care of the fish they sell is extremely poor and I am morally certain that a bad infection of my own tank with Fish TB was introduced with fish purchased at Water World!
18th September 2004: the fish section has recently been done up, and it may be that things are improving. There are far fewer dead fish now than of old.
When I bought fish there - fish from different tanks were placed in the same polythene bag: this can only increase their stress at a very stressful time. The assistant I spoke to saw nothing wrong with the practise - though I have not had any other dealer do this - all others have used separate bags.
Soham, Ely, Cambridgeshire.
Recently opened (early 2004), they have a large showroom with good stocks of accessories, tanks, pond gear and livestock, including lots of marine.
Their tanks always appear to be in good condition and dead fish are a rarity.
They also offer to beat any other price. Well worth a visit.
Seem to be a good dealer: their fish appear in good condition and they appear to be knowledgeable. When asked about the few fresh-dead fish in their tanks, I was told that they like to check about once per hour.
A good stock of accessories and a large marine section.
Situated in the same estate as Tesco's, I visited them on January 2nd 2004. They have only been started a few months so are still growing, but their stock appears healthy and well looked after - despite my visiting just after the holidays!
I saw no dead fish in their tanks and all looked quite lively.
Originally I wrote
Best avoided in my opinion. A visit here showed many dead copses, in all stages of decomposition, in many of their tanks. This is evidence that their care of the fish they sell is extremely poor and the fish are liable to be diseased. A couple of weeks later, another visit showed the tanks much cleaned up. It's not always easy to find a knowledgeable assistant!
17th October 2007
Since the above was written, I have visited Fordham several times, They have done a complete makeover, cleaning out and replenishing their tanks, so that now things do look a lot better!
I have also had them email me about the above comments, so I have to admit that Fordham have greatly improved. Whether the adverse comments above were instrumental in having them improve, I cannot say but the moral is that bad dealers need to be told about their problems!
One positive point about Fordham is that their prices are generally very good!
Many times I passed the level crossing at Brandon and saw a sign pointing to L Fysh - but when I detoured (on 27 Aug 2004) to visit them, I was quite astonished at the Alladin's cave that they have! They mainly deal in pond requirements, and have possibly the best stock (at good prices, to) of pond requirements in the area.
They also have an area of tanks for tropical fish - stock appears to be healthy and well looked after.
Probably the best fish dealer (if not the cheapest!) in the Cambridge area: their staff are interested, and appear quite knowledgeable. Their tanks always look clean and well cared for and dead fish in their tans are a rarity.
This site is far too slow to load, with too many graphics and too little information. The www address given by Huntingdon actually redirects to the group's home page, so try http://www.g-l.co.uk/home.php?ccode=hunt
WWW site is pretty uninformative: don't bother!
Seem to be a good dealer: their fish appear in good condition and they appear to be knowledgeable.
Onr of the oldest and longest running businesses near Cambridge. Throughout the times I have been aware of them there have ben many changes and reorganisations - so like lots of other non owner-run businesses their standards do vary depending on current staff.
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Last modified: Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:55:33 BST
Page first published 11th December 2002.
Page written and © by Richard Torrens