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luckyfish
05/10/2009, 11:26 AM
How was the trip to SA?

mamagoose45
05/10/2009, 11:38 AM
Awesome.

Matt and his family and staff where great to us - a home cooked lunch, a cool slideshow, and a sweet tour of the facility. Almost everyone came home with at least one fish (or closer to 12, cough Piersons cough...) :)

SA has an amazing set up that we all politely drooled all over while we were there. We stopped and saw Mel on the way back through Knoxville at Matt's new store, The Coral Reef.

We were the only ones that bought anything at the store, but we came home with a nice frag of Blue Steel zoanthids. Our new addition to the fish family is a happy ol' SA Banghaii Cardinal.

All in all, a day well spent!!

CeeGee
05/10/2009, 12:09 PM
In a nutshell it kicked @**!

My daughter can't stop talking about it. I now have some fish in my reef (the royal gramma isn't too happy about it though). It was a day well spent.

james3370
05/10/2009, 12:24 PM
i had a blast. i reeeeeally was tempted to get a pair of b/w clowns, but the build not being done put a damper on that :(

wayne did offer to fishsit them for me, but i decided to wait till i had the tank running

only bad thing i can say is after seeing the place, i now want a pair of b/w....& b/w clarkii...& tomatos....& skunks....& fancies
:mad2: LOL i need more tanks

andywe
05/10/2009, 12:56 PM
Sounds like it was a great trip!! I really wish we could have gone.

waynesworld
05/11/2009, 06:32 AM
Yes it was worth it I was really impressed with the trip and Matt and his family really rolled out the red carpet for us. The facility was larger then I thought it would be and he really takes care of the fish. I would have to say he would be the top of the line when it comes to hatchery standards. I would think if the Department of Ag used his place to set the standards others would be in trouble.

He is also got a great shop up there I will have to stop by there again on my way through. I will have to pay my donation to the state first :) Of course it was great to see Mel up there too.

NeveSSL
05/11/2009, 01:30 PM
I wish I could have gone! But I have been there before, so I don't feel too terrible. ;) Absolutely amazing facilities! Not to mention all at SA are a class act. :)

Glad you guys had a good time! And I can't believe you didn't get those clowns, James! *slapsforehead* ;)

Brandon

DMBillies
05/13/2009, 12:30 AM
I realize I'm a little late to the party, but the trip was a great time.

It was interesting having a look at all of the equipment and systems. All I have to say is that they gave me a lot of ideas I have neither the space nor money for.

I will echo Wayne in complimenting on how clean everything was. The facility is not normally open to the public and may have been spruced up a bit for us, but all of their set-ups were well planned and laid out and except for a bit of salt creep, the place was spotless. In fact, it was cleaner than probably 90% of the retail fish stores I've been in...

I can say that the Coral Reef has taken some major steps forward since Matt and Co. took it over and with it being just off of the highway there really is no reason to not stop if you're on your way through K'ville.

CeeGee
05/13/2009, 08:08 AM
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15001688#post15001688 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DMBillies
I can say that the Coral Reef has taken some major steps forward since Matt and Co. took it over and with it being just off of the highway there really is no reason to not stop if you're on your way through K'ville.

Dang! Had I known that the store was easily accessible We would have stopped by there.