i dunno if anyone else has been there, well i know someone has to have been there, but i was in the area and chose to stop by.
It saved me waiting a week for a lot of stuff.
Boughts:
2 Phoban reactors
bucket of phosban
bucket of carbon
tropic marine pro reef salt
40g breeder tank
corals book
net!!!
filterpads
thats all…
they had everything i would ever need, well i guess being they are an online supplier.
the only downside was the fish side of the retail. Very wholesale feeling. dunno if they are a wholesaler, but the lights were 20+ feet above the tanks and i saw white tangs. (previously yellow), and a bunch of unhappy fish. Coral colonies were cheap i thought though.
What do you guys who use tropic marin pro pay for it?
I have no idea what the average retail cost for Tropic Marin is as I don’t pay retail prices, lol. I can tell you that TPP is higher then what I pay and cheaper then more local stores. I know there is at least 4-5 people that have compared DPA pricing to TPP and now place requests with DPA to order their salt.(This is just one LFS that I have experience with. Any LFS can order the salt)
As far as the fish and wholesale stuff… be glad you were not there on a receiving day. From what I saw the number of DOA they get, from what ever there source may be, is significant. They sell some fish online, but I would bet they rarely sell to other LFS and I know they don’t deal with the same quantities as other wholesalers. Since their quantities are lower you don’t get the same 3’ tall piles of fish carcasses, but the percentage of dead could be the same.
Did you decide to drill or not? Sorry haven’t been able to keep up with all the posts.
Been a year or so since I’ve been there. Amassing dry goods section. The fish and corals are usually OK but not usually as impressively as they should be considering the size of that place and the vibe that they portray. Taking nothing away from the place and if you’ve never been there definitely worth the trip.
i just went yesterday for the first time in close to a year, i was sad to see the petting exhibit with the sting rays was closed for renovation…but all of the display tanks looked a lot better than i remembered…
they have every light u can imagine…they are atleast $3 cheaper than our LFS…
food is about the same price, but they have a better variety of dried + frozen…
i went to get a bunch of clean up crew stuff…they also had scarlet hermits for $1.50…not the plain jane red legs i once got jipped in a online buy on…
they also had a couple different waves controllers i was looking at…
i ended up getting a pistol shrimp, snails, crabs, and a nano scrubber…also i thought the corals looked good and were priced ok…they had way more frags in the $20-40 than previously…they have also relocated the huge skimmer…
yeah jon it is, the material its made from is very nice…and for being a little pad it has some force to it…
it was $9.99
i also forgot to say that i got some of the new Instant Ocean wet food in the packets…i got a test pack from DPA and my fish killed it…its wet food that never has to be refridgerated…
it comes out in clumps, but i just cut a small hole in a corner of the pack and slowly squeeze it out near a powerhead and let it disperse…if u havent tried it, i would definitly recommend it.
marching, i kind of like their holding tanks…when u go to most LFS they have the fish in atleast 20 gall. tanks and they harass/uncomfort the fish when they are chasing it around netting it…
i just dont think they (TFP) expect to keep the fish in there for a long time, so they house them in those smaller tanks…
the person i was with bought 3 fish, and the helper didnt even have to use a net to catch them…didnt stress the fish out too much…
[quote=“longballz84, post:8, topic:2435”]
marching, i kind of like their holding tanks…when u go to most LFS they have the fish in atleast 20 gall. tanks and they harass/uncomfort the fish when they are chasing it around netting it…
i just think they (TFP) expect to keep the fish in there for a long time, so they house them in those smaller tanks…
the person i was with bought 3 fish, and the helper didnt even have to use a net to catch them…didnt stress the fish out too much…
[quote=“longballz84, post:7, topic:2435”]
i also forgot to say that i got some of the new Instant Ocean wet food in the packets…i got a test pack from DPA and my fish killed it…its wet food that never has to be refrigerated…
it comes out in clumps, but i just cut a small hole in a corner of the pack and slowly squeeze it out near a powerhead and let it disperse…if u havent tried it, i would definitly recommend it.[/quote]
They are giving free samples of that all over the place. The replacement to frozen food you don’t have to put in the freezer! You just have to pay twice as much for… Glad to hear your fish liked it. Marchingband John said his fish wouldn’t touch it. I haven’t tried it yet. I often just feed my corals and the fish get the scraps.
fish hated it rotted on the bottom, well hermits liked it. Its gel food. is less bang for the buck as they have to use the gel, probably geletin, to bind it. which takes up room, and adds less food and more junk to the food.
while your fish might like it i dont see a reason to pay more for less. And its probably unhealthy. like eating jello with chunks of fruit. YuCK
But still none of the fish looked “healthy” to me, and even in LFS everything looks healthier.
I mean it cant be healthy to lose all the color in a fish… i mean… wow…
While ya, the fish isnt stressed by a net, your still overstocking in 20g tank and theres less room. I would nvr buy fish there, i would go LFS, and then more animal oriented retail sites.
thats my opinion.
ididnt see ATI lights though… thats what i need to order soon…
Jon,
YGPM
and salt was as cheaps as i can find it anywhere 69.99
[quote=“Marchingbandjs, post:12, topic:2435”]
I mean it cant be healthy to lose all the color in a fish… i mean… wow…[/quote]
To fill in and explain what longballz was saying about lighting. You don’t have a lot of experience keeping a tang at home, so you may not have seen what a tang looks like in the middle of the night when the lights are off or when the lights first come on. I believe all of there FO systems are lit by NO fluorescents over 10feet above the tanks.(could be more I forget how high there roof is) People often comment that the colors in fish never look as bright as they do in a FO system as they do in a reef tank. Part of the reason is fish under brighter lights usually show off more color.
Now stressed fish lose there color as well and I am not saying that isn’t the reason. Fish in copper systems also lose there color if they are in it long enough. Could be a lot of reasons and I am not saying they were healthy fish just saying just looking at the color of the fish isn’t a good health indicator because of their lighting.
[quote=“Marchingbandjs, post:12, topic:2435”]
I would nvr buy fish there, i would go LFS, and then more animal oriented retail sites.[/quote]
I’m currently using Tropic Marin at home in my prop systems, but watching NeoMarine carefully.(all of the reef tanks I work on for Armco are my test subjects )
)