Your LFS location

[albano]

Did you hear Salgados is closing its doors?

Wow, hadn’t heard that…. No retail just wholesale, I guess Wonder if he’s planning to come back to NY.

 

[Andreas' Reef]

crappy one 10 minutes away, decent one 30 minutes away, best ones 2:30 hours away.

 

[unchaotic]

Petco is 10 minutes (somehow keeps getting worse and for some reason they keep getting tangs and triggers)

Another local pet store has some saltwater tanks, selection is very affordable if not severely limited (no coral)

Ocean's Paradise 1.5 hours away in Bismarck. Nice fish selection and beautiful display tanks. Mostly mushrooms, softies, and anemones and the prices can be a bit steep but hey, it's not like they have competition.

Midwest Aquarium Services 4 hours away in Fargo. We go to Fargo a lot so this is my primary LFS. If they have a live auction the weekend before I go there I will load up but we make a point of going there whenever we're in town. I'm on a first name basis with pretty much everybody there.

Reef Collective and New Wave over 7 hours away in the Twin Cities. Beautiful shops, especially Reef Collective but this is how far I'd have to go to get to a store that even has a chance of impressing a lot of the people on this site.

 

[afrokobe]

Wow, hadn’t heard that…. No retail just wholesale, I guess Wonder if he’s planning to come back to NY.

i was pretty bummed about that as well. Since they moved to texas, they have been my go to for fish.

 

[albano]

now I've got Big Kahuna in Madison less than a half hour away and they also quarantine whatever fish I want to order.

What kind of QT is it? Separate system all by itself, or just separate tank on store multi tank system?

 

[albano]

i was pretty bummed about that as well. Since they moved to texas, they have been my go to for fish.

When he first opened in NY he was 30 minutes from my home, then opened up a shop only 15 minutes from my house, then the move to Texas ended it! But I understand, he did it for his son, so more power to him! Great guy and wife and family.

 

[tinyfellows]

Mine are 30 and 45 minutes away but if I go after work it’s more like hour and half and two hours with traffic

 

[DIYreefer]

Now it is bumper to bumper traffic between Dallas and Louisiana.

My daughter had a gymnastics competition in Dallas last year and we sat in literal bumper to bumper traffic from Waco, all the way to Dallas. I've never seen anything like it before or since. We don't go to Dallas competitions anymore.

 

[DIYreefer]

My lfs is about 10 minutes from me. It's a nice store, run by a friend of mine. Unfortunately the hobby isn't all that strong in our city so it doesn't make much sense for him to stock a lot of livestock, much less higher end livestock.

 

[CapeCoralDan]

I have 3 within 15 minutes of my house. Perfect area to have a reef tank!

 

[threebuoys]

How far is everyone traveling to their LFS?
How far are you willing to travel to an LFS?

I travel about 1 hour to LFS and have gone as Far as 2.5 hours.

My nearest LFS is 120 miles away. So, I do 90% of my purchases online. I did buy my tanks at the LFS. All fish, equipment, and all but a couple of pieces of coral online.

 

[afrokobe]

My daughter had a gymnastics competition in Dallas last year and we sat in literal bumper to bumper traffic from Waco, all the way to Dallas. I've never seen anything like it before or since. We don't go to Dallas competitions anymore.

yea driving down to Austin is no fun sometimes. I also got stuck coming back from Houston... I need that train built faster

 

[vetteguy53081]

Wow, hadn’t heard that…. No retail just wholesale, I guess Wonder if he’s planning to come back to NY.

NY is now Sound Aquatics. he is going to do drop shipping for several stores

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

None currently within 2hrs. When I was in WA I traveled a couple of hours one way, but there were four or five stores to visit.

 

[vetteguy53081]

When he first opened in NY he was 30 minutes from my home, then opened up a shop only 15 minutes from my house, then the move to Texas ended it! But I understand, he did it for his son, so more power to him! Great guy and wife and family.

I still have some of his fish from 4 years ago. Best prices and sizes

 

[vetteguy53081]

The United States will be the exact same soon. Once “they” get their way. It’s online sales that killed the LFS here.

One of the highest impacts is online shopping with overnight shipping.

 

[SandNRocks]

I drive a little over an hour to mine, usually once every week or two. I try to do something else in that area on those days if i can. Theres some really decent fish stores/reef conventions/events like 3hrs away sometimes but thats just too far for me.

 

[Opus]

My daughter had a gymnastics competition in Dallas last year and we sat in literal bumper to bumper traffic from Waco, all the way to Dallas. I've never seen anything like it before or since. We don't go to Dallas competitions anymore.

I agree, going south to Austin/Houston is just as bad. I've driven down to Houston for their big 1 day reef show and it actually wasn't bad early on a Saturday morning and then coming back late Saturday night.

 

[unchaotic]

Petco is 10 minutes (somehow keeps getting worse and for some reason they keep getting tangs and triggers)

Another local pet store has some saltwater tanks, selection is very affordable if not severely limited (no coral)

Ocean's Paradise 1.5 hours away in Bismarck. Nice fish selection and beautiful display tanks. Mostly mushrooms, softies, and anemones and the prices can be a bit steep but hey, it's not like they have competition.

Midwest Aquarium Services 4 hours away in Fargo. We go to Fargo a lot so this is my primary LFS. If they have a live auction the weekend before I go there I will load up but we make a point of going there whenever we're in town. I'm on a first name basis with pretty much everybody there.

Reef Collective and New Wave over 7 hours away in the Twin Cities. Beautiful shops, especially Reef Collective but this is how far I'd have to go to get to a store that even has a chance of impressing a lot of the people on this site.

I just realized it might be more cost effective for me to fly to Vegas to see an LFS.

 

[Opus]

Did you hear Salgados is closing its doors?

I did. I was on their email list. They had sent out a couple of "flash" sales for everything in the store at 50% off. I began to wonder if they were closing the store side of the business and then I got the email about a week later that they were going to be wholesale only. Personally I wasn't impressed with their store, though I only went once that they were actually open. I had gone a couple of other times and no one was there. They did have nice fish at good prices at the local frag swaps. There is also School of Fish here and they serve the ultra rare fish crowd well.