Info on a new must see fish store don't pass this post up

My encounter with Finger Lakes Live Rock all started on the day I walked into the fish store and saw one of the most interesting fish I have ever seen. I called over an employee and asked them what that fish was and he replied, "That is a blue spotted jawfish, they are pretty aren’t they." I looked amazed at the fish his bright yellow colors were emblazoned with neon blue spots that seemed to glow in the light. I thought to myself, "I must have him"! I asked the LFS owner how much and he replied, "one hundred and fifty dollars".
I was struck hard. I didn’t have that kind of cash for just one fish. I decided to pass it by and go home to do a little research and see if I could find it any cheaper, I searched forums all over on the internet on blue spotted jawfish and found some good prices around $70 for them which were a lot better than my LFS. I started looking for info seeing as I had "found" my supplier on how to care for the blue spotted jawfish and see if there were any difference between him and the Haitian jawfish, but there wasn’t really any difference but in the looks and the way they change color when spawning.
I looked in at least 10 different forums on how to care for these guys and came across someone who had just recently posted that they bought one for $45!! I was amazed that was the best deal I had ever seen. I took his link and typed it in and found Finger Lakes Live Rock I was a bit weary of the sight at first since there was no pictures or info of any of the fish but decided hey its a deal and you aren’t finding any better prices elsewhere. I will just do business over the phone to see how good the company is I told myself. I called up their phone line expecting to get one of those tellers who don’t know anything about the product they were selling and just wanted to get your order placed and done, but with Finger Lakes Live Rock this wasn’t the case at all.
As the phone rang it played a classical tune until finally someone picked up the phone and answered, "This is Finger Lakes Live Rock, this is Josh how can I help you"? At first I thought oh this must be a teller or something, well I went along with it anyways I started saying how amazing his deals were and how I could not believe how good the prices were on all of his items and how it was almost unbelievable the prices he was offering. He and I laughed about how my LFS was price gouging compared to his prices. I said, "I would love to place an order in the future for the blue spotted jawfish, I noticed it was on your weekly special and I don’t have any cash right now do you guys think you could hold one for me"? I got an instant reply of, "sure that’s no problem were there any other fish that you were interested in getting because I can’t really ship that far without a $150 minimum order". I said that it would be a week before I got the money and he said that it was alright and that I could take my time.
After getting home I decided to get on the sight and check out there fish that they offer at "normal price" I expected the rest of their fish prices to be sky rocketing high compared to their weekly special but I was dead wrong. I immediately went to find my favorite fish the powder blue tang and expected to see it be $100 for the small-med that my LFS are offering but all that I saw was $29.99 for a small and $44.99 for a medium!! I started freaking out I had to jump on this fast! I went to find the contact number and noticed their banner has Joshua M. Goodman listed as the president of Finger Lakes Live Rock, I had been talking to the president of the company this whole time and didn't realize it.
Once realizing I had a direct line to the president of FLLR I thought to myself, hey I love writing articles on 3reef.com - Forums for coral reef aquariums, salt water fish, corals, inverts, protein skimmers, aquarium lighting and more! - Your reef aquarium forum to discuss saltwater fish tanks, tropical fish, corals and fish filters. Also freshwater informati about fish and just conversing on there, why don't I interview Josh about him and his company and share my experience with my newly discovered fish retailer. I figured that many people just order from a company blindly but never get to know the man behind it or what his company actually does so I decided to help everyone out and get a decently quick interview with the owner and ask him some questions about his business and how it came to be.
I started coming up with some plans for questions writing them down and told Josh of my plan, which he was excited about. In the middle of ordering my fish I asked him a series of questions and here is what I came up with.

Picture of My FLLR Jawfish


Josh M. Goodman Finger Lakes Live Rock President.​

To start any company you need to look at the man behind everything and that is Josh Goodman. He had always been fascinated by the ocean reading up on articles and talking to people who actually had tanks but didn’t actually get that spark, that need to build a tank and get a piece of that ocean that we reefers so adore, till he went and looked at one of his friends salt water aquariums. Like everyone that jumped into this wonderful hobby he looked at the tank in awe of how much life could be contained into this space, a small piece of ocean in your own home, a small world created by you, controlled by you, loved by you. Like anyone who has just seen their first tank Josh's curiosity in starting one arose. He went to his LFS and started talking to the owner on how much it would be and how hard it was to start a saltwater tank and maintain one. The LFS discouraged him and said, "oh you don’t want to deal with saltwater, its expensive and not worth it in the long run". Well like me he took that with a grain of salt (no pun intended) and started one up. We reefers have a major thing in common; we don’t like to hear no.
After keeping tanks many of years Josh had been dealing with the price gauging stores do all of the time. One of his main pet peeves was Live Rock being $10 a pound! He had had enough. He started out small and went with buying Base Rock by the bulk and on a large scale cured it, and sold it much cheaper than what a LFS would. He had also had enough with people discouraging customers from joining the hobby so he vowed to himself he would make his business newbie friendly, try to get people started in aquaria rather than scared of it. Josh after selling his live rock started expanding a little bit to selling live rock to restaurants with display tanks and doing maintenance on them as well. Josh had accrued enough money expand his business even further. He used some of his importers from the east and west coast (who get their fish from Hawaii, Indonesia, red sea and all around the world to add as much variety as possible) and added fish to his selling list. Once he got his own sight business boomed, gaining customers at a rapid rate. Josh gained many affiliates along the way for a good reason. Having an affiliate makes buying the fish easier and his main reason, to make dealing with Finger Lakes Live Rock more personable.
One of Josh's main goals is to make the shopping experience for the customer as fun and personable as possible. He does not offer a shopping cart on his sight for a good reason. He does this so he can personally get involved with the shoppers experience. Josh loves his job and everything it entails. Josh makes sure to give any and all information about anything he thinks needs more than special care like for example if someone wants to buy a shark, he makes sure the customer knows everything he can about their care needs to try and avoid any purchase of a shark for say 40 gallon. He loves teaching people wonderful things about our world’s reef inhabitants and their care but also loves learning from people who have more experience with certain fish who have had them in their tank.
A day in the life of Josh is full of answering phone calls, monitoring emails, figuring out receipts and researching and keeping his hands in every part of the business. He takes care of his customer and you wont find a better business owner anywhere.

Where do they get there goods and how do they sell it so cheap?​

FLLR is a greatly run business. The fish they get from their wholesalers are imported from Hawaii, Indonesia, Red Sea which gives them a great variety of fish. Some protected areas that house some of the fish they sell, some of their importers aquaculture their fish that come from protected areas to keep the fish available in the trade. FLLR gets most of its live rock imported from the Fiji islands for a great price; which is savings for you the customer. Buying fish/rock in bulk makes it easier for deals to be made and FLLR cuts out the middle man when it comes to business so the price savings get to you and not the middle man.

FLLR's Part in Saving the Reef.​

FLLR supplies schools in New York with propagating corals to help reduce the need for farming for coral. A bulk of their business does come from the reef however due to the necessity to supply all of its customers with the demanding need for corals. A business can't survive on aquacultured frags alone. FLLR also carries aquacultured fish but do prefer wild rather than aquacultured because of the natural instincts a wild fish might have, for example tank raised clowns often do not host anemones and this is due to not having the natural instincts a wild caught fish might have. Finger Lakes Lakes Live Rock is totally for saving the reef and is looking to get certified to donate money and go help the reefs out with coral bleaching etc.

Condition Fish are kept in Until Sold.​

Fish are kept in large tanks with T5 HO lighting for coral to give great growth and conserve energy. Fish are put in QT if needed when they arrive at their warehouse and go through a variety of safety precautions before they arrive in their new home. Fish go through either fresh water dips, copper dips if needed and are put into a QT if necessary to make sure they arrive alive and healthy. FLLR has a very very low DOA rate with fish and shipping.

My Experience with FLLR​

My experience with FLLR was AWESOME to say the least. I ordered the fish and got everything settled with Josh in a course of about 3 weeks. It wasn’t that he was slow it was my fault because I kept finding awesome deals and making deals with him constantly and coming up with the money to pay for it. While choosing the coral and fish Josh helped me get the best deals possible for each item and changing items before they get shipped was absolutely no problem at all. I ordered and paid for everything using PayPal on Tuesday morning and it arrived at my house via fed ex at 10am I immediately opened the box and checked the heat packs and they were still warm. The fish bags with the more delicate fish in them had black coverings on the bottom of the bag to reduce stress. I ordered a torch coral $39.99 a sun coral $24.99 long tentacle anemone $19.99 a blue spot jawfish $44.99 a powder blue tang $39.99 and chose to use the pick 5 for $29.99 deal and chose 2 Pajama Cardinals 2 cleaner shrimp and 1 brittle starfish. I placed them all in the bucket and started acclimation for about 2 hours long. As soon as I put the jawfish in He started making his home (Picture) When I put the Powder Blue Tang in he immediately started eating. The cardinals found a great spot in my tank to float around (picture of cardinals) and the shrimp and starfish hid with the anemone pushing its foot into the sand. All of the fish arrived in great condition and made it along greatly. I would recommend this place to anyone especially someone who is starting their aquarium with live rock as their first purchase because they have great deals on live rock sometimes $2.00 a pound!!! As well as I would recommend taking advantage of the 5 for $29.99 and looking at the weekly deals.
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Picture of bags

Picture of Torch Coral

Picture of Sun Coral

Picture of Anemone

Picture of Powder Blue Tang

Picture of Pajama Cardinals

Picture of Shrimp

Picture of Starfish

Store Location​

Finger Lakes Live Rock is located in the Finger Lakes in New York. The sight is an online business so just fair warning if you drive their you are going to be disappointed because you will just find an office building, there warehouse and company is separated buildings. FLLR contains many affiliates for pickup or closer shipping though. For shipping questions and company policy look on their web- site for their user-friendly info. Contact www.fllronline.com or look online today and see what kind of deal you can get, I know I am happy with mine!

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All the text is in black. Cant read it on a black backgrounded forum... had to highlight the text to see it. Others may have this issue...

 

I thought that the forum background was all white here though.

 

theres different themes you can use. one of which has a black background

great writeup btw.

 

Thank you very much

 

Read it fine. Thanks for the review, looks like a good store!

 

How do I put this in my favorite threads?

 

you could create a list "favorite threads" and then add it to the list. that way later you can easily reference it.

 

Hey if you guys happen to place an order tell em where you found out about them.

 

all of the pictures in the article came from Finger Lakes Live Rock