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fish safari got pretty pointless a few years ago. not sure why since leroy is still there running it, but the coral tanks are pretty blah and always have what appear to be the exact same corals in them. i imagine that all the good stuff gets sold straight out of the box, leaving the blah stuff on the racks forever. last time i was there everything looked like it was on the verge of crashing.
the new player in virginia beach is reef chief. until recently it was a guy running a shop out of his 1-car garage in a townhouse. tanks stacked on tanks with barely any room to walk between them. but now he has a pretty big store not too far from the new amphitheater. stupidly high prices- $350 for a 10-15 head frogspawn colony, $600 for a 6-8" purple cap, $60-75 (i think) for a racquetball sized colony of anthellia. and frags were *way* too expensive but i forget the exact prices. but worth a look if you're in the area already.
the new fintastic in charlotte is a slick store. most things are horribly overpriced there as well, but with the overhead they are running it's understandable in their case. you can usually find a real gem in their frag/small colony tank that's well worth it.
fin's reef (actually the brick&morter is called fin's & critters) is also down there (though a bit of a drive out in the country) and is always worth the trip. *great* guys running it and even though they don't have much salt livestock, what they get is beyond top-shelf. i think the wholesalers send them the good stuff to suck up to them since fin's is the H&S importer.
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