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Our group visited four stores in the Kansas City area after the recent HAAS Fall Swap Meet:

Brothers Pets had a fairly decent selection, especially if you wanted big oscars. They must have had a dozen of them. The tanks were clean inside and out (probably the most spotless on the outside that I've ever seen store aquariums kept). But there was no substrate in the aquariums and the background and bottoms were painted a very pale blue. It caused colors of fish to wash out. The fish were healthy, but the faded colors really reduces overall attractiveness. They were very kind to allow me to shoot a few fish photos.

Miles of Exotics was the next stop. The selection was nowhere near the miles of exotics I was hoping for, despite the fact that I heard the salesperson tell Denny that they had one of the best selections around. However, there were a few goodies there. Denny grabbed some cory catfish for breeding. Unfortunately, a lot of the tanks were cloudy. Perhaps they just did some kind of cleaning? And there were quite a few sick tanks. The livebearers all looked rough. I overheard the salesperson tell someone that a black ghost knifefish was a bottom feeder. Granted, this fish may hang mostly near the bottom, but it will feed everywhere. Most hobbyists, of course, translate "bottom feeder" to mean "scavenger," which a black ghost absolutely is not. It's a predator that needs live or frozen foods.

Petland Olathe was typical of other Petlands. The stores are very well done and the fish departments are spectacular because they decorate every tank with plants. (There's a sample photo of a Petland fishroom in my photo gallery, if you'd like to see what I mean.) They had a good selection. The staff was extremely helpful in letting me shoot a photo of a needlefish. They went so far as to drain some water from the tank (so the fish couldn't hide behind the top frame) and clean the inner glass for me. They even threw some rosy red minnows into the tank to get the needlefish to come out. It worked! I've been trying to find one of these to photograph for years now.
Aquariums Wholesale was our final stop. If you want to set up a reef tank, this is the store to visit. They had a large and healthy selection of saltwater fish and invertebrates. We were, however, disappointed because there were only four or five freshwater tanks in the store, and they held a skimpy assortment that probably resulted from someone donating fish so they could convert a tank to salt water. The store also sells many large and used tanks.

I never was very impressed with Miles which stunk since they were one of the closer stores to me for several years. I once picked up some gobies that they had labeled as clown gobies. They had NO idea of what the species was. I picked some up as they were clearly sub adults and still less than an inch. They turned out to be Redigobius balteatus. I went back and informed them of what they were. The next time I was in guess what the tank said. Yeah, clown goby. They didn't care.
On the other hand, they were the first store in KC to have Galaxy Rasboras/Celestial Pearl Danios and at the same price they were going for online at the time. Picked up all they had!
Michael

So where's all the baby celestial rasboras?????????????????????

I tried. I failed. They got old and died.

Brothers pets has been around for years and years.
I lived in K.C. when I was a kid and I can remember my dad going there for fish. oh lets say around 35 years ago.
at the time they were in the blue ridge mall which is no longer open.
There used to be a store around 78th and wornall rd that was great. it was called waldo pets, talk about fish ! wow!
that used to have a giant pool type tank that had lots of large saltwater sharks in it. plus they had a great big pond with all kinds of fancy koi.
but the big thing was tank after tank of any kind of fish you could thank of.
anyway pardon me while I was reliving my child hood and my early 20's.

Up until about six years ago Waldo was a pretty good shop but they went down hill REALLY fast after that. The Brother's in the mall was a cool store but his newer shop is quite a lot nicer. Do you remember Tropical Fish Cove? That was heaven for me when I was in college. I'd make the hour trip from Warrensburg at least once a month!

yes that name rings a bell, but dont remember it for sure.
where was it?
I had a 200 gal. 4 55 gals. plus smaller tanks when I lived up there last which was around 20 years ago.
I used to hit all of them stores looking for the big fish for my 200 gal. At one point I had a 1 1/2 foot florida gar, a 3 foot pacu, a 3 foot arrowana, a 2 foot eel (wanting to say fire eel?)
a 3 foot clown knife, some big oscars and check this one out....a bala shark that was about a foot and a half !! never seen one that size since. and that was just in my 200 gal.
let me tell you the differance in prices from then and now...my 200 gal. set-up I bought from a store at 435 at state line rd. it had the tank, top, lights, wood stand, 2 heaters, 2 magnum 350 power filters, driftwood, plants, 200 pounds of gravel, and I made them throw in 2 big oscars and all this was BRAND NEW guess what i gave for it all?................

800.00

Try that now adays.
but in all fairness it was on sale!! lol

It was over in Independence about 2 miles north of Independence Center. They had a 300 with a big red tail cat for a number of years if that rings a bell.

yea coming from the indep. center it was on the right hand side of the street in a strip mall.
used to find some things there once in a while.