All good points and good discussion. I suppose that I'm the exception rather than the rule because I'm not walking in looking for a 10 or 20 gallon set up with heater, gravel, food, and some platys or tiger barbs. I will mention that I'm in the Northeast - within an 60-90 minute drive from any legendary LFS in PA or NJ that's been mentioned. I've seen them all and I recognize their importance. But for my needs, I don't find much of a reason to go. I buy BioChemZorb in bulk from Amazon. I buy sinking pellets from my pleco supplier. I get live plants from a few sources on ebay. And for fish, here is an example.... I was searching for Geophagus winemilleri. The LFS's get them from time to time but they get 2 or 3. I found an online breeder and bought 9 of them for the same price that 3 would cost me locally. Same with my Corydoras semiaquilus. I asked LFS's for years to order them for me. Once I found Ted Judy's site, I had a dozen shipped overnight to me. And while ordering those fish, I stocked up on Rapashy food jars which LFS's don't sell (that I'm aware of). So for me, there isn't much need for a LFS but like I said, I think I'm not considering the vast majority of the hobby. And as for picking the fish in person, I agree, but you can't pick what you can't see and most of the fish in my tank are not readily available at a LFS so its either get it online, or don't keep them. The quality of the fish I've received is superior to LFS stock. I think out of about 100 fish I've bought online, I had 1 juvenile Corydoras adolphoi that would be considered a 'cull' but I bought 12 of them in that order and I don't think it was intentional. For plecos, which are my main passion, I have sources that get wild fish. They take the time to de-worm and get them onto artificial/prepared foods. This makes their chances of survival way higher than what a LFS might offer (those starved hollow bellies you see- never had this issue with fish I bought online). Anyway, my $0.02.
