The New Exotic

aquaman2244

In Memoriam
I MADE MY FIRST STOP AT THE NEW EXOTIC WOW AMAZING IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR THE MAGNIFICENT FOXFACE FOR A WHILE I FOUND THREE LARGE FOR ONLY 89.99 EACH. i WAS BLOWN AWAY WITH THE PRICES AND SELECTION ON CORALS BY FAR AND AWAY THE LARGEST AND CHEAPEST. I FOUND A GREAT GREEN AND RED BLASTO FOR ONLY 119.99. AND THE LARGEST RED CARPET ANENOME I HAVE EVER SEEN.A GUY NAMED MATT HELPED ME AND HE WAS VERY HELPFULL AND TOLD ME ABOUT A 675 GALLON REEF DISPLAY COMING SOON. I ALSO STOPED AT YOUR REEF ANOTHER GREAT SHOP IAM REALLY HAPPY TO SEE NEW FRESH FISH STORES WITH OUT PETS.

J MAN
 
yea, i went to check out exotic as well yesterday. saw they have some blue spotted jaw fish for 75$ (usuall price is 90$ online). if i didn't already order my helfrichi, i would have picked this guy up for sure.
 
i was there too, its huge and awsome but its in a bad part of town so i am not going to be able to go very often. :( which is really too bad (but i guess it means their rent is low) my dad said he is afraid to be in that area which is saying alot since he was in the marines after highschool and was a firefighter for 30 years.

but yeah, awsome store
 
Hmm.. I went by there today and wasn't all too impressed. Customer service is still garbage, a majority of the tanks were empty. The store setup is not compliant with the American Disability Act (which seems to haunt most retailers), let alone the tanks being rather close together for viewing. I didn't really have a lot of time to look around, but rather than the size of it, they still seemed to have the same old melting corals!

I do commend them on the lighting over their coral tanks though. Too many stores skimp on this, but Lumenarcs and 250's are well above the norm. Hopefully they continue to get in rare fish like they used to (just didn't see any today).
 
Exotic is not a bad place at all. They usually have a better livestock selection and better pricing compared to some of the lfs in town.

And as far as service, I usually get better service at Exotic than the other lfs around (with the exception of Your Reef and Coral Reef Store).
 
I'm impressed by stores like Aquatic Gallery, Atlantis, Aquascene.. all the A's apparently.. lol. I'm not trying to bash Exotic... and yes I know they're brand new, but I don't like shopping at Walmart when I don't have to, and I don't like that feel in a fish store either.
 
I'm new to this too. I've never even heard of any of the places you mentioned pepe. Are they local or online stores?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9140106#post9140106 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pepe.king.prawn
I'm impressed by stores like Aquatic Gallery, Atlantis, Aquascene.. all the A's apparently.. lol. I'm not trying to bash Exotic... and yes I know they're brand new, but I don't like shopping at Walmart when I don't have to, and I don't like that feel in a fish store either.

How did you come up with your Exotic-Walmart analogy? Please elaborate.
 
Ahullsb: They're bay area stores. I'm from the bay area, so it's understandable most people wouldn't be willing to travel down there just for some fish ;) .

JeffReef: Walmart, Fry's electronics... try to get service there. Maybe it's because of my skin color, but in ~20 minutes of milling around their store looking at the saltwater section, I asked if they had any eels and the employee didn't know. After looking around I found the answer to be... no.. no they didn't. My analogy is simply this: If you need help finding what you want, Walmart and Fry's are probably not the place to find it. But if you know what you want, and are an educated shopper (as far as the particular item you're seeking) you can probably find a pretty good deal at Walmart of Fry's. Don't get me wrong, my intention is not to bash Exotic, I used to buy stuff there all the time and it was even my favorite store because they seemed to have good deals, but I was never really well educated about what I was buying, and an education thereof certainly wasn't going to come from the employees of the store. I'm merely stating my opinion of the store, I hope this is allowable.
 
i ordered him online ;) if you want one, im suposed to get a replacement for mine since he died during transit. it wasn't the shipper's fault, some odd reason, fedex opened up the box and the fish pretty much froze to his death :() i should be gettin another one b4 the end of the month. They are having a hard time collecting them right now or something.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9143706#post9143706 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by pepe.king.prawn


JeffReef: Walmart, Fry's electronics... try to get service there. Maybe it's because of my skin color, but in ~20 minutes of milling around their store looking at the saltwater section, I asked if they had any eels and the employee didn't know. After looking around I found the answer to be... no.. no they didn't. My analogy is simply this: If you need help finding what you want, Walmart and Fry's are probably not the place to find it. But if you know what you want, and are an educated shopper (as far as the particular item you're seeking) you can probably find a pretty good deal at Walmart of Fry's. Don't get me wrong, my intention is not to bash Exotic, I used to buy stuff there all the time and it was even my favorite store because they seemed to have good deals, but I was never really well educated about what I was buying, and an education thereof certainly wasn't going to come from the employees of the store. I'm merely stating my opinion of the store, I hope this is allowable.

I share all of your frustrations and I know what you mean by not getting adequate assistance in places like Fry's and Walmart.

I'm the type of consumer that pays more importance on price, provided all things being equal, than service. I've learned long ago not to expect too much from sales personel because they usually don't have real interest in providing excellent service to their customers. I've got great service mostly from people with natural great personality and from people that directly benefit from providing good service.

Believe it or not, whether you're buying a $14 yellow tang or looking for a $900K home loan, bad customer service exist.
 
when i was there that day i asked if they had any pipefish, and the guy leads me over to a tank with pvc pipes that had eels poking out of them, i just smacked my head and went OY! jeeze louise, NO i am looking for long little saltwater fish related to seahorses!" and he goes "oh"

i was looking for pipefish, NOT FISH IN PIPES!!!!

and then he looks around a bit and goes "well i think we sold out"

5 minutes later i find them! AGG!!!
 
I go there all the time. I got an O.R.A. Chips there, and one if the best Tri-colors I've ever seen. Hell I've gotten alot of awesome SPS and fish from them. You can't compare them to the Bay stores or YourReef. Those places are straight reef stores. That's all they do. Exotic is an all fish store. As far as customer service talk to Matt in the Salt section. He'll answer all of your ? and then some. You all just wait. I think they might have found a good collector coral wholesaler. So they should have some good SPS soon. As far as LPS and Softies, they have the most and best selection.
 
90% of my whole tank is from exotic. So if they suck why does my tank look like this.
77524IMG_0004_copy-med.jpg
 
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