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

"Big Al's" Aquarium Services Warehouse Inc. is the largest chain of all-aquarium stores in Canada. Started 30 years ago, the corporation owns two stores in Toronto, and there are a further ten franchised operations in Ontario, one in Calgary, and two in Vancouver. This month (September 2003) a new branch is opening in Montreal.

Grant Norton runs the two Vancouver stores. They were opened eleven years ago, and Grant used to work in them as a manager until he took over ownership in 2000.

Allan Saul, the original "Big Al," is presumably a big man, and so are his stores!  I normally visit the Burnaby branch, but the one in the suburb of Richmond is just as big, with a different layout.

Let's look around -

Click on photos for enlargements, then go "Back"

   Aquarium Services is at one end of an open plaza, and there is lots of parking. Vancouver's aerial light railway system, "Skytrain," can be seen running almost overhead.

   Grant is in the middle, with two of his assistants, Justin and Kendra. Thirty people are employed in Grant's two stores.

   Big Al's deals in saltwater aquaria, as well as freshwater. Opposite the main sales counter is this special area dealing with all those high-tech reef aquarium gadgets.

   An open-top tank is set up with a selection of  protein skimmers running to show how they work.

     
Nearby is a magnificent display reef aquarium. The doors of its cabinet are open to show the inner workings.

     
It was so beautiful that I can't leave out these close-up photos!

   When buying the above aquarium, with lights and cabinet, you wouldn't get much change from $3000! (And anyway in B.C. you would have to pay an additional $224.92 in government sales taxes).
....Or you could have Big Al's staff come and set it up for you professionally. Grant employs three or four people whose job is install and maintain aquariums. Some of them are in public spaces (one was recently put in the Vancouver Children's Hospital), but most of them are in private homes.

   But if you don't want to pay for this, you could instead perhaps upgrade your lighting for a couple of thousand dollars, with these 4ft. Metal Halides with solid steel housings and stainless reflectors. They have "built-in ballasts and compact actinics." They are from Germany.

    These Metal Halide bulbs are carefully nestled in foam, which they deserve to be because they cost up to $200 each.

     
The display area has lots of aquarium kits. Acrylic bowfront aquariums are popular.

   A corner of the store is devoted to regular fluorescent light tubes.

  And this corner has canister filters. Big Al's is an authorised Eheim dealer. Eheim does not let just anyone sell their quality filters - the store has to have trained staff, and be able to back up Eheim's warranties.

   Another corner contains a large selection of gravels and substrates, both loose and in bags, and including artificially coloured gravel.
This man has chosen a large bag of blue gravel, and is checking out the red ones...

   ...To go with his blue and red gravel, he has lots of aquarium ornaments to choose from...  

   ...and also lots of plastic plants.

   If he wants to read up on fishkeeping, he could buy one of these books...

   ...but he would not have to read up on the Python water change system, since the company provides a video with this display.

   A pond contains koi in the Spring and Summer. My visit was in September, the end of the pond season, so there were no koi left.

     
There are various other display aquariums, including this beauty. The main secrets to having an aquarium like this are adequate lighting, and CO2 injection.

Now for what you have been waiting for, the livestock! Beyond the dry goods area is a very large dimly lit warehouse-style room, which is signposted "Entering the Deep."

   First, we find the aquatic plants section. There is a cascade of tanks containing cut bunch plants imported from Singapore and the U.S.
The board in front shows some of the recent shipments (of fish and plants) the store had received. It gets two or three shipments of fish every week, from all over the World.

     
More sophisticated (and expensive) potted plants come from Tropica, of Denmark. They are all identified by their Latin names. I counted 55 different potted species and varieties, plus the Singapore bunch plants and some others that were in the fish tanks - at least 70 species in all.

The Fish Room has 235 large tanks in three long rows. The fish are displayed more or less according to families. I usually start with -

Row 1:
This row has saltwater tanks on the right, and on the left thirty tanks of livebearers, plus discus, some other fish, and more aquatic plants.

   Row 1

  
The saltwater side has lots of live rock and invertebrates, including these "blue mushrooms."

     
And many tanks full of fish.

   This panther grouper is $55, and the "Red Sea Volitan lion" is marked "rare!" at $139.

   "Show" blue face angel, $499.

   The clams in this display aquarium are for sale, for $48 to $189.

  
At the end of the saltwater section is something Big Al's is famous for - its shark tank. This 2300 gallon (10,400 litre) tank contains black tip reef sharks and white tip reef sharks, as well as large moray eels and other fish.

   On Tuesdays at 7 p.m. you can attend the "shark feeding frenzy," and buy a T-shirt commemorating it. School groups also come in the daytime to be treated to this educational event.

  
Opposite the salt water fish are the livebearers - guppies, mollies, platies and swordtails. I found eight different varieties of guppy, mostly at $6 each. These are sunset golden guppies and red blonde guppies. It was feeding time so they are all gathered to eat.

  
Blue neon guppies, and Endler's livebearers. As usual, only male Endler's are for sale. It is hard to find anyone willing to sell female Endler's, which are plain and look like female guppies.

     
Some discus. Juvenile pigeon blood on the left, for $37, and some nice larger specimens on the right.

  
A couple more tanks, with details shown.

Row 2:
Row 2 starts with male bettas, and continues with loaches, corys, plecos, tetras, gouramis, rainbows, barbs, danios, angel fish, a few other New World cichlids, and arowanas - mostly common or small fish so I didn't take many photos, except of the arowanas.

   Row 2

  I don't think I'd seen these cute 'wild clown plecos' before. They were $13 each.

   Lots of otocinclus

An unusual fish is this large 'red scarlet pleco,' for $249.

   
Marbled hatchets, $3.69, and pencilfish

Arowanas are a special fish at Big Al's, and they are the exclusive distributors for a breeder in Malaysia who was the first to establish a business in captive bred arowanas. Arowanas are sought after by Asian fishkeepers, since they are regarded as "good luck fish."

   Juvenile silver arowanas were $68.88 each, and really small ones were $24.

   Specimen arowanas can be expensive. This one was $500.

   Juvenile Indonesian gold arowana, $950.

  
Rare arowanas have a numbered microchip embedded in them and come complete with certification papers. This little 'super red' arowana was $2500.

  
And for $4000 you get a fish with a really long name: 'High back Malaysian blue base gold arowana."
The most expensive arowana Grant has sold was $8000.

Row 3:
Row 3 is always fascinating. It offers more New World cichlids, goldfish, turtles, newts, frogs and toads, large fish, oddball and coldwater fish, and African cichlids.

   Row 3

   Gold severums

   Synspilum cichlids

   Wild red hump Geophagus, and ornate bichir

   "Show" Malaysian flower horn cichlid, $400.

  
These full grown marbled oscars were $27.

  
The oscar didn't mind his photo being taken, but the parrot fish looked a little concerned!

     
Rope fish, and leaf fish

Freshwater stingray, $76

   A turtle

   Young red & white lionhead goldfish.

   Goldfish varieties were originally developed to be viewed from above, and when seen this way their sometimes ungainly and distorted shapes look much better. Here is how more mature lionheads appear from above.

   Black telescopes

It is hard to say that Big Al's specialises in any one facet of fishkeeping, since everything is so well covered, and what would be a specialisation in a smaller shop is just normal stock at Big Al's. But a particularly strong section is African cichlids.

The Aquarium Services corporation has its own breeding farms in Florida where African cichlids and many other tropical fish are bred. Grant pointed out that he does not buy fish from local wholesalers - all fish come direct from the company's own farms or direct from overseas dealers, with no transshipment once in Canada.

For fans of African cichlids, here are some of the twenty or so tanks devoted to them:

     
All Africans are identified by their Latin names.
I counted, and found there were 64 species or varieties available.

This is a fabulous 1800 gallon (8000 litre) display tank full of African cichlids.

     
It contains a few other species, such as clown loaches and the African giraffe catfish (Auchenoglanis occidentalis).

The reason Big Al's is not number one or two in this series of articles is that when I started to write them Grant was off on one of his business trips and I had to wait until he got back. He has set himself the task of regularly travelling around the World to check up on his overseas suppliers and find new ones. This time he had visited a supplier on the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu near Fiji, and had also passed through Sydney Australia. Grant said that Vanuatu has some lakes and small rivers with five or six unique species of freshwater and brackish fish in them, and he is trying to persuade his reef collector to go inland and collect some. Hopefully we will soon see some more tanks marked with the tempting sign - "Rare."

Grant is not the only one in the store who travels. Later this year the Aquatic Gardeners Association is to hold its Annual Conference in Houston Texas, and Grant is sending two or three of his staff to the conference to further their education.

The stores are open for long hours - until 9 p.m. on weekdays and 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. Grants says that this winter, starting in October, he intends to stay open until 9 p.m. on Saturdays as well.

Big Al's has a "V.I.P Programme" for regular customers. When you make a purchase you give the salesperson your telephone number and "points" are added to your name in the computer. On this visit I decided to cash in my points and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had $42 in store credit! The V.I.P. Programme also gives members extra warranty protection, a newsletter, and some special deals.

The Aquarium Services Corporation has an informational web site www.aquariumservices.com which links to www.bigalsonline.com through which dry goods are sold on-line in both Canada and the U.S.  Grant said that the web site is soon to be re-designed so that people can order directly from their nearest store rather than Head Office in Toronto.

Locals and visitors to Vancouver can easily find the two Big Al's stores, although they are not in the centre of town. The Richmond branch is a short taxi ride from the International Airport, and the Burnaby store is near the Lougheed Skytrain Station, or by road take Highway 1 to the Garibaldi Way exit. Either one is well worth a visit.