Old Orchard Aquarium

One of the worst customer service available. Way overpriced items. You can’t even get refunds. No one knows anything there. I’m trying to build my dream tank, but they have prevented it from happening numerous time. Looks like I have to find a different LFS.

First shopping experience — mostly good!
It started with a phone call. My son is setting up a new tank (upgrading, actually) and was looking for a specific substrate. Nobody else around us had it, so we were desperately calling all aquatic stores. Whomever answered the phone was helpful and friendly, and explained that while they didn’t have the exact product by the maker, they had a very similar product just slightly different. He explained how it was different, and what his opinion of the product was — which we found helpful. So we made the trek out there to check it out (about 25 minute car ride without traffic).
We were both happily surprised at the size of the store — it’s a very generously sized fish store! They seem to have a nice variety of just about EVERYTHING. They have a bunch of empty tanks/​stands/​setups at the front, in different sizes/​colors/​shapes, etc. I didn’t pay attention to the prices however, since i wasn’t in the market. Sorry, can’t comment as to how fair they are, but they were pretty.
We made our way around to the actual fish, and man, they’ve got a TON of tanks with fish! I’d say it leans slightly heavier towards saltwater, but it’s probably close to ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ (maybe ⁶⁰⁄₄₀). All kinds of different fish and different aggressiveness levels. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL saltwater fish! We had such fun just walking up and down looking at them all, even though we don’t have a salt-​tank. The only turn-​off to their fish was the amount of snails in their tanks — they have a serious infestation of snails.
They’ve got some bigger stuff, too — there’s a big pond with some really cool larger fish. There was one awesome fish who kept literally sticking part of his head OUT of the water to check us out! It was fun. Some of the tanks along the bottom of the tank aisles have larger fish in them as well.
This store also carry all the supplies you could ever need. Cleaner, general tank supplies, gravel, decorations, food (including frozen), tank-​water, medical supplies — everything!
While we were walking around, the guys working were trying to be helpful. Each of the 3 or 4 guys working came up to us at one point asking if we needed any help, or were looking for anything specific.
Combined with the variety/​amount of options along with the customer service we received — I think overall I’d give our experience a 4 out of 5. As we look to build our fish-​family, I’m sure that we’ll be back.

The customer service is absolutely terrible save for a couple of individuals (the only reason this place is deserving of two stars instead of one). In general, the staff was unfriendly, shockingly condescending, and unhelpful. We were not aquarium novices upon entering the store but were consistently treated like we were idiots any time we were engaged in conversations regarding aquarium logistics — a theme I quickly picked up on while listening to other customers asking for help or advice.
Their prices are steep, which in many ways is understandable, as they are a specialty store/​local business, but the quality of service and goods does not come close to matching the price. The staff has an unreasonably rude response upon hearing you’ve purchased anything from any other store. Our aquarium came under our care from a roommate upon moving out, who had purchased a few fish from Petsmart in the past. Upon hearing this information, the staff member essentially laughed in our faces and scolded us for purchasing anything from Petsmart. The real irony is that upon purchasing ~$ 100 worth of fish from this store, following all the standard protocols of introducing fish to a tank, we lost our entire tank to an ick outbreak. Our tank went from fully cycled and stable to an absolute nightmare after purchasing fish from this store.
The bottom line: the absolute garbage customer service isn’t even close to being worth the overpriced and sub-​par products. We went in to this very much wanting to give this store our continued business but more often than not left feeling insulted, annoyed, and ripped off.
Don’t waste your time here.

The Old Orchard Aquarium has been around since ’91, and offers a full line of retail line for aquatic pets. They have a nice variety of livestock, such as fresh water/​salt water fish, corals, crustaceans, urchins, starfish, clams, oysters, mussels, nudibranches, anemones, live rock, brackish fish, seaweed, and live plants, as well as food, lighting equipment, supplements, decorations, filters, pumps, and tanks. Services are also offered for the pet owners, such as scheduled aquarium services for fresh water/​salt water/​reef, maintenance, and even a full service aquarium leasing option. The staff here are general friendly, and they allow you to mosey around. Prices are more on the steep end, as this is a local business.
+supplies for aquatic pets
+maintenance services offered
+free parking

I’ve been going here for about 3 yrs now since I’ve started the hobby, I mostly buy livestock and plants. They have a wide variety of everything but they specialize mostly in salt water part of the hobby.
Almost all personnel here are older gentlemen. Its a sausage fest, seems like everyone have worked there for a long time. Paul is great, I think he’s one of the head honcho there, there’s this new guy (tall balding you guy, sorry for being too descriptive lol) he’s very pleasing to talk to, always with smile and I commend him. There’s a couple of more great peeps but the first 2 came to mind
There’s just a few instances with customer service that I wish some of the associates improve on. Like how they talk to customers. There’s always a better way to converse to people without making them feel like shit in a hole. But knowing myself, I always see the good out the bad, maybe they’re having a shitty day at work or at home so they pass it on to the customers lol, I dont really pay much attention to it.
Overall, I will continue to go back to this bigger mom and pop LFS, even though I had a few instances that I felt I dont want to, I enjoy just looking thru their display tanks.

I drive to Old Orchard Aqurium from Lakeview, in Chgo. Everyone here is helpful and incredibly knowledgable. In fact, they have been so helpful and nice, I wouldn’t go anywhere else to purchase my fish or supplies.
Well worth the trip for me.

I’ve been in this store several times. Their livestock selection is fairly average. I’ve never been wowed by their specimens like I have at Old Town or ReefWise. I’ve also been particularly underwhelmed by their coral selection. In particular, there is usually a large aquarium filled with dead or dying gorgonians and sponges. I personally think a tank like that speaks volumes for the overall quality of the store. If you can’t keep the truly difficult organisms alive then you have no right selling them. (Seriously, why are you guys stocking orange branching sponges. Nobody keeps those alive.)
In general, the corals were sub-​par and overpriced for the quality of the specimens. The fish were fairly average in price and quality. I’ve heard fewer complaints regarding the health of their fish compared to some of the other LFS in the area. I’m not sure if they quarantine.
I formerly worked for another aquarium store in the city, and have talked to many customers of Old Orchard. I frequently had to correct poor advice that this store gave concerning basic aquarium husbandry regarding feeding and medicating and stocking compatibility. This is something that all stores struggle with, as not every employee at a LFS is equally knowledgeable, so I don’t want to pick on them too much. But a small, speacialty aquarium shop like this really has to set itself apart by the quality of the advice it can provide, and I don’t feel this store is reliable in this regard.
Having said all that, I still consider this to be a better shop than most. Personally, If I was setting up a saltwater tank I would go to ReefWise for my advice. For freshwater, I would go with Kevin at Old Town. But for a basic, run-​of-​the-​mill fish tank, this place is probably adequate. I would caution beginners to do their research first, and take any advice with a grain of salt.
Edit: I was in this store 11÷8÷2014. I spotted numerous tanks with dead fish, a pair of bluespot jawfish that were cowering in the corner of a tank being picked on by an angelfish, and a polleni grouper that had obvious signs of flukes. Many, if not most, of their fish seemed noticeably underweight. Many saltwater tanks were half empty. I’m tempted to lower my review to two stars.

Wow what an amazing LFS! These guys leaving bad reviews are insane! Very knowledgeable and friendly and such a selection!

I think the worse thing about this business is the customer service. For that reason, I would say avoid this place. It does have a decent selection of fish, but the staff has little interest in making sure your purchases make sense or are best for your current community. If it doesn’t work out, or they sell you a sick fish, don’t expect any apologies or concessions. Also, definitely avoid it if you are a novice. They will overcharge you for everything. They tried to sell me a fish that I thought looked cool and when I said I had not researched it, the salesperson said, «Why do you need to research it, I just told you everything you need to know!» And by the way, everything they stock is «hard to find». Don’t believe them.

Staff knows their stuff but sometimes have an attitude. overpriced on many items. Also, if you call and ask for a price on a product… they wont tell you. The fish area has been remodeled and looks much better now.

A great store for beginners and experts. Great customer service and very knowledgeable employees! Paul spent an hour talking and explaining everything to me and answering all my questions. This by far is the best aquarium store I have ever been to! Looking forward to working with them on a regular bases.

I had a hard time deciding whether to give this place two stars or three stars. They aren’t by any means a one star establishment, but four or five stars also wouldn’t be fair. The reason I chose two stars was because I feel like this place has gone significantly downhill in the last couple of years.
Two years ago, after many years of being freshwater hobbyists, my partner and I decided it was time to ditch our freshwater aquarium for a saltwater aquarium. We did a lot of research, and knew we wanted a very specific kind of 30 gallon tank. After pricing competitors, we ended up at Old Orchard, finding they had the best deal for the brand new tank set up we would need.
The place was beautiful, with just the most amazing livestock you could imagine, and the gentlemen who helped us purchase our new tank, who I believe was also part owner, was wonderful. He set us up with a great tank, some amazing live sand and live rock, and gave us all the instructions on what to do when we got home. The only complaint I would have is that the price of the «set» was marketed to include the lighting, but it didn’t include the lighting we needed, so it was hundreds more than we thought it would be, but we still bought it. They were VERY strict that we go home and let the tank set up with just the sand and rock.
For weeks, we stared at the rocks. For some reason it was thrilling. We came in week after week to have our new water tested, but the employees were adamant that we wait a LONG time to add any livestock. Of course, in the end they are right. People want to buy a new saltwater tank that day, and go home with some fish right away, just to watch the fish die. At least they are protecting the life of the fish. They were incredibly over aggressive about it though, an it took a LONG time to just get them to sell us Peppermint Shrimp to eat the Aphasia that was randomly growing on our live rock.
Since we live in Chicago, and actually found the prices in Chicago to be cheaper, when we started to add fish, inverts, and coral, we shopped elsewhere. We felt bad at first, but after all they did get a lot of money from us for the tank itself. We came back every now and then for saltwater, for our water changes, but actually found their water to be bad quality. They sell ‘reef water’ that they advertise at a salinity of 1.026 I believe, but every time we would test it at home, it would be WAY higher. Clearly, they aren’t mixing it correctly.
Flash forward two years later, the shop is nowhere near the same quality. Their selection of livestock isn’t as impressive, the livestock they do have isn’t the same quality, and their corals all appear to be dying. They recently redid all of their tanks, so I’m wondering if they had problems technically somehow. Their attitudes seem to have gotten worse as well. I recently called because I purchased a certain piece of livestock from another store, got the wrong information from the store, and thought their knowledge here could help. Instead, they very rudely scolded me for buying something I shouldn’t have, and told me to have fun watching it die. Wow.
One bright spot, a couple weeks before this, our motor was not pumping as strongly as it used to. I called in, and the same gentlemen who sold us our tank very nicely told us how to take it apart to unclog it, and kindly offered to fix it for free if we couldn’t figure it out ourselves. If only all the employees were like him…

How did I not learn about this place sooner? I thought shops like this were gone. This is, by far, the best aquarium store I have visited in 20 years. Friendly, expert staff, fantastic fish and plants, and great hours. Owner spent 20 minutes talking to my daughter about her micro tank. Can’t say enough good about this place.

The shop is very, very well maintained. The selection of available livestock is impressive, especially for saltwater. Their price is a little on the high end, but not outrageous. Great place to check out what’s possible as their display tanks are truly amazing.
The service is above and beyond other LFS in Chicago. They know their stuff, and can talk shop with you. They recommend what’s best for your tank and situation; not just to sell you something.

I have never had such a poor customer service experience with ANY other fish store that I’ve been to as I had with this place. The staff was rude and answered questions with single word answers as though you were not good enough for their time. I am a very educated person and did not feel that my questions were «dumb» questions. Some of the questions pertained to when they get their deliveries, and if what they had in stock on that day was what they would typically cary, since we drove an hour (1 way) to the store, I wanted to know as much about it as I could. We are in the process of stocking a 500gal reef, and I can safely say that we will NEVER be back to this store again. If I’m going to give my money to a LFS, it will be one where the employees aren’t rude and arrogant.
THINK TWICE before wasting your time with Old Orchard Aquarium.

I won’t be coming back here again. It’s been twice now I’ve purchased reef water and what I got was really dirty waste water. The first time I let it slide, I figured perhaps they made a mistake and got water from the wrong drum or something. But it happened again just this past weekend so this is a usual practice for them. Who knows how many other times I’ve been given dirty water and I just didn’t notice. And when I say dirty, I mean there’s floating debris and waste in the water and it smells like the skimmate that’s in your skimmer.
And now that I’ve had a chance to check the «filtered» reviews which I never knew existed, they seem to scam people on RO/​DI water as well so I’ve been buying not only dirty water change water but dirty top off water as well… wow, that probably explains my algae problem… Never again.

Great store, I have been coming here for years just to watch the great displays. The guys here prepared me for such a long time with so many talks, even though I didn’t have a tank and never bought a thing. Now I finally got a saltwater tank and they gave me great advice which ment to hold off on purchasing lots of expensive fish yet, … pretty honest. I don’t mind paying a few $ extra for the supply and fish and get the free high quality service and help here! They really know their stuff and love their jobs! Thanks guys!

What a great place!
First of all, tons of cool tanks and pools filled with all kinds fish, from the mundane to the exotic. Just going to look around is a great mini-​outing for the kids! But beware — you will get the itch to get a kit for home.
Most importantly, the staff is fantastic. We got a 20 gallon hand-​me-​down aquarium and had no idea if we had everything we need. After 15 minutes of Q&A with our first guy (can’t remember his name — sorry) we had a game plan.
Once the tank was ready, I returned the second time, with my three girls and a friend (ages 9 – 12) in tow — we were ready to bring home our first fish! The kids were bouncing off the walls with excitement! Justin was great with the kids, getting their attention, explaining what our options were, answering all my newbie questions, and helping us decide on the right balance of heartiness and kid appeal. He gave me clear instructions on how to get them in our tank safely (the fish, not the kids) and was happy to answer a question over the phone once we got home.
It’s still too early to tell how long the kids will be into their new pets, but I do know that we’re all enjoying them for now. Old Orchard Aquarium is our home base for anything related to our new finned additions to the family. THANKS!

I’ve been coming here for years. They’ve got their bases covered — great selection and great people. My rummynose tetra are still kicking despite some shameful neglect. Good stock or luck on my end?
I’m a little sad that they’ve converted the front saltwater pool by filling it with coral frags though. I suppose I’d be thrilled if I had a saltwater coral setup. But they still have the beautifully planted freshwater tanks so I still get my eye candy.

Old orchard aquarium is a Skokie landmark. The taj mahal of livestock being mainly freshwater, saltwater, and all types of exotic invertebrates that you would never imagine existed.
I’ve been to nearly every aquatic shop in the Chicagoland area and never dealt with employees that are enthusiasts about the hobby like this place. If you try to purchase any livestock you will be bombarded with questions about your setup just to make sure of the survival of the purchase. My biggest issue with other shops is that they just bag them, take the sale and say goodbye. All the employees here are knowledgeable to help you choose what works best with your aquarium setup and how to manage the situation. Without these guys I would never have such a beautiful reef tank setup.