All About Us

Why are Our Fish the Healthiest Fish in the Bay Area?

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One of the most common reasons people have bad experiences keeping fish is that they buy sick fish. Fish are shipped into stores from all over the world in all kinds of conditions. Many times they arrive stressed out from their travels and in bad shape.

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Albany Aquarium is the the only store in the bay area that separately quarantines all new fish arrivals before we make them available for purchase. We get them acclimated to their new home, feed them the best foods, and give them some much needed time to recover before we ever make them available for purchase.

Only when we are sure that they are strong and healthy do we send them out onto our main floor for our customers to purchase.

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What This Means for You?

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It means that you can be sure that the fish you buy from us are healthy and ready for their new home in your aquarium. You can bring your new healthy fish home without worrying that they will die from sickness or carry a disease that could infect your entire tank. You can be sure that we will set you up for success by only selling the best quality, healthiest fish possible.

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Largest Selection of Aquatic Plants

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Everyone's talking about natural aquariums these days. Natural looking, planted aquariums are nothing new to us. We love them and have been enthusiastically promoting them since we opened in 1973. We think that planted aquariums offer such a wonderful combination of gardening, landscaping, creative design, and pet ownership. To this end we offer the largest selection of aquatic plants in the Bay Area. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced hobbyist, we can help you pick the right plants and help you design a natural aquarium that will give you years of enjoyment.

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We Love to Help People of All Different Experience Levels

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From the brand new beginner to the experienced hobbyist, we are passionate about helping everyone who walks into our store experience the immense joy of the aquarium hobby. We make sure that everyone on our staff is properly trained with the knowledge to help even the most experienced aquarium hobbyist. At the same time, we love starting people new to the hobby in a way that's simple, successful, and sustainable. We are proud of how knowledgeable our staff is while at the same time making sure that they remain approachable and attentive to customers of all experience levels.

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A Sustainable Approach on Many Levels

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Being located in the San Francisco Bay Area, the world sustainable is almost a cliché. For us, sustainability is not just a catch-phrase or a recent gimmick. For the last 40 years we have championed sustainable fish keeping practices that honor the fish as living creatures not as commodities. This includes keeping planted aquariums, making sure that we teach our customers how to properly maintain their aquariums, and separately quarantining all of our incoming livestock to make sure the fish we sell are happy and healthy.

Our approach is not only sustainable for the fish and the environment, it is also sustainable for our customers. We are so proud to have customers that have been with us for decades. We are happy to have helped them find a way to practice the aquarium hobby in a way that brings them sustainable amounts of joy for years and years.

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We Give You the Whole Picture

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There is no shortage of information available online about the aquarium hobby. The challenge is not finding the information but making sense of it all. We have taken the time to sort out all the different approaches to the hobby. If you are confused by conflicting information that you are reading online, we can help you put the pieces of the puzzle together so that it all makes sense.

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Although we have clear ideas on the best ways to do things, we also take the time to listen to your ideas and to help you select an approach that best matches your unique goals.