Do i need a pet shop or can i mail order?

[bartman]

I live in a rural area and the local pet shop owner refuses to put in a salt tank to acomodate people in the area. She says its too much of a loss on her end. <shrugs> What i want to know is if i can mail order the live rock, live sand, fish, ect ect.... and not lose my backside in money. Does anyone else used mail order and been sucessfull? I am still deciding on a reef tank or salt fish only tank. I have had a fresh water tank for a while now and i have learned a lot from that. The fresh water fish dont have the WOW factor that salt does.

 

[thor]

i agree salt fish are better than fresh fish(LOL) but you can get fish from swf and ls and lr for sand you probably want a dsb and also plenty of lr
i myself have not ordered here but many peple have and they said its fine and mostly ok but im not them so i dont knowclick here for slang

 

[fshhub]

we have had a lot of luck with on line ordering, the fish we have only done a couple of times, because of the 24 hr shipping charges, but
if you have others in your area, pool your resources, because it is often the same price or very little difference to order 1 or 12 fish, just don't order 12 for your own system at once, also as mentioned, alot of online retailers do offer warranties(which may even be better thean the lfs anyhow)
lr and sand can definitely be ordered on line, lr is usually much cheaper MOed any how(even with shipping), i feel that local has it's advantages, but if it is your only resource then those advantages completely disappear(they aren't that great of an advatage, more just preference), as for sand, check out HOME DEPOT for your sand, Get "southdown play sand", it is the same sand as found in carib sea aragonite, which is ls without the bacteria, which will grow from the lr anyhow