ReeferDude.com - Kyle and Victoria's Reef Tank Site

Local Fish Store Reviews - Atlanta, GA Area

We live in a suburb north of Atlanta and visit several local fish stores. When I first got into the hobby I wanted to find a list of local stores that included people's observations and experiences with the stores. I never found a good list so I thought I would include one here. The list below contains every Marine Aquarium store that we know of in the Atlanta area with my honest opinion of the store. The first 4 stores are the ones that I visit the most. They are listed in order of preference. The stores after the first 4 are not listed in any particular order. I don't visit them often because of the negative items I listed. I did not provide links to the stores that I don't like because I don't believe that anyone should give them their business. 1) Pets Unlimited - Marietta - This is my favorite local store. Matt is the owner/manager and he is the most knowledgeable person that I have met in this hobby. I know for sure that this store dips all new corals in iodine and all fish in Formalin. That is very important to help prevent disease and pests from entering your tank. Matt is also very honest and will steer you in the right direction no matter what your needs are. They have the best prices, he even beats most website pricing. His dry goods and equipment pricing are also the best. If you are going to get a new tank you should get a quote from Matt. I am sure that he will beat any price that you can get. They also sell freshwater fish and supplies as well as all natural dog and cat food. I cannot think of anything negative about this store at all. (No, I was not compensated in any way for this review.) 2) Optimum Aquarium - Kennesaw - This store was in Marietta but recently moved to Kennesaw. The new store is nice and is bigger than the old store. Greg is the owner/manager. They have a pretty good livestock and dry good selection with average pricing. They are less knowledgeable than the other stores and have mostly young kids working there. They do have the largest selection of tanks and stands in stock in the area. They occasionaly have nice corals but mostly mainstream, common species. The same for fish. 3) Imagine Ocean - Canton - Jennifer is the owner/manager here. She is very nice and is also honest and knowledgeable. Her store is the smallest on my list but her selection has gotten much better lately. She has the best deals in the area on ORA frags. She has also started selling her own SPS frags. The store is worth a look if you are in the area. 4) Marine Fish - Marietta - They have a nice looking store but that is about it. This store is by far the most expensive in the area. For example, a large Red Sea Sailfin Tang can be purchased for less than $100 at Pets Unlimited but Marine Fish wanted about $400 the last time I was there. It is easy to see their business model if you just hang around their store and listen to their people. This store is in a very nice section of town with a high median income. They specialize in rich people that don't know what they are doing. This store would rather do business with someone new to the hobby so they can rip them off and have them sign a long maintenance contract than deal with anyone that has a clue about the hobby. Unless you want to pay about 4x too much, STAY AWAY! 5) Atlantis Aquarium - Marietta - This store has potential if only the owner or employees cared at all. The owner is an older guy that seems to want to get out of the business. They always have a very small selection of livestock even thought their store is huge and their Dry Goods are priced too high. All of their tanks look horrible with algea and cyano bacteria all over the place. I have been to the store several times but never purchased anything because I feel like it would die as soon as I got it home. This guy needs to start taking care of the store or get out of the business. 6) Creation Reef - Woodstock - I WILL NEVER STEP FOOT IN THIS STORE AGAIN! Matt Chase, the owner, has no common sense or business sense at all. There are many reasons that I will not do business with this store but the final straw was the fact that he will not stand behind his livestock. Even the online stores offer a 30 day guarantee and will give credit if something dies but your water is fine. All other local stores also try to make it right if a new purchase dies. I was a good customer that spent several thousand dollars there. I had a zoo colony die after about a week. I had 14 other zoo colonies in the tank doing fine and all water parameters were perfect. Matt refused to give credit on the colony. He probably paid about $20 for it but offered no credit and lost a customer because of it. I cannot even comprehend the logic behind that decision other than he isn't very business savvy. Any intelligent business owner tries to retain customers, especially customers that are addicted to the hobby and spend a lot of money. Also, he keeps his fish system specific gravity super low, around 1.016 - 1.018. That hides diseases and is a deceitful practice. He also apparently doesn't properly dip his fish or corals. Reputable fish stores acclimate new arrivals carefully and do a Formalin dip. He apparently does not. You will see many nice looking fish in the store but as soon as you get them home and into a system with normal water parameters they will show signs of disease. I have purchased about 5 fish from him. All but one died of either internal parasites or Marine Velvet and also killed other fish in my system. The bottom line is the store looks nice and I used to enjoy shopping there but it isn't worth it because of the shady business practices and owner. He could have kept a customer with minimal effort on his part but he didn't care. He has said other annoying things to me as well that reveled his ineptitude, like when I questioned his super high price on 1 micron sedimate filters for RO machines. Even PetSmart has them for about $5 but he wanted $12. When I questioned him about it he said "Guess you should buy it from PetSmart then". What kind of intelligent business owner says that to a customer, much less a good customer? Do yourself a favor and shop at the other local stores. Your livestock will do better and you will have less headaches. Even if you think you have a decent relationship with Matt you will eventually be burned by his deceitful business practices. I have no illusions that my rant or the fact the me and the 4 or 5 other reefers that I know won't do business with him anymore will hurt his business that much. I just wanted to get the word out to warn people that invest so much time and money in the hobby that they would be better served elsewhere. Online Aquarium Store Reviews I have only purchased livestock over the Internet from the first 3 stores listed below. I purchased my Tunze stuff and some other dry goods from the last 2 stores. 1) Live Aquaria - My favorite online livestock vendor. I have purchased both corals and fish from them and have been genreally happy. If there is a problem with the order they are quick to give a credit. I trust this site. They are a real business with a call center and good customer service. Check out the Diver's Den section for the best stuff. 2) Vivid Aquariums - This site is OK. They recently expanded their WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) section. I prefer the WSYIWYG because you know exactly what you are getting. Their shipping is high and their quality is OK. The colors never look as good in person as they do on their website. They are safe to order from but be aware that the colors won't look as good and they overstate sizes. They will also give credit if your livestock doesn't do well in shipping. 3) Cherry Corals - I only ordered from them once. They guy that we spoke to was nice and even included some extra polyps with our order. Their colors are way off in person. It seems like they photoshop (enhance) their pictures online. They are also too expensive in my opinion. They seem safe enough to order from. The order was shipped promptly and arrived in good condition. I will not order from them again becasue of the price and color issues. 4) Marine Depot - No livestock, only dry goods. Nice selection and decent prices. If you cannot get what you are looking for locally I would recommend ordering from them. They are a real business with real people to speak to if you need to. Shipping is reasonable and their communication is good. They send emails at each stage of the order and you can track your order from the account page on their site (I won't do business with websites that don't offer this feature). 5) My Reef Creations - No livestock, only equipment. They are located in Georgia not too far from where I live. I haven't been by their store yet but I have ordered from their online store. I had a good experience. They also offer order tracking and real people to speak to if you need something. They specialize in acrylic construction, both off-the-shelf and custom. They are knowledgeable and friendly. I plan to have a custom sump made here for my next tank.

Marine Aquarium Equipment Reviews

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Marine Aquarium Pest Removal

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Useful Marine Aquarium Links

These are sites that I use for research. The people that run these sites are authors, marine biologists and reef geeks with years of experience. I read so many crazy things online but these are the sites I trust to help me with tank issues. - Wet Web Media - Bob Fenner's Site, Author of The Conscientious Marine Aquarist - Reef Keeping - Online Magazine with excellent articles, also features Tank of the Month - Reef Central - Community forum associated with Reef Keeping, knowledgeable people