[homer1475]

Went for a ride to the LFS yesterday for my b-day. CLOSED for good!!!!! No word of anything, no letting customers know, no explanation, nothing. So I decided to grab my wifes phone and look on facebook(I'm not on facebook but she is). One post from 3 days ago saying they were closing for good with no explanation, and if anyone wanted anything, they would be selling whats left in the store including equipment on sunday.

This really sucks as now the only LFS in the area I don't particularly care for as they are more of a boutique LFS, catering to the more wealthy side of the hobby. You know the kind of place where a 10$ frag is 50$. I have shopped there before, but the guys aren't super friendly, and most of their stuff is uber expensive. Plus they will not frag anything for you, hold anything for you, order anything for anyone, or have a stocked freezer. I honestly haven't figured out why everyone in the area swears by this "reef shop", but they do. Maybe because it' the only reef shop thats been in business for more then a couple years? But even this place was a partnership that went south and now the partners run 2 different stores on opposite side of the city. One a true LFS with FW and SW, the other this boutique LFS.

My old LFS was a 3 way partnership, with 1 guy basically running the store(the guy I dealt with who actually knew his sh*t), one guy doing maintenance, and a third guy who basically had the money. Apparently from what the other LFS told me is chris(the guy I knew and ran the store) was fed up with doing all the work while the other 2 just sat around and collected a paycheck. I guess they got in a heated argument one day and chris proceeded to tell them if it wasn't for him the other 2 wouldn't have a business. Thats when John(the maintenance guy) told chris the store would run fine without him. Well chris decided to pack up his stuff and leave. 2 weeks after chris left, the store closed.

I have his personal number, think I'm going to give him a call today and see whats up with him. I can't imagine he will get out of the LFS business all together. They had a pretty thriving store.

Anywho, since they were closed for good and the other 2 stores in the area are closed on Monday and Tuesday, I decided to take a drive to Rochester(4 hour drive one way lol). I don't know why but any LFS in NY is typically closed on Monday? Shipment day, recovery day from the weekend?

Anyways, found this super LFS. Probably one of the best LFS's I have ever seen! I was very impressed with their fish tanks, and assortment of fish. Their coral(frag) tanks were all super impressive, everything looked very healthy. They had one low boy frag tank that was nothing but scoly's. Literally like a hundred scoly's(later the guy told me he loves scoly's)! Huge Acro colonys that were like 50$. Not super colorful but large in size, like the size of a soda can. Any dry good you could ever want(everything from 6 different salt brands, a complete RO/DI setup with the separate replacement filters right there also, every salifert kit, every red sea kit, every hanna meter and reagent, any plumbing part, nearly any medication I could think of, even a couple complete red sea reefer tanks and other tanks. They literally had anything you could want or need for a reef tank. Everything was very comparable to online prices, sometimes even cheaper. I've been wanting to order a red sea nitrate pro kit(42.00$ @ BRS), just waiting till I need some other stuff also. They had the kit with an expiration date of 08/2019 for $36.00!!!

Spent quite a few hours there yesterday shooting the sh*t with the owner, he even knew about my old LFS that closed and was telling me some of the story(Chris helped him setup his store many years ago). At first I kind of got the wrong impression(2 gay dudes(I only say that because quite a few LFS's I have been to recently have run/ by a couple gay dudes) they looked it lol. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, just an observation), but after talking to them for a bit they were both married with kids and they were partners in the store. One guy did the maintenance end, and the other did the store front end. They had been in business since 94. I just so wish it wasn't a 4 hour drive!!

Anyways, seeing as it was my birthday and I'm fishless, I picked up a yellow coris wrasse, and a green warpaint goby. Dumped directly into my tank, these guys QT all fish on arrival for 6 to 8 weeks in hypo. And yes I actually saw the huge rows of tanks out in the back they use for QT when they were giving me the tour. And a nice chunk of sunset monti. I almost picked up a nice colony of acro, but the warpaint goby likes to eat , abd lay eggs in acro's, and my confidence in SPS is not so great yet. No sense in buying a colony to only kill it.