mothra
09/05/2005, 12:30 PM
I spent most of last week in the Huntington Beach area on business, but of course had to check out some LFS in the area. Here's where and went and what I saw:
Jeff's Exotic Fish (in Costa Mesa):
I believe this is the much smaller version of the main shop, which is in LA or Orange, or somewhere. Very clean store, looked fairly new. The tanks were stocked but for the most part you could walk into Twins and get the same stuff for half the price - or less. Not impressed.
Window to the Sea (Tustin):
Another clean store with not much of interest. Yawn.
The Reef Room (Dana Point):
This was the third strike. He did have a couple decent display tanks but everything was brown, and most of the corals were very common. We walked out within a couple minutes.
Tong's (Costa Mesa):
Finally something to write about! Tong's was a name that I've heard before so I was really looking forward to the visit and it didn't dissapoint. I headed right to the back of the store where the blue glow was coming from, there were 3 180g (estimate) display tanks. Some items in them were for sale, but most NFS.
I met Ton (sp?) the owner and we talked for a while. I asked about several corals in his tank that I recognized from online vendors as 'LE' type of stuff and he admitted that frags he gave away to certain folks made their way to the market unfortunately. According to Ton he has some "really nice pieces" at home and won't frag them out much if at all - the stuff in his display tank is "just ok".
A lot of what he had can be found around here, but he did have a few pieces that are hard to come by or that I had never even seen such as:
* Sunset Coral colony (judging from the size he has had this a while, and it is beautiful!)
* Watermelon Eye echinophyllia (in person this thing is amazing!)
* Acan hillae (brick red and super fleshy, I believe this to be a true hillae)
* Non-Indo lords (my own assesment) several unique morphs. I could have almost swore these some type of fleshy favia, they looked very different from other acans.
* Some really nice acros, not sure on ID's there were several I liked
* Some type of encrusting LPS that looked like a Blasto merletti crossed with a Leptastrea. Pink and green - VERY beautiful.
But as I said the really nice stuff was NFS and he was reluctant to frag anything, which I completely understood. There were also a TON of fish and inverts. I spent at least an hour in there looking everything over but walked out empty handed in the end. IF anyone is near Costa Mesa don't miss Tong's.
Jeff's Exotic Fish (in Costa Mesa):
I believe this is the much smaller version of the main shop, which is in LA or Orange, or somewhere. Very clean store, looked fairly new. The tanks were stocked but for the most part you could walk into Twins and get the same stuff for half the price - or less. Not impressed.
Window to the Sea (Tustin):
Another clean store with not much of interest. Yawn.
The Reef Room (Dana Point):
This was the third strike. He did have a couple decent display tanks but everything was brown, and most of the corals were very common. We walked out within a couple minutes.
Tong's (Costa Mesa):
Finally something to write about! Tong's was a name that I've heard before so I was really looking forward to the visit and it didn't dissapoint. I headed right to the back of the store where the blue glow was coming from, there were 3 180g (estimate) display tanks. Some items in them were for sale, but most NFS.
I met Ton (sp?) the owner and we talked for a while. I asked about several corals in his tank that I recognized from online vendors as 'LE' type of stuff and he admitted that frags he gave away to certain folks made their way to the market unfortunately. According to Ton he has some "really nice pieces" at home and won't frag them out much if at all - the stuff in his display tank is "just ok".
A lot of what he had can be found around here, but he did have a few pieces that are hard to come by or that I had never even seen such as:
* Sunset Coral colony (judging from the size he has had this a while, and it is beautiful!)
* Watermelon Eye echinophyllia (in person this thing is amazing!)
* Acan hillae (brick red and super fleshy, I believe this to be a true hillae)
* Non-Indo lords (my own assesment) several unique morphs. I could have almost swore these some type of fleshy favia, they looked very different from other acans.
* Some really nice acros, not sure on ID's there were several I liked
* Some type of encrusting LPS that looked like a Blasto merletti crossed with a Leptastrea. Pink and green - VERY beautiful.
But as I said the really nice stuff was NFS and he was reluctant to frag anything, which I completely understood. There were also a TON of fish and inverts. I spent at least an hour in there looking everything over but walked out empty handed in the end. IF anyone is near Costa Mesa don't miss Tong's.