Local Pet Shop reviews

[BeachBum843]

Here's a thread for reviewing local pet shops in Horry and Georgetown County. Fire away.

[BeachBum843]

I'll start.

The best shop in town for saltwater aquaria is Sea Critters Depot, located on Airport boulevard in North Myrtle beach. Sea critters depot is a small shop run out of a few mini warehouses near the North Myrtle Beach airport (where the banner planes fly out of) and is operated by Bruce Campbell. No, not the star of the Evil Dead movies...

Bruce's main business is professional tank maintenance for home and corporate clients. He handles the accounts of a lot of offices, restaurants and businesses in the area, including the tanks in Isla Morada fish house and the huge indoor tanks at Bass Pro shops. This has two major impacts on his retail business:

1) It forces him to keep quirky hours (Tues-Thurs from seven to nine p.m., Saturday eleven a.m. to six p.m., Sunday one to six p.m.) and,

2) Everything he sells from liverock to corals to fish are quarantined for a full 30 days. If you want an animal in quarantine, you can put money down on it and hold it, but he will not sell it to you until he knows it's healthy. Personally, I think this is a terrific policy.

Bruce also has a new project inside the store, the addition of two huge frag tanks for acropora corals (2,000 gallons). The setup is under construction as we speak and should be completed (time permitting) in a few weeks.

Sea Critters Depot
3002 - A Airport Blvd.
North Myrtle Beach
(843) 272-3657

[Ed Ricketts]

Bruce's place rocks! If we had basements here on the beach, his place would be my dream basement.

BB843 - Do you know other places that may have come or gone around these parts? (Insert winking yellow face here)

(ffffour...)

[BeachBum843]

Yep. The only other dealer that I know of in town that carries some decent SW fish/invert stock is Coastline pet supply. They're located down at the back gate of the former AFB in that first shopping complex off of 707 (where Ben Franklyn's used to be). Steve is the guy to see down there. They keep a steady supply of reef janitors, fish and some corals. He's got a bunch of SPS frags and heads, some of which are nice. They've been working on setting up a few new rack shelves, which looks like they purchased/inherited from maybe Wal-mart since all wal-marts are going out of the fish stock business. They also carry the basics when it comes to supplies. 2/3'rds of the stock is freshwater, 1/3 salt.

David at Pet Center on the frontage road in Surfside isn't carrying that much salt these days. They're selling off what remaining liverock they still have at $3 a lb. at this time. He still has a rack of saltwater fish tanks but there's hardly any stock in them. I think they're going out of saltwater stock altogether. I did manage to pick up some Caulerpa prolifera (bladed caulerpa) in there about two weeks ago.

There was a shop up here on the north end in NMB that went out of business, called Exotic Aquarium something-or-other. They lasted about five or six months. From what I hear, they had too much overhead and had to shut down and sell off everything. They tried to carry some nice tanks and (I guess) make it on tank maintenance, but just couldn't cut the mustard. They didn't have much in stock or supplies and the shop was in a crap location with no visibility.

The one LFS I wouldn't set foot in is Animal Supply House in NMB, across from the Wal-mart shopping center. Those people are scary. They do a lot of exotic pets (herps) and dog/cat supplies, but i've gone in there and had to avoid stepping in dog crap on the floors to look at floaters un-scooped in their tanks. The fish i've bought there i'd consider rescues rather than purchases. They even had a monkey for sale in there at one point. Their markup is outrageous, so I just avoid it.

Only other game in town is Petsmart, who has no saltwater livestock and a very limited selection of dry goods.

Charleston has some nice shops. Tideline aquatics in Hannahan is a dream shop and worth the drive. Excellent selection of both freshwater and saltwater fish, inverts and supplies. They also carry high end equipment such as good quality skimmers, R/O equipment, CO2 equipment and calcium reactors. If Bruce had full time to dedicate to his shop instead of maintaining tanks all day, it'd look like Tideline.

Age of Aquariums on 17 and Savannah highway is also a decent shop. They don't carry as many supplies as Tideline but they do have a nice selection of SW fish, corals and inverts. When I drive down there, I usually go to Tideline first, then swing by AOE on the way home.

There's also supposedly a good new shop in Mt. Pleasant, but I don't know the name of it or where it's located. The next time I swing down that way, i'll ask the guys in the Charleston reef club where that shop is.

[BeachBum843]

Ed,

Just so you know, Bruce got some really nice coral stock in today. A nice wide variety of frags and full coral heads. Really nice zoas, softies, mushrooms and clams. I picked up a few more snails from him tonight and we talked a little shop before he was inundated with customers, told him about my liverock just finishing curing out, the diatom bloom, etc..

That's when I told him I should have just bought my rock from him. The Kaelini rock in my tank has really taken a while to cure and it's bleached out a bit during the whole process. It should recover but my tank would be further along if I'd just bought his pre-cured rock (really nice quality stuff).

I just wish my tank was ready for corals. Another month. Sheesh. I was ready to steal some of his zoa polyps, a really nice crocea and red/green blasomussa. Just can't do it... yet...

We talked a bit about the local reef people and pretty much came to the same conclusions that you and I did. I told him I was going to try and plug his shop a little more and he said he'd be into the idea of hosting a few meetings if we ever get an educational group off the ground. We'll see how it goes.

[Ed Ricketts]

BB843,
Check out his rock now. One of his loyal customers was breakin down a reef tank and brought him 50# or more of some nice rock. Wish I had room for it.

[BeachBum843]

Yeah I saw it. Some really nice branched and finger pieces. My new rock in the new tank is looking horrible. The color has all bleached out and it's deep into the brown algae phase. Gross encrusting mats of brown algae. It's not cyano as it's not pearling with O2 and the snails I do have are eating it sporadically.

I just need more janitors. More hungry snail mouths to go at it. Bruce had some really nice big turbo snails and astreas in stock, i'll stop by tonight and pick up a few dozen more.

[BS]

Hey guys, just wanted to jump in... I also frequent Sea Critter's... Bruce does have the best selection in town... I'm a zoa collector

[Ed Ricketts]

Sea Critters has two new coral tanks going in tonight (though they're not open to the public tonight). Apparently the circus is in town and Bruce convinced 5 strong men to show up and heft 2 big acylic 250's into place. Of course, that's under 8 MHs (175's? 250's?) with what I think is a common 500gal sump. Now, I don't think he's populating it tonight, but over the next weeks to months, should be a pretty awesome setup. Probably should rename the place "corals-r-us" unless that's already taken.

BS, you could post a photo or two of your zoas, without being in danger of taking over the thread.

[BS]

Frag tank and some closeups

[dkop0978]

I'm in Myrtle Beach until Saturday (from NJ). Does anyone know if this store will ship if I find something interesting (I know live guarantee is not promised)? I had this done from a couple of stores on a recent trip to FL and CA and everything turned out great. I'll probably stop by tonight anyway since I know the store is not open daily.

[dkop0978]

Sorry...I was referring to Sea Critters in my above post.

[Ed Ricketts]

DKOP,
Don't know, but bynow, you know whether or not Bruce will ship. Worth the trip anyway. Let us know how you do in NJ with regards to LFS quality.

BS: Nice Zoas. I figure it's probably you buying up all the nice zoas at SeaCritters Depot
Is that three tiers in that frag tank? Saw your link (little red house) to Charleston's Club and signed up. Do you attend meetings there regularly? Been wonderin about that group since BB843 mentioned it in another thread. Might be cool to go down there for a meeting sometime in next couple-o-months.

[BS]

I wouldn't buy all the nice stuff ...... well maybe I would...
I've traded alot too. Been into zoa's for a few years now... I'm not real active in charlestown's club just lurk on the site,but I have traded with some of the members. I used to go down to tideline once a month. I'm always looking for some local trades. yes that is three tiers.... I had more frags but there was a stuck heater incident and lost about half of what I had.... but that is a recent pic.... I also have a 29g with a few frags, zoa's,palys and some acan's. The mother colonies are in my 125g and a frag here and there.

[dkop0978]

Well I took a ride to SeaCritters and I have to say it was worth the trip. Bruce does not ship, as of yet (he's waiting on oxygen tanks, etc) but he is packing some corals (zoa's, plate coral, buttons) up for me to take on my 10 hour ride home. To answer your question ER, the LFS quality in the NY/NJ area is pretty good. The biggest difference I would have to say is the amount of selection (the smallest store is still about 5 times the size of SeaCritters) and a lot of stores in NJ are getting in aquacultured and tank raised corals to help reduce the costs to the customer. The price on the corals and fish are about the same in NJ so I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Overall, SeaCritters seems like a place I would frequent if I lived in the area....but....I don't know how you guys do it with the hours....my LFS of choice is open 9 - 9 Mon to Sat and 10 - 6 on Sun and I don't think that's enough!!!

[Ed Ricketts]

Pet Center is looking a little bleak on the saltwater front. I think the recirc pumps on their salt display was actually shut off, though I distinctly heard Zeppelin overhead when I was in there today. Sweet silver linings, Batman!

SCD has the tanks in place, and they're (not acrylic as erroneously reported previously) Euro braced glass 250's, side by side, with two four barrel carbs,...well, anyway, SCD appears to be ramping up the inventory to transition the current SPS/LPS/Clams/Softies over to the new tanks. Those current tanks were packed with livestock over the weekend. To get on Bruce's good side, mention the words, "Boat Winch" He loves his gadgets.

BS, sent you a proposition PM.

Back to wedding planning.

[jjac]

Bruce hasn't got a clue.......