In my travels...

So, I know that I am new around here, but one thing about me is that my job has me traveling around the country throughout the year.

So this week brought me to Los Angeles. I thought that it would be fun to look up some local saltwater shops and see what they have here.

It is crazy the price differences being on a coast. I was at a highly recommended place called (don't laugh) Bob's tropical Fish. This place was pretty awesome. Every tank was clean and stocked appropriately with healthy fish (just as I had heard in my research) and I saw fish that I had never seen in any LFS in Iowa and don't recall seeing some of them at places like LiveAquariua.com either. Not odd-ball things, but unique tangs and angel fish, and this was the "left-overs" from last week's shipment. Rumor has it that the place is packed with customers every Saturday morning after the tanks are re-stocked with fish and corals from their Friday shipments.

Anyway, outside of good fish prices on healthy fish, the coral prices were unbelievable.

Now I am not a complete expert by any means on corals, but I saw a a fist sized colony of polyps like those I saw small 3-5 head frags this past weekend going for about $20 for, guess what? $20...

Investigation into one of the owners (neither of which are named "Bob") showed that he was really knowledgeable. I brought up some of the points that both speakers from this past weekend's fest did, and he was all over it and could have had in-depth conversations at their level easy...

I talked to him about shipping of fish and corals. He said that he has had a few people fly with come corals/fish and he is willing to pack things for the approximately 8 hour trip from going to LAX, flying, a layover, and then flying again back to Cedar Rapids.

I am here until mid-afternoon Thursday, so I will check more places out. Maybe when I am back in 6 months I will see about buying some live goods and see about bringing them back to Iowa.

On an additional note, after talking with him for about an hour straight, getting some tips and tricks, etc, he invited me to visit their warehouse/storage facility that they are opening up in December. Granted I will have to wait until around May/June before I am back, but I thought that was pretty cool. He said that I will be able to make purchases right from that location too. It is in Torrance, CA and a lot closer to LAX which would not only help me, but also helps him with his shipments. Instead of 2 trips to LAX each Friday (fish in the morning and corals in the evening) he will have them taken directly to the new storage/quarantine location and then taking the best stuff to the shop and healing up anything that needs it right there. He estimated a time savings of about 2 hours in regards to getting livestock unbagged and so forth which he claims in some cases would have allowed him to save some of the stock that didn't travel well.

My next trip is the first week of December. I will be near Baltimore, MD and Exton, PA. Not sure what is up there, but I will find out. Then the next trip after that is the 2nd week of December down to Dallas, TX. I am sure that I will find some goodies down there too.

I will continue to try to make contacts with these other shops, and not that I want to out-do any place in Iowa, it might open up the doors for additional options with "hand selected" (by me) selections. We'll see.

 

Andy, I think that you mis-understood what I was getting at. I am in NO MEANS trying to start some sort of crazy business or make even a penny off of anything. Just sharing a fun conversation/experience last night and tossing out the option that possibly (and being the realist that I am, it is a low possibility) I could transport some live goods during my travels for my Iowan Saltwater folks.

Some things that I didn't get into was his quarantine system that he has now which is basically, put the new arrivals into the store, people pick out what they want and when they pay, they can either take them right then, or ask for them to be put into quarantine. He doesn't charge anything for quarantining the fish/corals, but does has a current limit of 4 weeks due to space limitations.

The future setup will have everything coming in to the new warehouse facility, they all go into quarantine right off the bat, and get sorted by what *appear* to be healthy vs. those in need of some "help". Treatments/medications/feedings happen based off of their current state, and then they are held for 4 weeks before making it to his store. Then everything has a quaratine cycle, and while not 6 weeks, is still more than a lot of places do.

Yes, some people can still get into that facility and buy what they want, but his current stance is to only sell quarantined stock from there and not let people take stuff that just came in. It won't be open to the public, but I am sure that I am not the only person that he has offered the invitation to. Again, I am a realist.

Anyway, I just wanted to share.

I might have to try to check out Tong's tomorrow morning before I leave. There are a number of locations here, and some are better than others. With LA traffic, the location will dictate which one I actually get the chance to go to.