40+ Years of Combined Experience
Our team brings decades of hands-on experience with freshwater and marine aquariums, livestock care, system design, coral propagation, and long-term maintenance.
About Classic City Aquariums
A local aquarium store built from experience, passion, and community.
Classic City Aquariums brings together decades of hands-on experience, practical guidance, carefully selected livestock, trusted products, and professional aquarium services for hobbyists throughout Athens and beyond.
Our Story
A hobby that became a passion, a profession, and a place for Athens aquarium keepers.
For co-owner Jimmie Rattles, keeping aquariums began as a lifelong hobby. After years of maintaining his own systems, growing coral, working in an aquarium store, and providing professional tank service, that hobby developed into something much larger.
Co-owner and Athens native Adam Daniel followed a similar path. His early experience in the aquarium industry quickly grew from an interest into a career centered around livestock, aquacultured coral, aquarium service, and helping other people succeed in the hobby.
Jimmie and Adam have worked as equal partners since 2018. After operating the previous Watkinsville storefront and continuing their off-site aquarium services, they reopened Classic City Aquariums inside Georgia Square Mall in December 2025.
Georgia Square Mall
A new home for a familiar local destination.
The current store marks a new chapter for Classic City Aquariums. Located inside Georgia Square Mall across from Belk, the space gives the team room to care for livestock, stock essential equipment, grow coral, and support an expanding aquarium service operation.
For Adam, returning to the mall also carried a sense of nostalgia. The same building he visited while growing up in Athens now houses a business shaped by years of experience and strong relationships with local aquarium keepers.
Customers followed Classic City Aquariums from its previous location, but the reopened store has also introduced the hobby to new visitors. Some arrive with established reef systems. Others simply want to see the fish. Everyone is welcome to explore, ask questions, and learn.
Honoring where the story began
Classic City Aquariums was originally imagined by Jimmie Rattles and his friend and former business partner, Robert Elder. Robert's early friendship, vision, and work helped give the company its beginning. Although he did not get to see every chapter that followed, his place in the history of Classic City Aquariums remains meaningful.
Experience You Can Use
More than a store full of fish and equipment.
With more than 40 years of combined experience, our goal is to make aquarium keeping more understandable, sustainable, and rewarding, whether you are planning your first tank or maintaining an established system.
Freshwater and Marine
Explore freshwater and saltwater fish, aquacultured corals, aquatic plants, invertebrates, tanks, equipment, food, treatments, and everyday supplies.
Built Around Your Aquarium
No two systems need to look or operate exactly alike. We help customers create aquariums suited to their space, experience, livestock goals, and interests.
Your aquarium should be your own.
Aquarium keeping can feel overwhelming when every source offers a different version of the “right” way to do it. We believe successful systems begin with understanding your specific aquarium and not forcing every tank into the same formula.
Every aquarium is a personal interpretation of a river, lake, reef, or ocean environment. We help you choose livestock, equipment, and maintenance practices that make sense for the ecosystem you want to create.
A conservation-minded approach to coral.
Coral propagation remains one of Adam’s favorite parts of the business. Classic City Aquariums works to grow and farm the coral available in our systems, supporting a more responsible approach to the reef aquarium hobby and reducing dependence on coral collected from the ocean.
Our selection may include aquacultured coral frags, established colonies, marine fish, freshwater fish, plants, bettas, and fascinating invertebrates. Availability changes regularly, but practical guidance is always part of what we provide.
Professional Aquarium Services
View Our ServicesSupport for the life of your aquarium.
Our team provides aquarium installation, upgrades, maintenance, moving, and vacation feeding for residential and commercial systems throughout Athens and surrounding communities.
Products and Supplies
Explore Our ProductsYour one-stop shop for the aquarium hobby.
Find tanks, stands, lighting, heaters, filtration, salt mix, foods, water treatments, décor, maintenance supplies, and products from many of the hobby's best-known brands.
Visit Classic City Aquariums
Come for the fish. Leave with the knowledge to help your aquarium thrive.
Visit us inside Georgia Square Mall across from Belk to explore our livestock, corals, plants, tanks, equipment, and supplies. Contact our team about your next aquarium project!