Place to buy fish in LA area

[Protodad]

Title (hopefully this is the right spot).

I’ve been to 20+ stores that sell saltwater products and while I’ve seen a few places I would absolutely buy coral from, not so much fish. Even the places with the best corals in beautiful, clean tanks seem to keep their fish in less than satisfactory systems.
I get that coral is where the money is right now, but I’m looking for a shop that has a wide fish selection and has a system that isn’t covered in algae, has dead fish, or aptasia.
I’m more than willing to drive but try to keep it reasonably close to LA county.

 

[mattzang]

are you looking to get specific stuff or just a wide selection of fish?

if specific i'd find a guy that has a wholesale license and will just go get you stuff

if you want a wide selection afaik LAX aquarium should have a pretty massive selection

 

[Reefacist]

Title (hopefully this is the right spot).

I’ve been to 20+ stores that sell saltwater products and while I’ve seen a few places I would absolutely buy coral from, not so much fish. Even the places with the best corals in beautiful, clean tanks seem to keep their fish in less than satisfactory systems.
I get that coral is where the money is right now, but I’m looking for a shop that has a wide fish selection and has a system that isn’t covered in algae, has dead fish, or aptasia.
I’m more than willing to drive but try to keep it reasonably close to LA county.

Any luck? I actually stopped by a fish store in Huntington Beach on my way back from Laguna and they had some nice fish but not sure how they treat or take care of them. Have you checked out rainbow fish in the valley? They are pretty nice there. Also lax aquarium was ok but like you said way more focused on coral. Idk let me know if you found a good spot.

 

[Variant]

Any luck? I actually stopped by a fish store in Huntington Beach on my way back from Laguna and they had some nice fish but not sure how they treat or take care of them. Have you checked out rainbow fish in the valley? They are pretty nice there. Also lax aquarium was ok but like you said way more focused on coral. Idk let me know if you found a good spot.

Based on your original post, it appears that you prioritize the health of your fish and may be relying on sellers to properly QT the fish. If that is true, I'd get your fish from Marine Collected based in LA or get your fish online from the handful of vendors who put all their fish through a robust QT process (TSM Aquatics comes to mind).

Many if not all of the LFS I've been to in LA do not adequately QT their fish. They might put them in lower salinity to reduce visual cues of disease or very small amount of copper to keep diseases at bay, but never have a dedicated tank system for properly medicating all their fish proactively. I think they rely on "observing" and "conditioning", which is not a guarantee of disease free fish, not to mention that most just "observe" a fish that is in their tank but never treat all the fish (if 10 tanks are hooked up to a single system/sump, and one has ich, then most likely all the other fish have it too).

Not really ideal and kind of a bummer that we don't have a LFS that does QT properly. But if you do find a LFS that does, please share

 

[Protodad]

Any luck? I actually stopped by a fish store in Huntington Beach on my way back from Laguna and they had some nice fish but not sure how they treat or take care of them. Have you checked out rainbow fish in the valley? They are pretty nice there. Also lax aquarium was ok but like you said way more focused on coral. Idk let me know if you found a good spot.

I’ve been to rainbow and LAX Aquarium. Both are pretty solid (Lax over rainbow for fish). It’s pretty hit and miss right now with COVID potentially impacting supply. Seems all the shops get very similar lists.
I was hoping for something like marine collectors with a showroom but it doesn’t seem like there is something like that.