MLazar January 6, 2009 Share January 6, 2009 (edited) Jon and I recently met a saltwater fish hobbyist who told us about the following store in Stafford: Pets Plus Inc 60 Susa Drive Suite 117 Stafford, VA 22554 540-659-6900 We took a drive over to check them out and were pleasantly surprised at the number of healthy saltwater fish in inventory. Prices were competitive. There were tanks for corals, but nothing exciting at the time we were there. They get new stock every 2 weeks and will special order. The sales guy who helped us was Quinton, he seemed pretty knowledgeable and was very helpful. The only downside to Quinton was that he had never heard of Wamas..........will have to get a flyer in there. For the tiny amount of square footage this pet store has dedicated to salt water, we were impressed. They are not on par with BRK, but it is nice to finally have something close by. Maureen Edited January 6, 2009 by MLazar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gastone January 6, 2009 Share January 6, 2009 Maureen, glad to here that there is a viable local option. Garrett. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoozilla January 6, 2009 Share January 6, 2009 Will need to check them out. Thanks for the FYI... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkiCurtis January 6, 2009 Share January 6, 2009 glad to here that there is a viable local option. Garrett. hey my local option is Roozens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLazar January 6, 2009 Author Share January 6, 2009 hey my local option is Roozens We've actually had some luck with Roozens over the years, but I'll admit it is hit or miss. Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lhcorals January 8, 2009 Share January 8, 2009 Jon and I recently met a saltwater fish hobbyist who told us about the following store in Stafford: Pets Plus Inc 60 Susa Drive Suite 117 Stafford, VA 22554 540-659-6900 We took a drive over to check them out and were pleasantly surprised at the number of healthy saltwater fish in inventory. Prices were competitive. There were tanks for corals, but nothing exciting at the time we were there. They get new stock every 2 weeks and will special order. The sales guy who helped us was Quinton, he seemed pretty knowledgeable and was very helpful. The only downside to Quinton was that he had never heard of Wamas..........will have to get a flyer in there. For the tiny amount of square footage this pet store has dedicated to salt water, we were impressed. They are not on par with BRK, but it is nice to finally have something close by. Maureen Maureen, have you ever been down to Fish World in Richmond? If not it's worth the trip. Joe and his staff are very good people. Great selection of Corals and Fish. Beautiful 1200 and 900 Gal. display tanks in the store. If you want the address PM me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLazar January 8, 2009 Author Share January 8, 2009 Maureen, have you ever been down to Fish World in Richmond? If not it's worth the trip. Joe and his staff are very good people. Great selection of Corals and Fish. Beautiful 1200 and 900 Gal. display tanks in the store. If you want the address PM me. We haven't, thanks for the tip! Don't actually get down that way as often as we'd like. Jon's gone to a couple of stores in Norfolk and VA Beach when work takes him that way, perhaps we'll have to plan a trip sometime. I think he's running a VA Beach 1/2 Marathon again this March, so we'll check a few stores then. Thanks again, Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gastone January 8, 2009 Share January 8, 2009 Maureen, you should definitely check out Fish World. And if you are in Richmond, check out Atlantis as well. I haven't been down that way in about 1.5 years, soon after Marvin relocated the store. At the time it wasn't quite up to snuff with the old place, but I would imagine he's got it up and running at full speed by now. FWIW, the Richmond guys swear by Atlantis. They pretty much clean him out immediately when his new shipments arrive. Traveling an hour or more for a quality LFS is quite the dichotomy for us WAMAS "southerners". We've got fantastic options both north and south IMO, being right in the middle. Unfortunately we are an hour away. Then again, maybe we are fortunate to be an hour away. If I was in BRK or Atlantis' backyard, I'd frequent and spend more money on my tanks than I normally do. G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rrubberbandman January 8, 2009 Share January 8, 2009 Jon and I recently met a saltwater fish hobbyist who told us about the following store in Stafford: Pets Plus Inc 60 Susa Drive Suite 117 Stafford, VA 22554 540-659-6900 We took a drive over to check them out and were pleasantly surprised at the number of healthy saltwater fish in inventory. Prices were competitive. There were tanks for corals, but nothing exciting at the time we were there. They get new stock every 2 weeks and will special order. The sales guy who helped us was Quinton, he seemed pretty knowledgeable and was very helpful. The only downside to Quinton was that he had never heard of Wamas..........will have to get a flyer in there. For the tiny amount of square footage this pet store has dedicated to salt water, we were impressed. They are not on par with BRK, but it is nice to finally have something close by. Maureen Guys, I hate to say it....but i visit this place @ 2-3 times a month...originally to try and get them organized w/ WAMAS....but.....no luck.....this place has had a big amount of loss in the past..due to poor husbandry etc....it does kinda remind me of small scale rooozens....they did get all the livestock from a place in CA. called fishheads? i think?. **on a side note its a bit better than MARU's (but is that saying much?, i dont know?) Bryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLazar January 8, 2009 Author Share January 8, 2009 Thanks guys, appreciate all insight. Will have to give some thought to traveling south once in a while. We tend to head north in a big loop and hit all our favorite stores and are usually pretty happy with the results of these "road trips". Bryan, you mentioned Maru's. We stopped there this past weekend while we were out and about. Hadn't been there in quite some time. I'll state in advance that they've never stocked heavily in the winter time, so we weren't surprised that there wasn't alot to look at, but I was disappointed. No frag tank. Not an empty tank.............tank was GONE. Some fish looked healthy, some did not. Haven't been there in months and didn't recognize new guy taking care of the tanks, but they were pretty clean and he was attentive. Corals, few ............. uninteresting. Its a shame because I remember the crowd that would gather when Dana was the owner. People would buy things as they were unpacking them, even though they weren't fully visable in the bags. His quality and pricing were good. That was a couple of years ago I guess. Not excited about new management, maybe he doesn't have knowledge of hobby to take risks with ordering corals........... Will probably check back in summer time to see if there are any changes. I'm forever the optimist. Thanks again, Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rrubberbandman January 8, 2009 Share January 8, 2009 As for now i guess my two favorite stores are in manassas....."the cozy clownfish" and BRK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLazar January 9, 2009 Author Share January 9, 2009 As for now i guess my two favorite stores are in manassas....."the cozy clownfish" and BRK. Bryan, We haven't been to the Cozy Clownfish, will have to check that one out. Are they mostly fish, or corals as well? BRK is our number one place to go for fish and with Johnny's new location is going to even more awesome. We've gotten some nice frags there too, but the new store is setting up to be so sweet for corals too .......... We've enjoyed shopping for corals at Dr. Mac, Mr. Coral, Rik's (lol), many happy visits to Aquaco, and even successly at Roozens. We've gotten items from F&Fs, and Aquarium One too. We try to support all the vendors that support Wamas. The hunt is part of what makes this hobby so much fun I think. And of course we've aquired treasures from other Wamas members too. Jon thinks the tank is pretty full, but he manages to find room when I find something special.......... With gas prices down we can start planning road trips again! I like to hear about new places to check out so keep posting! Maureen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lhcorals January 9, 2009 Share January 9, 2009 Maureen, you should definitely check out Fish World. And if you are in Richmond, check out Atlantis as well. I haven't been down that way in about 1.5 years, soon after Marvin relocated the store. At the time it wasn't quite up to snuff with the old place, but I would imagine he's got it up and running at full speed by now. FWIW, the Richmond guys swear by Atlantis. They pretty much clean him out immediately when his new shipments arrive. Traveling an hour or more for a quality LFS is quite the dichotomy for us WAMAS "southerners". We've got fantastic options both north and south IMO, being right in the middle. Unfortunately we are an hour away. Then again, maybe we are fortunate to be an hour away. If I was in BRK or Atlantis' backyard, I'd frequent and spend more money on my tanks than I normally do. G. I disagree about Atlantis, they have done some not so nice things to Joe at fish World. They Bought the domain to his web site, so when you visit fishworld.com it takes you to Atlantis's web page. I dont know why they would do such a thing if they were so sought after. Go to Fishworldric.com for more info. There has been a few other dirty stunts to try to hurt fishworld, but its not working out for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MLazar January 10, 2009 Author Share January 10, 2009 One of the stores we thought had great potential was Pristine Aquariums in Alexandria. We haven't been there in quite a while and it doesn't seem like they're posting too often on Wamas. Has anybody stopped by lately? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamal January 10, 2009 Share January 10, 2009 i went to pristine aquarium a few months ago and was not very impressed by the customer service or selection. as for atlantis, i have been there and i will say unless you are getting ora sps frags it aint worth the trip. their prices are high compared to what we enjoy here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryL January 19, 2009 Share January 19, 2009 i went to fish world and atlantis. 1st i will say both store are very nice in layout and there setup. didnt really see a quarantine in either. so a few sick fish and rather large tank was being cleaned by a cleaner wrasse but it looked like it had marine velvet? it seemed to be in a separate system than the others. fish world had an amazing selection and dont let the front throw you off till you go all the way in and see the very nice main display, 1500g i think. atlantis has the deltec tank running full blast and my back hurt just remembering having to lift that thing at macna. what i didn't like was fishworld had no posted pricing for their fish (or i missed it) but had great displays. fish world didn't have any fish that stood out but atlantis had 2 healthy scribbled rabbitfish that were fat and happy. both stores to me are nice and even got my gf liking it(she bores easy so its a plus.) FWIW fishworld was packed and atlantis had a few what seemed to be regulars loading up. i'm glad i found this post and will visit pets plus. i trust the Lazar's judgment so i'm looking forward to it. my two favs still are BRK and Aquaco by far. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryL September 7, 2009 Share September 7, 2009 stopped by pets plus today and really enjoyed it. nice place and friendly people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Mammoth September 8, 2009 Share September 8, 2009 I've been to both Fish World and Atlantis. Sometimes I stop by to look around. I haven't really bought too much at Fish World because it really isn't feasible. I wasn't very impressed with Atlantis. The prices seem really high and no one was really around. But then again, I've only been by a couple times, but when I saw $800 for a Picasso Pair, I was shocked. Maybe it was a misprint who knows. Fish World prices are on the higher side (not like Atlantis), but then again I've been spoiled by the great stores in our area But back to the to the original post. It's awesome to hear that you have a close fish store near you. I bet it's a pain to do anything being in between DC and Richmond. Find out what their QT practices are. We have some WAMAS vendors here that do a great job to ensure your fish doesn't die when you take it home. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Garrison September 8, 2009 Share September 8, 2009 (edited) When I helped Hunter get his new 120 Tek ank down in Richmond, we stopped at Atlantis on the way back. The guy he got the tank from had taken his fish up to Atlantis to be sold on consignment for him. He had called over in advance to talk with the guys there because he waned me to have the Lyretail Anthias that he had dropped off. The first thing we noticed was that they were a bit pricey, on average everything was anywhere from $5-20 more than the other stores. When we actually talked to the guy and asked him about a deal on the Anthias (he did get them for free after all), we were told "We don't do deals, maybe if you were spending a couple thousand dollars I could do something for you, but we just don't work that way." I can definitely say I will not go back, I see no need to drive that far when BRK and F&F are much closer. Edited September 8, 2009 by Kevin Garrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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