LFS vs Petco

AMEN!!!

One of the Petco's in my Metropolitan area is fine for saltwater. The manager of the fish dept has her own reef at home and she takes good care of the tanks/animals. On the other hand, one would not want to purchase marine animals at any of the other Petcos in our area.

However, I can say the same thing about the LFS's in our town. We have 3 that are 100% saltwater and another 3 that are more generalized pet stores. The one that I work at has been 100% saltwater for over 25 years. The owner has 25 years of experience, I have close to as much, another 3Reefer here (Schackmel) has about 5. We have an expert at cephalopods of all types, another employee who is an expert at batoids and sharks, our local supplier of frags who works sometimes in the store has 15 years experience, our supplier of T/R clowns who also works sometimes in the store has about 15 years experience. In spite of our collective knowledge, the following words are uttered often. "I'm pretty sure this is the answer but let me look it up for you real quick to be certain". We can use our buying power to lower the prices of corals and fish.....not only that, we can afford to bring in rarely seen corals, fish, and other inverts.

One of the competing stores is clean and has several employees who are knowledgeable. Unfortunately, their coral selection consists of the same leathers, brains, softies, and zoanthids over an over again. Their prices are fairly high IMO but they at least take good care of their animals.

The third store has a great selection of corals, as long as you want zoanthids. LOL Seriously, 95% of their coral selection is zoanthids and they don't have much selection in the way of fish.

I've known these other owners since before they opened their marine-only LFS and I consider them friends. When I clock in, they are competitors. When I clock out, they become friends again. There's enough customers in the St. Louis area that there's enough business for all of us. This even benefits the customers. A customer wanted a surprise gift. I had a 28g HQI nano and the rock, sand, heater, extra powerheads, etc. What I did not have was a stand. I called one of our competitors, found out that they had one stand left, and I had them put it on hold for our customer. They made a little money, we made a little money, hubby got the surprise gift from his wife.

I would purchase from Diver's Den but I would never purchase anything from the rest of Live Aquaria. I have some issues with the transshipping business model that doesn't care if the fish or coral dies....it's cheaper to just pull another one out of the ocean. However, that's easy for me to say. In my market there is competition and good prices on fish, corals, equipment, etc. You can also ask questions and get help from people with experience. That's not something you'll get online.

 

Hey Curt. Do you ever get true bimacs in? Been looking for a young one for awhile.

 

Typically, we bring in some unknown Carribean species. However, there is someone who can get true Bimac's and I've brought them in before. However, I'll have to go through invoices/supply lists to remember who gets them.

I honestly don't know what tomorrow will bring with it being Superbowl Sunday. I'm figuring it's going to be either swamped or real slow. If it's slow, I'll try and find the supplier.

 

Cool. You can message me when you find out, if you remember. If you forget I'll remind you ;D