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These articles, written 2003-4, were intended not just for the benefit of local aquarists and visitors to Vancouver. Rather, they were written as part of the Travel section of Aquarticles, to show people from other cities and countries what the retail aquarium scene was like in Vancouver at that time. The articles will not necessarily be updated and things will inevitably change, so use caution if actually using the articles as a guide.

The Aquarium Stores of Vancouver Canada
by Howard Norfolk
Original to Aquarticles.com

Part VIb: Big Al's Aquarium Services, Richmond
5335 No. 3 Road, Richmond.  604-244-0700
And also at: 4501 North Road, Burnaby.  604-444-FISH (3474)
Has e-mail?, but did not reply to mine
For locations go to MAP

Big Al's in Burnaby is the branch I normally visit. When driving down Highway 1 on a Sunday after playing golf, I often yield to temptation and turn off at Garibaldi Way to find out what's new there. See my article Part VIa: Big Al's Aquarium Services, Burnaby.

One day Grant Norton, the owner, suggested I take a look at his Richmond store, and two weeks later on a rainy Sunday, I did:

Click on photos for enlargements, then go "Back"

The shop is in a plaza on No.3 Road, the main shopping street in Richmond. It is quite near Vancouver International Airport.

Manager Chris Lewis showed me around and answered my questions. He has worked at Big Al's for 8 years. He doesn't have an aquarium at home - he sees enough fish at work! - but is interested in all types of aquaria.

  
Dry goods are sold in the front part of the shop. There is a good selection of everything.

Aquarium Services is a national chain of franchises, with its own line of fish foods.

This must be the cleanest water in town! Filters are set up all around this tank, to show how they work.

There are shelves full of aquarium ornaments....

  
Why bother with fish when you can liven up your aquarium with decorations like these?!

To add that 'natural look' there are lots of plastic plants.

  
Pond supplies. You can have an alligator for your pond.... Perhaps it would scare away herons? (But would our local herons know what they are?).

     
Many aquarium kits are available...

     
...from large elaborate tanks to small tabletop ones.

I liked this background feature, which is made in Europe and exclusive to Big-Al's in Canada.

  
A reef aquarium display, and a simple African cichlid tank

Past all the dry goods is the dimly lit exciting part of the store, where we "Enter the Deep":

Beyond this archway are the fish!

A sign shows the 'Scheduled Arrivals.' Aquarium Services imports its own livestock from many different sources around the World.

Another sign shows the 'Shark Bite Madness' special deals that 'take a bite out of high prices.'

Aquatic plants are kept in a cascade of tanks. Specimen plants are imported from Tropica of Denmark, and cheaper bunched plants are also sold.

The fish room contains about 240 tanks. Seventy are arranged around the walls of the square room, and the rest are in eight 'pods' in the centre. There are also koi and goldfish ponds and tubs, and some display aquariums.

The tanks used to be individually filtered with undergravel filters, but central systems have recently been installed. Each pod has its own central filtration unit. Individual tanks can easily be isolated for quarantine or medication.

Salt water tanks are along two walls:

Salt water

     
White tail humbug damselfish ($5)....clown trigger ($199)....Picasso trigger ($119)

     
Yellow tang....zebra moray eel ($129)....red volitan lionfish ($39), cleaner wrasse ($13), purple tang, juvenile Koran angelfish ($129).

Invertebrates

There are eight island 'pods' in the middle of the room. They each contain either 18 or 24 tanks full of freshwater fish. There is a wide selection of common fish, but here are some of the more unusual ones that caught my eye:

  
A pod of cichlid tanks held some adult Lake Tanganyika Cyphotilapia frontosa, at $79 each 

And another held zebra cichlids Tilapia buttikoferi, aggressive fish from West Africa, at $8 each.

  
There were lots of discus, including solid turquoise at $299, and solid fire red at $189.

  
Axelrod's discus, $49, and pink panther discus.

Newly popular in the hobby is Puntius denisonii, a beautiful barb from India. These were $45 each.

A rare fish I hadn't seen before, the humphead glass perchlet Parabassis pulcinella from Burma, at $39 each.

  
More common is the Florida gar ($39), and the black ghost knife ($23).

Of the large predatory catfish, these lima shovelnose cats, Sorubim lima, ($13) are most suited to aquarium life. They will grow to be 12" - 18" long, and as their label says 'proceed with caution'!

Another fish not often seen is the Asian silver needlefish, Xenentodon cancila ($15).

     
There are many people of Chinese descent living in the Richmond suburb of Vancouver, and a fish that has particular significance to them is the arowana, which they call dragonfish. Specimen fish command high prices. Imported from Malaysia, here is an 'Asian super red arowana' of which there were three at $2,500 each, and a 'Malaysian chili red arowana' for $6,000.

     
A feature of all Big Al's stores is the display shark tank. Here are white tip reef sharks and a large grouper. The tank also houses a 7ft. moray eel, a black tip reef shark, and a wobbygong shark.

  
Everyone is invited to the 'Shark Feeding Frenzy' on Tuesday nights at 7 p.m.  T-shirts commemorate the experience.

Should you want a 2000 gallon aquarium like this, it can be custom built for $16,888.

A wall of the fishroom is devoted to goldfish...

...with a koi pond in the corner.

  
Koi are also stored in these tubs.

  
A display tank was experiencing an algae bloom, showing these blue pigeon blood discus in a dramatic light.

Big-Al's holds colouring contests for kids. The results are displayed.

Whenever I visit Big Al's I seem to find something new. Big Al's self-imports all its fish, and owner Grant Norton searches the World markets for rare and interesting species. We should all be glad that we have such a comprehensive operation here in Vancouver. Thanks Grant!