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Prices are ridiculous!


Blennylover14

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Most of this has to do with the shipping required to get livestock from thousands of miles away to your LFS. Gas prices will never be low again so prices, for exotic stuff like this especially, will continue to rise.

 

I live in central missouri (literally as far from the ocean as I can get pretty much). Prices are competitive with online pricing around here. Torch, hammer, frogspawns are about $10-15 a head, zoa colonies are 20 - 50, BTAs 25-40.

 

Fish are the same, occs about 15-20, yellow tangs 25, ect.

 

Maybe I am just lucky =)

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Blennylover14
Last time I was in Denver I stopped by Elite Roof, it was nice.

Never heard of them

I'll have to check them out

 

 

I live in central missouri (literally as far from the ocean as I can get pretty much). Prices are competitive with online pricing around here. Torch, hammer, frogspawns are about $10-15 a head, zoa colonies are 20 - 50, BTAs 25-40.

 

Fish are the same, occs about 15-20, yellow tangs 25, ect.

 

Maybe I am just lucky =)

Cheapest yellow tang I've seen is about 45$

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Here in the springs there are some nice stores! We even have a Petco with an awesome frag tank. A member of SCMAS is the one running it. very nice prices to!

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Blennylover14
Here in the springs there are some nice stores! We even have a Petco with an awesome frag tank. A member of SCMAS is the one running it. very nice prices to!

I'll have to come down there one day. What else do they have? I don't usually buy frags unless there zoas

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I'll have to come down there one day. What else do they have? I don't usually buy frags unless there zoas

They have a lot down here. MR. Aqua, Seascape Aquatics, Just to name a few

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Blennylover14
They have a lot down here. MR. Aqua, Seascape Aquatics, Just to name a few

Wow I had no clue.. Just sucks it's like a 2 hour drive down there lol

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totalimmortal363

I pretty much only shop at Elite Reef. The other stores close by pale in comparison IMO, at least in the Westminster/Arvada area. Prices seem relatively fair as well.

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I work at elite reef and we do our best not to jack up the prices on things. But like others have said its hard to sell things for super cheap when we have to buy gas to get to the airport and back 3-4 times a week. We have some pretty nice stuff for a fair price id say. I need to check out the colorado springs stores, ive heard of some good stuff down there. I will say the beat deal i have ever gotten since ive been in the hobby though is the gold maxima i just scored for 25 dollars at petco. Come check us out though.

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Stories like this make me glad I'm in California. I live like 15 minutes away from a main port where all the livestock comes in :P

 

Color me confused. Your location says Bay Area, last I checked most everything comes in through Los Angeles, hence all of the wholesalers down there. I thought the last wholesaler in the bay closed up years ago. Please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

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Color me confused. Your location says Bay Area, last I checked most everything comes in through Los Angeles, hence all of the wholesalers down there. I thought the last wholesaler in the bay closed up years ago. Please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

 

I just googled "Bay Area" and all of the results said San Francisco, not Los Angeles... So I'm not sure... Are you using some stupid search engine on a messed up browser? Like are you using Bing on Firefox and Ask.com on Internet Explorer? Or are you being legit about the whole internet deal and using Google on Google Chrome? :D

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gearhead364
Why should prices be cheaper? Have shipping prices decreased recently? In general, reef livestock prices have declined relative to transportation costs. If anything, you should be whining 'bout gas prices.

I hate these #$%&ing gas prices...... how can I afford to go to my LFS... :rant:

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Personally I quit going to the LFS around me very early on and rely on craiglist for most things. Leaps and bounds cheaper, as long as your not in to much of a rush and I've found generally the stuff i get seems to be healthier as well. Places hear charge $60 for RBTA's that about 3" across. Posted a wanted ad on craigslist and bought two RBTAs that were around 5" across plus about 5lbs of LR for only $45 just took me a little over a week of waiting for a reply. I only go to the LFS now if i get bored and don't mind wasting a few bucks on something small.

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I hate these #$%&ing gas prices...... how can I afford to go to my LFS... :rant:

 

Tell me about it!!! By the time I drive 35 miles to a reasonable reef store, I mine as well pay $35 for shipping.

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buddythelion
Color me confused. Your location says Bay Area, last I checked most everything comes in through Los Angeles, hence all of the wholesalers down there. I thought the last wholesaler in the bay closed up years ago. Please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

Maybe she's talking about Pan Ocean.

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Worth remembering that few inland LFS actually make a profit. Let me show you a map.

 

  1. Gets gold fish as a kid.
  2. Tries fresh water fish preteen.
  3. Makes the leap to salt on 18th birthday. Parents not pleased.
  4. Takes down tank, gets own place, can't afford the hobby.
  5. Gets real job, starts building "The ULTIMATE Reef, ya'll" piece by piece.
  6. Starts swapping frags.
  7. Joins the local club.
  8. Buys more tanks.
  9. Keeps a couple things over night for a friend
  10. Starts buying dry goods in bulk.
  11. Friend asks to borrow a heater.
  12. Friend asks to borrow some carbon.
  13. Friend asks to buy that prized new frag.
  14. Sells frag to buy more dry goods.
  15. Epiphany! Puts up neon sign.
  16. Informed by IRS that business licence required.
  17. Say hello to your newest LFS! :)

It's a labor of love designed to support one's own habit. Go too far off the deep end and you'll end up an LFS, by default. Occasionally, someone business minded will get into saltwater with a real plan. But more often than not, it doesn't matter. Reefs are a luxury if there ever was one and nearly every LFS I've seen here has followed the same boom-bust scenario.

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Blennylover14

Let's say I want to buy a anemone that's 60 bucks and I drove to elite reef. I calculated it it would be like I'm buying two anemones just to drive there. But the anemone and drive back would e about 120$$!!!!!!

Knowing my little accord getting 20 mpg!

Aghh

 

A little exaggerated but still lol

 

I'd love to start a store in Colorado thatd be nice.

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jeez iball sorry bout the 40 dollar xenia frags, the place in here in JC sold me a large (3-4 inches) rock covered with xenias, mushrooms and zoas for 14.99, maybe you should visit :P

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Let's say I want to buy a anemone that's 60 bucks and I drove to elite reef. I calculated it it would be like I'm buying two anemones just to drive there. But the anemone and drive back would e about 120$$!!!!!!

Knowing my little accord getting 20 mpg!

Aghh

 

A little exaggerated but still lol

 

I'd love to start a store in Colorado thatd be nice.

Go to Key's Island and poke around. He has a cheapy frag tank, can get full colonies if you like, and can order pretty much anything you're looking for. There's a 180gal frag tank that has lots of cheap frags.

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Let's say I want to buy a anemone that's 60 bucks and I drove to elite reef. I calculated it it would be like I'm buying two anemones just to drive there. But the anemone and drive back would e about 120$$!!!!!!

Knowing my little accord getting 20 mpg!

Aghh

 

A little exaggerated but still lol

I drive to Elite on the regular.

In a Jeep, from south Metro.

 

 

It costs like $15.

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altolamprologus
Color me confused. Your location says Bay Area, last I checked most everything comes in through Los Angeles, hence all of the wholesalers down there. I thought the last wholesaler in the bay closed up years ago. Please feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken.

I'm right next to the port of Oakland, second largest port on the west coast. There's 2 marine wholesalers that I know of within a 10 minute drive from me.

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gearhead364
I'm right next to the port of Oakland, second largest port on the west coast. There's 2 marine wholesalers that I know of within a 10 minute drive from me.

Im movin down closer to that area in the fall I'll have to make a trip to the bay to check them out, might be worth the trip!

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totalimmortal363
Let's say I want to buy a anemone that's 60 bucks and I drove to elite reef. I calculated it it would be like I'm buying two anemones just to drive there. But the anemone and drive back would e about 120$$!!!!!!

Knowing my little accord getting 20 mpg!

Aghh

 

A little exaggerated but still lol

 

I'd love to start a store in Colorado thatd be nice.

 

Now if you drove what I do that I could see this being the case lol I get MAYBE 15 mpg on the highway, part of it is my own fault though ha

 

I drive to Elite on the regular.

In a Jeep, from south Metro.

 

 

It costs like $15.

 

This seems more realistic.

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Does anyone live in Colorado? Because the prices here are HORRIBLE

Bubble anemones small are now 60.00$ when I remember I used to get them for about 25.00$

Wow and I went looking for a pearly jawfish49.99$

They were 19.99$ last year

I'm fed up with this. This is why I took my large 180 gallon reef down I couldn't afford it at all. Gonna get hard to afford a nano now.

Especially being a college student!!!!

WOW

 

 

You can have a boss tank with high end corals, fish, and inverts. I definitely have more money in my cube than I did my 125 but then again designer stickers weren't the #### then :) not to mention chalices lol

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Blennylover14
Go to Key's Island and poke around. He has a cheapy frag tank, can get full colonies if you like, and can order pretty much anything you're looking for. There's a 180gal frag tank that has lots of cheap frags.

I'll give it a try

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