Byerly's Aquarium, 1472 West Fifth Avenue, Columbus Ohio. 614-486-7435. <byerlysaquarium.com>

I live closer to Toledo and will report on the aquarium stores in this area at a later date. I visited Byerlys in late January as a side trip to buying my 75g tank (on sale) at Jacks Aquarium & Pets in Hilliard. Wow! What a store! Every tank at Byerly's is a mini-eco system. The tanks are arranged nicely, from saltwater tanks along the right side wall, to the freshwater tank section, followed by the aggressive freshwater fish, followed by coldwater fish like goldfish. Cichlids had their own section. The saltwater section had huge tanks of live rock separate from the fish. Care is taken to keep peaceful community fish separate from even semi-agressive fish. Each tank had the appropriate plants, caves, or rocks as the lifestyle of the fish dictated. All the tanks were clean and well marked, the fish looked healthy and happy. One tank was off limits due to medicating the fish. The staff are extremely knowledgeable and not pushy at all. They will help as you need them, but otherwise leave you alone. They do not push products. I could have stayed there all day just gazing in the tanks. Byerly's is in a unique neighborhood type area of Columbus with lots of foot traffic, ethnic restaurants, barbershops, and other mini-stores. In the same complex as Byerlys is a brightly lit. cheerful independent bookstore. One could easily come here for the day and find something for the whole family to do or see. Unfortunately I did not check out Byerly's dry goods stock and prices. Their stands and tanks are pricey, as is usual with small independent stores. The fish prices compared well to Jacks; cichlids at $65.00 were about $5.00 more at Byerlys. I had not planned to buy any fish but I could not help myself; I bought 2 black skirt tetras ($1.98 ea) to add to the three I had at home. Due to our long drive the clerk double bagged the fish and they made the return trip just fine. I did not check to see if they sold planting medium like eco-complete. They did sell plenty of plants though. I drove 2.5 hours to get there and believe the drive was well worth it. Once the 75g is done cycling I plan on returning there for my fish. Their web page does not do the store justice, the pictures are rather dark. I would give Byerly's a 9.5/10 because of the tank/stand prices. If you are within three hours of Columbus Ohio I highly recommend a day trip to this store. :up:

I'll definitely have to check that store out. I love stores that take the time to decorate their tanks at LEAST a little bit. I know it's hard to catch fish when there are decorations everywhere, but you can put one or two and make the fish MUCH more interesting. If you go to a store where all there tanks are bare bottom with the blue background and overstocked, and then go to a store that puts different colored gravel, plants, different backgrounds and things like that, it's like you are in a different world. It gives me a much better idea of what the fish are going to look like when I get them home. We have a store like that here in Knoxville called The Aquarium. They have several display tanks they sell their plants out of with a wide variety of fish. They really do a good job on presenting their fish, whether it be freshwater or saltwater or even brackish.