I just wanted to thank everyone for the suggestions. I was able to pick up a lowboy at Sea World Inc! This is really what I wanted as I'm currently using a 55g for a frag tank and it just doesn't work. I'll convert it to a sump. Not that anyone should care too much about my thoughts but I did manage to go 5 places in my 2 days in Detroit.
Sea World Inc is massive. It might be the largest fish store I've ever been in. Lots of random interesting things for display like the show tank although I'm guessing that 25k price tag is just so people won't ask about it but if they want to make a huge offer they'll take it. They (and most other stores) have a ton of dry goods. It's hard to judge coral selection these days for obvious reasons but everywhere I went did have at least some nice stuff. Fish selection pretty massive, I find it harder and harder to decide what I want. The reason why I wanted to hit up as many shops as I could while I was in Detroit for other reasons is I live out in the middle of no where so I never get to experience fish stores anymore. Prior to living out in the middle of no where almost every weekend I'd be at the reef shops in the Toronto area.
Stingray bay seemed to have the cheapest prices for fish. As I mentioned before that was the one place I visited on a previous Detroit trip. I picked up some cheap clowns that were too cute to resist and a wrasse. The amount of dry goods here too is something you don't see in Toronto area stores.
Pet Connection probably had the nicest frags and I was very tempted to get a Helfrichi firefish. You just don't see these guys much anymore and as I already mentioned I don't visit shops much anymore so it's been a few years since I've seen these guys in person.
Tropicorium is a beautiful mess, and I'd love to one day have a place like this. While people in general are not into live rock anymore it's nice to know for US people anyway there is still a good source for quality live rock even if it's aquacultured and not true ocean rock. They didn't really have as much coral as I would have guessed. The guy also mentioned getting in trouble for selling corals to Canadians which was kinda interesting but he seemed unfamiliar with cites. Didn't want to sell me a softy which was fine, yeah there was a little crushed coral but it could have been cut off. I didn't need it just wanted to bring something home since I was there. Was happy to sell me fish but I went the day before going home since it was the most out of the way place and I did not want to keep fish in a bag that long. Interesting that I saw several dragon moray eels which are not very common. I would have loved to bring some of that plating sponge home.
By the time I got to Oceans and Seas I was pretty tired and still having almost 6 hours to drive home, I did still enjoy checking this place out and got some frozen food which normally I have to pay $40 to have shipped in dry ice. More sharks! Also finally got to see black storm clowns in person. Again selection was pretty good. All of the stores I went to had that "fish store feel" where as now it seems like stores are progressing to more boutique style shops which will likely only be magnified if exporting does not resume.
One comment my wife had which I do agree with is all of these places had more display tanks and items on display. Most of the places we normally shopped at either had one small display or none and everything is just in vats or tanks. While selection is comparable, the way they are displayed certainly can be lacking at times. While I am not quite as up to date on pricing as I once was things for the most part seemed reasonably priced. Comparable to Canadian pricing for the most part with some items being more in the US which is usually the case. I know a lot of people complain Canada does not get US selection on corals and fish, but that simply is not true other then brand name corals since all of those places less reef raft are US based which is why we don't get those. Finally it was great most of these places opened before 10am on week days! I don't know if you guys just like to do your fish shopping early but it worked out great for us since we had a long trip back home after.
