Canadian LFS shops

[Mr31415]

Can any Canadians please tell me what the average quality of LFS shops are like in you major cities such as Toronto, Vancouver etc.?

Is the selection as good as in the US?

[lflint]

Visit Reef Raft in Mississauga. Every person on the planet should visit this place. Incredible selection of huge and beautiful coral. Great fish too. www.ReefRaft.ca

[andrewkw]

I would say without certainty that our shops have better quality and for sure price.

Most of the aussie acans in the US come from Canada.

In the Toronto area we have 3 major reef shops which typically bring in shipments of about 500 corals every week to 2 weeks.

Reef Raft supplies many US stores with rare corals and fish, but Where's The Reef and North American fish breeders also have great selection with 1000s of corals.

I really don't think you will find better selection then Reef Raft anywhere of course depending on when you go they may only have 100s of corals not 1000s. They have had vats full of 100s and 100s of ULTRA GRADE acans, great SPS selection, softies zoa's, frags colonies you name it. Pretty much every weird fish I've seen I've seen there. Pineapple fish, japanese anthias. They are getting Gem tangs next week. All kinds of angels and butterflies. All my fairy wrasses (labouti, flame) come from there. Tonnes of live rock is also routinely brought in.

The demand here is very high, every saturday there's always a lineup at whatever shop has a shipment if all 3 have shipments there's 3 lineups before any of them are open.

There are a few more reef shops as well and then big al's and a few fish stores that have sw stuff but i generally stay away from them for most stuff.


Vancouver is a little different I've only visited a couple of shops there, they seem to be more dry goods orientated where as our stores are 90% live stock and don't keep much dry goods in stock. In fact only one of the 3 major reef shops even has tanks other then nanos. However in vancouver they have tons of dry goods in stock and fewer corals kept in regular aquariums where as here they are all kept in large vats.

[dendro982]

Wasn't in US, but judging from online suppliers, there are much more mail order in US, and the choice is much better.
Here are sellers with good corals and excellent prices, but no non-photosynthetic corals and invertebrates of my interest, no panda gobies to order any time.

LFS in Toronto:
Maybe because of taxes, but almost all saltwater LFS, other than chain stores, are in neighborly cities - west Missisauga and north. For me it means 2+ hrs one way, even insulated bag becomes cold, and sorry, not my idea of fun come so far and find nothing of interest
There is option contact with them through forums, where they are sponsors, ask, but it will be general reply, no photos or holds as from online sellers, these are big operations stores. Too bad.

But black sun coral is pretty common, right now I can buy it for $39 to $59, good sized colonies. Choice of gorgonians is only comparable with choice of sps - I'm biting my nails in store - they are too big for my tanks. During summer vacations time are $10 damaged sales sometimes - I got my blasto Merletti, scolymia and cynarina this way.

But week differs from week - if you came visiting, the chances are 30:70 that you find what you want. And in Mississauga concentration of stores is higher, in Toronto they are very far from each other.

The only family owned store in East Toronto is like art exhibition - shallow rimless tanks, light and glass, but: do not buy sea apple and Chromodoris magnifica and C. quadricolor. No supplies in the city for this sea slugs.

[Rosseau]

I think that the major cities are fairly well stocked.

Ottawa is probably less well stocked than at least Toronto and Montreal in my experience.

For me, as I currently am living a few hours out of Toronto it is a little frustrating to get my hands on coral. I tend to purchase whenever I happen to be going home to TO.

For me, my problem (and I think for many other non-Toronto/Vancouver reefers) is the lack of orderable livestock. There are some places however there certainly is not the selection and cost efficiency as those I see in the states. No US retailers want to send coral across the border so we're not helped much there.


I agree with the comments above about reef raft. Great place and some of the best prices I have ever come across.

[Mr31415]

So if I am in Toronto or Vancouver I will be able to come right with a good selection of both livestock and dry goods via either going to the large LFS shops or doing mail order?

[Rosseau]

I can't personally speak for Vancouver, however I'm guessing Toronto is probably going to have the best selection for livestock and dry goods. Toronto is also a lot closer to Ottawa, Montreal and the many cities such as Mississauga surrounding Toronto.

[seasalt dreams]

Originally posted by Mr31415
Can any Canadians please tell me what the average quality of LFS shops are like in you major cities such as Toronto, Vancouver etc.?

Is the selection as good as in the US?

Here in Ottawa we are very limited. We have only 2 stores that are any good, and then the basement guys which are even better, well for livestock anyhow. Its not too bad, but could be better. Its a tough business though I think in this tiny city.

[Rosseau]

seasalt dreams,

Which 2 stores are you including, Marinescape and ...?

[seasalt dreams]

There is a small new shop on Oglivie. I guess its really too soon to say much about it, but I got a couple of awsome red fromias from there that are doing just awsome. I am only thinking stock wise, that this place might end up pretty decent. Then of course we have BA which is the best for dry goods, but wayyyyyy overpriced!

[andrewkw]

Originally posted by Mr31415
So if I am in Toronto or Vancouver I will be able to come right with a good selection of both livestock and dry goods via either going to the large LFS shops or doing mail order?

Dry goods generally cost more in Canada, but livestock is generally cheaper.

You will not be able to bring back any coral with a skeleton or live rock as they fall under cites. Places like RR will issue you cites if you're buying a lot but this isn't something that can be done on the spot. It takes several weeks to months I believe although I've never personally dealt with it.

There aren't really many online livestock places in Canada because everything is bought in person. What's the advantage of creating a store if a big chunk of your shipment is sold within the first 30mins to hour of it being for sale.

The online market seems more frag based for rare pieces with more expensive prices that are in limited supply, something you're not going to end up seeing every week in the shop.

[Mr31415]

I am strongly considering immigrating to Canada so I won't be bringing anything back.

[Voxboy]

Originally posted by lflint
Visit Reef Raft in Mississauga. Every person on the planet should visit this place. Incredible selection of huge and beautiful coral. Great fish too. www.ReefRaft.ca

I ve heard nothing but great things about Reef Raft. Their Website has a lot to be desired. They never update it and it ususally says they are out of stock on everything.

[theredben]

To speak for Vancouver, we have 3 good places and a couple of average ones. None actually in Vancouver but like 30 minutes to and hour outside of it.

[jerf]

I have a small rant about ReefRaft, that I feel the need to post here.

ReefRaft doesn't have the best reputation for customer service. They've been openly hostile to their clientele. In the 4 years of reefing in the GTA, I've seen RR do the following;
-sell corals that they've been holding for other people to 'preferred' customers
-have tiered pricing depending on the customer. I spent hundreds there and they still didn't say 'hi' when I came into the store.
-posted pictures from other people's collection and claimed it's their's for sale.
-started flame wars with their customers on another board
-accused people of stealing their corals (on another board)
-throw temper tantrums when people say negative things about their store
-regularly not follow posted business hours (esp. on shipment days) and then not apologize for it (and accuse anyone commenting on it of 'bashing' them)
-regularly posted pictures from their new shipment that don't show up in their vats.

When they post their upcoming shipments, everything seems to be ULTRARARE, LE and any other annoying phrase you can think of attaching to make the coral sound more expensive. My buddies joke that any time we see something new, we call it *ULTRARARE* and say that the price should be 5x what it is.

A story: A buddy of mine asked me to pick up something for him from their store. I bought the coral from them (they know it was reserved for my buddy) and charged me $75. When I met up with my buddy, he thought I was joking about the $75; he had made an arrangement to pay $60. He called them up and made a big stink and got the difference back. It very well could have been an honest mistake (I *should* have asked him how much the coral was supposed to be), but it was the straw that broke this cash cow's back. I haven't been back since.

I really prefer North American Fish Breeders (northamericanfishbreeders.com) and Where's the Reef (wheresthereef.ca) because they're honest, have good prices and excellent customer service. NAFB has flat rate corals - $40 for anything and there are some nice hidden gems to be found there. I found a small colony of zoas that ReefRaft was selling for $50/polyp. I bought the colony of 12 polyps for $40. RR would have charged me $600. WTR has the best LFS owner in the GTA in Ryan. Get to know him and he'll help you out in any way he can.

One example of Ryan's helpfulness; he had a bad case of flatworms in his vats. You could see them crawling over everything. Not wanting to infect his customer's tanks with flatworms, he put FWE in every bag when you bought a coral. He did that for free. What an excellent way of turning something negative into a positive.

There's also Oakville Reef Gallery (oakvillereefgallery.com), but I haven't been there all that much. I think they cater to a more expensive clientele than I can afford

Also, there's SeaUMarine (seaumarine.com). Good selection of corals and fair pricing.

Also, there a chain of stores here, Big Al's. There's the occasional good find there, but they cater to the masses. The specialty shops are where it's at.

[chujai]

jlaquatics in vancouver is really cool.. the customer service is great there.

[jasondon]

Here in Calgary we have a couple good shops, Gold's, and Ocean's, but I have used J&L as well as ocean aquatics (both in BC) and they have been excellent. I find better prices online, but most shops are willing to match, so long as you ask

My 2 cents!

Jason

[ImprezaSTi]

Live rock is super expensive here.

[dbond]

Hi Mr31415
I think you will find the prices of coral in general in Toronto and the surrounding GTA area to be very competitive, an ongoing price war between the lfs.
One store brings in shipments every few weeks where most all corals go for $40 and another lfs just announced corals for $45 and usually the shipments have a very good selection and quality so you cant go wrong.
Drygoods however are about 30% higher than the U.S. even though are dollar is basically at par.
As an added bonus if you decide to immigrate to Canada you could have your very own beta tester for ongoing Aquastats updates

[justinpsmith]

I have lived in Florida, Toronto and Vancouver and *generally* J&L in Vancouver has the best prices of any of those places. Some things are of course more and some less but they are awesome to deal with and have very competitive prices.

[Rosseau]

Jerf, I enjoyed your post and am not overly surprised at some of your observations. The thing about tiered pricing is a tricky one. I think this applies at just about every store as the price of most items is rarely written down.

Sometimes when buying coral I feel like I have to flex my muscles a little bit to make sure I get the best price.

[andrewkw]

Originally posted by justinpsmith
I have lived in Florida, Toronto and Vancouver and *generally* J&L in Vancouver has the best prices of any of those places. Some things are of course more and some less but they are awesome to deal with and have very competitive prices.

One thing that really surprised me about J&L is how they keep their corals. They are all in regular glass tanks in racks. This does not seem like the best way to keep them since you waste space with height, and need many different lighting fixtures pumps ect. Their service is fantastic and I will continue to order much of my dry goods from them as well as the occasional livestock order however their selection did not seem to be as great as in this area.

Here in the Toronto area all the major reef shops have their corals in vats. I was really surprised to find the Big Al's in burnaby kept their corals in vats. To me this seems like the way to keep corals in a shop maximum light, maximum use of space and its very good for customers as its easy to compare pieces.

[[17]shawn[17]]

im not to happy with the customer service at reef raft im 16 i know what im talking about but they still treat me like a kid,they dont huve out deals when you buy a bunch of coral

wheres the reef on the other hand A+++++ usalt has a great coral selection very friendly and they give deals usaly

[Steeltowndubber]

Totally agree regarding Reef Raft... they don't make you feel very welcome when you enter their store.

Where's The Reef on the other hand if fabulous. The owner ryan was fragging up some zoo's for someone on a day that i happened to be there. In the rock were 5 or six pistol shrimp. To my surprise Ryan gave them all to me at no charge. His reasoning was that he hadn't paid for them since the hitch hiked into his shop in the LR. So, since he didn't pay for them, then I shouldn't pay for them... been a customer of his ever since... GREAT guy!

[Fraggle Rock2]

Wow, you're seriously dedicated to reefing if livestock availability is a major deciding factor in moving to a new country!!!

Toronto and surrounding area have many great stores. I believe some of the major ones are ramping up their online businesses as well.