Jungle Express is a small livestock operation in Newberry, South Carolina — one fishroom, one set of hands, and a lot of tanks. What you see on this site is what is actually swimming, crawling, and basking here right now.
It started with a pair of canaries
My first animals weren't fish at all. They were a couple of canaries, and I kept another canary for years after that. Fish are my first love — but birds have always run a close second. I got my first fish at six years old, and that pretty much settled the question of what I'd be doing with the rest of my life.
Over the years I've run a few small fishrooms, and I've bred a lot of species along the way. Black mollies were the first ones I really got right, and I still have a soft spot for them. Then came discus, which is where you find out in a hurry whether you actually have the patience for this. Plenty of others since. There is still nothing quite like walking into the fishroom in the morning and finding fry you weren't expecting.
Then came the tortoises
For most of my life the plan was simple: someday, own a fish store. Then I fell for tortoises, turtles, and reptiles, and the plan stopped being simple.
Here's the thing — hobbyists don't live in one aisle. The same person keeping a Malawi tank has a red-foot in the next room and is thinking about a gecko. But the fish people don't do reptiles, the reptile people don't do fish, and you end up ordering from three places, paying three overnight shipping bills, and hoping all three know what they're doing.
Jungle Express is meant to be the one place that does all of it. It's the store I always wanted to shop at.
The fishroom today
Today the fishroom runs about 50 tanks and better than 2,000 gallons of water, alongside turtle tubs and reptile enclosures. We breed and raise a good portion of our own animals in house, and everything else is held, watched, and conditioned here before it ever goes near a shipping box.
Because of that, our stock list is small and it changes. We list what we actually have in the tanks — not a catalog of everything we could theoretically order in. If something shows as sold out, it means we're growing it out or waiting on it, not that we're pretending. Young fish stay here until they're ready, even when it would be easier to sell them small.
How we try to do this differently
We tell you what you're getting into. Our species database is free and open to anyone, customer or not — tank size, temperature, pH, temperament, diet, adult size. If a species is a bad match for your setup, we would rather you found that out on the profile page than three months later.
The animal photos are real. Every animal photo on a listing is our own stock or a credited photo from a fellow hobbyist. When you're looking at an animal for sale here, you're looking at an animal we actually keep — not a borrowed catalog shot of a fish nobody here has ever seen.
Shipping is spelled out before you buy. Live animals are a real risk to ship, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling. Our Live Arrival Policy lays out exactly how we pack, when we hold an order for weather, and what happens if something goes wrong.
Say hello
If you have a question about a species, your water, your setup, or whether an animal is right for you — ask. We would rather talk you out of a bad match than sell you one. Get in touch any time.