Good pet store in Melbourne?

[victoria]

Hi,

I live in Melbourne and need to find a pet store/aquarium that treats crabs kindly and healthily (rare I know) - all I can find on the forums is information about terrible stores!

The best I know of is Upmarket Pets in Vic Market (still not perfect), but I'm wondering if there's anywhere else? Any help on Melbourne stores is welcome!

[Wai]

Hi there, I'm from Melbourne too! I'm in Hong Kong at the moment for a holiday.

Upmarket Aquarium is the "best" pet store I've been to, but still, I wouldn't give their hermit crab tank a "pass" either. The substrate is only just deep enough to let some of the tiny ones bury themselves, but at least they are using sand. Most other stores insist using chunky gravel or wood shavings. Coburg Aquarium, the worst pet store I've been to, does not even have any substrate in their hermit crab tank. Instead, they flood the tank base with about 5 mm of cold water. Last time I asked one of the staff why there was no food in the hermit crab tank, I was told that the hermit crabs "haven't been fed yet today".

Some stores in the US have hermit crab tanks that I would give a "pass" to, but as I know of now, no pet store in Melbourne has a hermit crab tank that has been set up in such a way that their hermit crabs can moult safely in it. In other words, all the hermit crabs will die within a year unless they are sold to someone with a properly set up tank.

I recently adopted Astraea and Hebe from Upmarket Aquarium.

[victoria]

Thanks for that! I went to Upmarket today but they only had huge (golf ball size) hermies, who would have eaten up my little Wellington!

I managed to find an ok place in Northcote Plaza - Pets Wonderland. I know the chains are often the worst, but these guys have at least a couple of inches of substrate, all the accessories and some healthy looking crabs.

Someone needs to start a dedicated store in Melbourne!

[Wai]

Thanks for that! I went to Upmarket today but they only had huge (golf ball size) hermies, who would have eaten up my little Wellington!

Yeah, Astraea and Hebe were the only tiny ones left, so I pinched them before you could lol.

[emmac350]

Wait...golf ball size isn't big. It's well under the size of some of the bigger crabs I've seen...or own. Or is it different with Aussie crabs?

[ladybug15057]

Aussie hermies other than the straws if Aussie crabbers can get them, do not grow as large as the PP's here in the U.S. or the Indo's. So golfball for an Aussie hermie is like a golf ball for an E.

[emmac350]

Es are supposed to be smaller then? I've seen Es (one time) that were tennis ball sized, guess they were pretty old then.

[Wai]

The aussies from Upmarket Aquarium were the biggest I've seen. Some of the largest ones were the size of mandarines.

[victoria]

Good one Wai, I was trying to think of something that would be the right size! I could only think of small potatoes!