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Please note:
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 II:
Rain Forest Pet Spectrum Ltd.
4233 East Hastings Street, North Burnaby.  604-299-1666.
email: rainforestpet@shaw.ca
Website (opened December 2004): http://www.rainforestpet.com/
For location go to MAP

After checking out the Pet Boutique, I drive across a bridge to the Rain Forest Pet Spectrum, which was founded in 1993 and taken over two years ago (2001) by James Chao and his wife Sandy.

Click on photos for enlargements, then go "Back"

      Yes, it really is called the "Rain Forest Pet Spectrum"! It used to be known by a much more mundane name, so I asked James how he came up with this new name, thinking that perhaps it might be a direct translation of a couple of snappy Chinese symbols. But apparently it means just what it says, and when you think about it, it really does make sense!

James' store is in a basically working-class area of Vancouver, but he has wider ambitions, and as his card says, he is a "Worldwide Importer of Salt and Fresh Water Fish & Plants" and has an "Excellent Selection of Birds, Reptiles and Small Animals."

James is originally from Taiwan, and when looking for fish to import from Asia he has the advantage of being able to read wholesalers' catalogues in their original Chinese. But he also brings in fish from South America, and even occasionally from Germany. He also imports reptiles.

The Pet Spectrum retails these creatures, and also wholesales them to local and regional dealers as far away as the City of Victoria and our neighbouring Province of Alberta.

   James and Sandy open their store seven days a week and don't hire any additional help. Whenever I've visited they've always both been there. True devotion!

   The dry goods part of the store has the usual fish food and accessories.

       Near the cash register is a large aquarium full of lively wild-caught altum angelfish. James imported 600 of them last year when they were 2" long, and sold them for $35 each.  They were from the Orinoco River in Columbia, and James says they are better than Peruvian ones. James is keeping what he has left of these fish for this display.

    Near the front window  is a pond. It often contains large specimen koi, but on my visit this time it just had goldfish and small koi.

The fish section of the store is full of large quantities of fish that James imports himself. Let's see what I found on this visit!

   There are two rows of tanks like this, and a few spread around elsewhere. 118 tanks in all.

      A nice group of albino red oscars

   Young parrot fish. They have not developed their colour yet.

   Hundreds of young marble angel fish, selling for $3 each.

      James found these "gold giant gouramis" (Osphronemus goramy) in a catalogue from Indonesia, and imported them. They are a newly developed variety of giant gourami. James is selling them for $10 each. Hopefully buyers will realise that they will grow to be 2 ft. (60 cm.) long!  In the Tropics giant gouramis are kept as pond fish, where they are a more appropriate alternative to goldfish or koi.

   Four-barred tiger fish, or "Thai tigers" (Coius quadrafasciatus), $60.  I hadn't seen these perches before, and when I looked them up I found out why they are not very popular - they need brackish/freshwater, are carnivorous (fish, prawns, crabs, some insect larvae), and grow to at least 12"  (30 cm.)  in an aquarium! These particular fish were caught in Vietnam and imported from Thailand. In South-East Asia, people eat them as food.

   I liked these "red rainbows", so I bought a few for my indoor pond.

  Spotted gars, $25 each

   Featherfin Synodontis catfish

   Plecos enjoying a meal of lettuce.

      This magnificent full-grown royal plecostomus is "show quality" and selling for $170.

      Its juvenile cousins cost $40 - $70.

   James mostly imports and sells fish that he personally finds interesting, and does not have tanks full of the usual common platies, mollies, swordtails and guppies. He did have one guppy variety that he had imported himself, and one platy variety, these beautiful longfin varietus platies. I bought some for my indoor pond. They were 3 for $15, but James gave me five for that price!.

      There is a selection of African cichlids, some of which are shown here.

  ...and of course lots of goldfish.

As mentioned, James prefers to import and deal in fish that interest him personally, as a very advanced aquarist. A couple of years ago he had a great selection of koi, but he says that this year is not a good year for koi, so he has not brought any in. Last year, arowanas were his big deal, and he imported some very rare and very expensive ones from Asia. In fact some of them were so rare and expensive (in the $thousands) that he kept them in a "secret" back room of the store not open to the general public. I felt honoured when he showed them to me once. This year, the tanks that once held koi and more common arowanas are roped off and devoted to breeding James' all-time favourite fish, discus.

Discus

  Twenty 90 gallon tanks are presently being used for breeding discus. They are roped-off from general public access.

   James imported a special pair of  adult red-spotted green discus. The male had  sold the previous week for $700, and James was asking $800 for this beautiful female.

   Discus for sale. Ordinary juvenile discus cost $30 - $40, but included here are 3" red and whites for $190, and leopards for $140.

Planted display aquarium
I have never thought of the Pet Spectrum as a particularly good place to find aquatic plants, but that is about to change. James intends to get his regular customers interested in plants, and to start dealing in them seriously. To that end he has set up one of the most impressive planted display aquariums I have ever seen!

    This display aquarium is an acrylic tank of about 100 gallons. It is lit by two 95 watt compact fluorescent lamps, which James says is more than adequate - he is beginning to have some algae problems.

   The display fish are rainbowfish and cardinal tetras.

   The back of the aquarium is uncluttered, with a simple Fluval 304 canister filter and a CO2 system set to provide 4 bubbles/sec.  (If you don't know about the use of CO2 for growing plants, see the articles in Aquarticles' Aquatic Plants Section). James has located a source where CO2 cylinders can be rented and kept filled for about $100 p.a.

   The rented CO2 cylinders require a regulator. James sells a single valve regulator for $160, or this "pro" model, for up to six aquariums, for $280.

Reptiles
James says that he is the largest local importer and wholesaler of reptiles. He imports them directly from Central and South America, and from Africa.

   The retail reptile section of the store.

      This is a nosy be blue panther chameleon. It sells for $220.

        
And here is a giant leaftail gecko.

   These bearded dragon lizards were born in the store. At this size they sell for $80 each, and when full-grown will be worth $150.

James has a wonderful store, and I always find something new and interesting when I go there. (On this visit he told me that next week he is expecting a shipment of 300 clowntail bettas, and some shipments of aquatic plants soon....Oh well, better go back!). Since he is a wholesaler as well as a retailer, his prices are quite flexible - the more you buy the better prices you get.

James offers a discount of 10% - 20% off all livestock to all Aquarticles readers. Just print out the first page of this article to qualify!