oakengineer
New member
I have a trip to SF coming up. What are some good stores I should check out? I saw a thread from 2006 recommending Lucky Ocean. Any other suggestions?
Great reef stores in SF?
- Thread starter oakengineer
- Start date
oakengineer
New member
I'm going to be near SFO. I could probably check out Aquatic collections, but california reef co seems a bit far away.
Carebearcatz
New member
Cali Reef Co for SPS/LPS
Aquatic Collection for Fish/LPS
Not much left on the SF Peninsula.
There is one store in South San Francisco, its called Natural Life Aquarium. Don't expect much customer service is terrible but I always see something cool there. Nice fish too. Unfortunately I think Natural Life is the best local fish store we have left on the peninsula.
Aquatic Collection for Fish/LPS
Not much left on the SF Peninsula.
There is one store in South San Francisco, its called Natural Life Aquarium. Don't expect much customer service is terrible but I always see something cool there. Nice fish too. Unfortunately I think Natural Life is the best local fish store we have left on the peninsula.
bluecoyote79
New member
Lucy ocean in ocean is closed I believe. You can go down to San Jose and there is Neptune Aquatics.
Psionicdragon
New member
Lucky ocean mostly specializes in fish, not corals.
Psionicdragon
New member
Thats Aquatic Central. Lucky Ocean is on Balboa.
Neptunes is nice
I like their new place.
sfsuphysics
Active member
In SF there really aren't any stores that would be worthy to go to for an out of towner. If you have a rental car at your disposal and free time that exists outside of commute times, then heading over to the east bay isn't a horrible idea. SFO to San Mateo is about 15 minutes, and Hayward is maybe another 15 minutes after that.
But then again if you are near SFO, it'll take you longer to get to Lucky Ocean than it would to go to Aquatic Collection in Hayward. SFO is not in SF (well ok technically the airport is property of SF but it's not in the city proper) and to go any place in SF absolutely sucks.
But then again if you are near SFO, it'll take you longer to get to Lucky Ocean than it would to go to Aquatic Collection in Hayward. SFO is not in SF (well ok technically the airport is property of SF but it's not in the city proper) and to go any place in SF absolutely sucks.
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woodnaquanut
Active member
I just saw a Melevsreef video of a tour of Dallas/Ft. Worth LFSs. The five, count 'em five, he went to looked fantastic. He claims there are 20-25 in the area!
Why do we only have three and they are all in the east/south bay? High store rent, high cost of living so not as many reefers?
It's always amazed me there are none in Marin County.
Why do we only have three and they are all in the east/south bay? High store rent, high cost of living so not as many reefers?
It's always amazed me there are none in Marin County.
bluecoyote79
New member
Thats Aquatic Central. Lucky Ocean is on Balboa.
Neptunes is nice
I thought Lucky Ocean was the one in downtown Oakland? Maybe that one was called Lucky Goldfish?
DivingTheWorld
Active member
Rent is crazy in the Bay Area, SF and the peninsula being the worst. I find it amazing that the few we have can survive. We really need to support them as much as possible. I count 4 quality Reef Stores:
Diablo Corals - East/North Bay
Aquatic Collection - East Bay
Cal Reef - East/South Bay
Neptunes - South Bay
Diablo Corals - East/North Bay
Aquatic Collection - East Bay
Cal Reef - East/South Bay
Neptunes - South Bay
swk
New member
sfsuphysics
Active member
Finest? bah! Of course maybe grass is greener...
But Ocean Treasures was a pretty nice looking high end store... they went out of business in a relatively short amount of time, those hole in the wall places have been around for ever though. Says something more about how business can be done. 1) high rent 2) need high turn over 3) cheap people 4) extremely hard to park if you do want to go to a store. Now compare to some of the east bay stores, plenty of parking, rent no where close to as much, people a little more looser with their money, and all of those translates to higher turn over too. It's a business that's hard enough as it is to make money in, too many strikes against you and you're out of business.
Mikesville510
New member
Not a reef store, but definitely worth a visit: Aqua Forest in the Filmore.
