Strictly Fish....sweet store.

M

marcrothschild

Active member
Me and my buddy Clint went to Strictly Fish in Carson on tuesday afternoon. I was impressed with the selection of tanks, dry goods, and fish. I was also impressed by how well staffed this shop was. There was like 4 guys working on a tuesday afternoon, and quite a few customers.
The fish were healthy, and there was alot of them. I picked up an orange headed pseudochromis, what a beauty, bright orange contrasted by black....I quickly found out that this is a very mean fish. Nothing like a fridmani or arabian pseudo. Thank god I didnt drop it in my display....that would have been mayhem for my established community of fish. Luckily Clint wanted him for his frag grow out in his sump.
If you havent been to Strictly Fish, you gotta go. They have a nice reef tank on display, and a killer fresh water planted tank that is set up as a lookdown tank.
Ill be going back for sure
:smokin:
 
That is the best review I have ever heard of them. Glad it went well for you, my experiences with them are not the same. maybe there getting better, or maybe you work there ;) :)
 
See I'm the opposite, I wants someone that knows there ish. I don't care if they have to special order every fish and coral I want. If there nice and know a boat full about reefs and fish they have my business.

Sounds like my favorite LFS. Little stock but can get anything.
 
Window to the Sea is my favorite.

I also like Coral Oasis, Jeff's Exotic Fish, 405 for some stuff, Tongs has hard to find items, Sanbar has some hard to find meds, Pacific Reef is pretty good.

Most stores excel in individual areas. Some are better than others at some things but bested in other qualities. Just the nature of the business and what they decide to focus on IMO.
 
Coral Oasis is a great store for SPS and exotics. The one I have been to is in Huntington Beach.
Never been to Window to the Sea or Pacific Reef. Jeff is a cool guy, always willing to help. I like Jeffs for dry goods, rock, and fish. The vast majority of his corals are just your standard bread and butter stuff, he plans on building an SPS system in the near future.
 
someone likes windows to the sea
i was discusted at the store the intellegence of the employees and i pomise i will never buy ANYthing from then EVER

they told my mom (my secret shopper:)) that a 30 gallon tank was very cheap to set up with acros and acros were one of the easyer corals to keep they said that all she needed was a undergravel filter and a powerhead and the power compacts to get a reef and live sand(with a under gravle filter????) and she could put up to 7 fish in the tank (the girl noted clowns, wrasses,a damsel, a fu man chu lion and an anthias ) and so i was walking around and i saw a 12''clown tank in a 30 gallon tank(if that big)

i was really mad and im imbarrassed to say i was kinda rude to them :(
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7358970#post7358970 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pledosophy
Window to the Sea is my favorite.
Click to expand...

What do you like about Window to the Sea?
 
coral oasis, huH? looks like the public at large thinks that's a good store... i gotta check it out sometime. can anyone tell me what the cross streets are?
 
Strictly Fish is a good place. I have been doing buisness there for years, and have not had any major problems. The only thing is that they seem to go through employees alot, so that is where you have to be carefule in getting information from. I only deal with people I know, who have been there for ever. Other than that, I think the quality is really good ( not the best ), the price is good ( not always the cheapest ) , and they usually have a real good selection. Overall I think this is one of the better place around.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7360691#post7360691 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by codybug
What do you like about Window to the Sea?
Click to expand...

I like Len, and Leng. The name thing is confusing, but it's what I like.

My first experience there was after Seaside sold me a defective aquarium and played games with me for weeks about not honoring the warranty. Then the stress fracture started to grow a coulpe inches over night, so I decided to get a new tank that would fit my stand. I went into that store not expecting much. I talked to an employee Eric, told him my situation, he told me they didn't have it in stock but could get it. I was not in the mood to wait, but I asked how long. He made a phone call and told me 3 hours.

The also sold me the tank at there cost, because they didn't want to make a new customer like that. Well they made a customer for life.

Len has been the nicest and mot knowledgable person I have ever dealt with. He will talk with me for hous on end, even after closing the store. Great person. Ton of knowledge. Did you see the article on his store in Coral Magazine? the guy know his ish, and he does it differently then almost anyone else out there. His thoughts are genious and his results do the arguing for him.

Infact I trust him so much I sent my wife there to get my B-Day present and told her I wanted a 150 MH, I needed everything to make it work. No other instructions, and I didn't worry a bit. Len came through with a very nice setup for an unbelieveable price. Honestly it is better then what I would have picked out if I had done it myself.

When I wanted my Nova T5's no one had them in stock, he ordered them for me, and then charged me the lowest price advertised anywhere for them. When the lights came in deffective I returned them that night after he had gone home. He drove to the suppliers himself and got me a brand new unit the next morning when he opened his doors. It is easy to be a great LFS owner when things are great, but to me the mark of a Great LFS is how they respond when things go bad. I couldn't have asked for better customer service.

I also find it touching the way he tries so hard to medicate and save peoples sick fish. That is not a quality I have seen at other LFS's. He is so respected in the industry in this aspect that even Leng Sy brought him so rare angels to save.

If I ever want a fish he doesn't have he gets it for me. He sells his water at his cost. RODI is $.25.

I have seen him talk to several customers, I have been around a minute or two, and never heard him give anyone bad advice. I have seen him refuse to sell things to people if there system cannot handel it. I have seen him refuse to sell products to people because they would not be the solution they were looking for.

I have found Len to be thee most stand up honest person I have ever dealt with in this industry. I would recommend his store, or his knowledge to anyone. Like I said I sent my wife who knows nothing about anything in to buy me lights, he more then took care of me at a very reasonable price, lower then anywhere else around.

I do think his store needs some work as does he, being the type of person he is so many people gravitate towards him that he just doesn't have enough time to spend in the store and working on projects. Between keeping the stocking up and all of his home installs the guy is super busy. He's setting up a 1000g this week. Maybe soon he will start to post pics of his work in his store, it is quite incredible.

I know he has had some staffing issues, it is very unfortunate that people are turned off to his store by this, he is really one of the best people ever. I know it's easy to make a judgement based on the first time experience, I am really glad I did not. You have seen me on this site, I don't have many nice things to say, I can't say enough about Len.

I used to be the guy that went to every store, I mean every store to get what I need, now I'm a one stop shopper. I do look around once in awhile and get a cool coral if it's around, but 90% of all I get is through Window to the Sea.

I do like Ben alot as well the white balding guy that works there, Coral Oasis is nice but my favorite is Window to the Sea.

JME
 
I do, they have been great to me.

The store is in Tustin off of Newport Blvd and the 5 freeway, just south of the 55.

He started out as an etail bussiness try Windowtothesea.com
 
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