Vendor experience and reviews

So here is what I've thought about most of the places I've been to or ordered from. Sorry if it offends any of the store owners. I'm speaking as a hobbyist and a customer.

Online-

www.drsfostersmith.com -
www.liveaquaria.com -
Plain and simple, They have about the most extensive inventory and the best deal on shipping around for dried goods. I've been ordering stuff from them since I was about 12 years old buying plastic plants for my freshwater tanks. They have excellent customer service and any time I have a problem they respond to my emails very quickly and get it taken care of. The same goes for Liveaquaria. Their Divers den is top notch with color accurate photos. They use quality wholesalers like Quality marine so you know their livestock is good quality. No other vendor can come close to their no questions 14 day guarantee for fish, corals and inverts and 30 day guarantee on many of their aquacultured corals. This is my favorite place to buy from for sure. Livestock packing has always been top notch as well.

www.Aquacave.com -
Most of my equipment has been bought from this place. $4.95 shipping on everything. Many times I can get a reefcentral discount for being a member. They have regular 10-15% off sales around the major holidays. I can't find halide bulbs cheaper anywhere else. Customer service has always been great too.

www.MarineDepot.com -
I've only ordered one box of poly filters from them for just over $5.00 per filter. Didn't deal with customer service at all but I've heard OK things about them.

www.Areefcreation.com
I've met Randy the owner a few times during my trips to Buffalo NY and he's a super nice guy. He even invited me into his home to buy corals from him. His store is one of the cleanest I've ever been to. his coral selection has always been out of this works. Acans and LPS galore. Prices were always reasonable with the exception being many of the acans. The one complaint I do have is he rarely ever updates his online inventory. Other than that its a top notch place to buy from.

Local-

www.Cultivatedreef.org -
Greg the owner opened his home to me and my family to come see his personal reef and his basement aquaculture facility. He was so nice and open to talking about the hobby. He had a really clean place and aside from some bubble algae, his raceway tanks were absolutely beautiful. He has some of the most uncommon, rare and brightly colored SPS, LPS and soft corals for dirt cheap prices in the state of Maine. I think if he were to open up a full blown reef store, he could potentially bankrupt a few of the other saltwater fish and reef stores here in ME. I know I'll be buying from him again in the future.

www.deepseacreations.com -
Dennis is flat out great to buy from. One of the few store owners who is willing to barter and haggle with in store prices. He pays way more for his customers livestock, coral frags and used equipment than any other store I've ever dealt with. He's always seemed open to different opinions and methods to this hobby and has been willing to give me a deal on many occasions. His store seems a bit cluttered but its usually because he's got tons of reef products in stock for great prices along with all the convenience store products. I really like the fact that he sells different types of products than just what he uses. Not to mention he sells reef safe and non reef safe fish and inverts to fit everyone's tastes. Variety does keep more people coming back in my opinion. Nothing like going to the store for some munchies and a soda only to come back with a new reef fish or coral! HAHA yes I'm an addict.....

Atlantis Marine Fish -
The owner seems a bit distracted, The tanks always used air stones or HOB filters from what I could see instead of overflows and sumps. Until recently when I strolled in there, the tanks had always looked terrible. Very limited inventory for dried goods and livestock. Never seen anything worth buying.

www.AquaCorals.com -
I had been friends with the owner and even a helper up there for years up until recent. I've heard way more negative things about this business in the last year from many many local hobbyists than I ever would have believed! So much so that all I will add is this. Prices on everything are high. There is no warranty for fish or any livestock. The tanks clearly suffer from saturated sand beds along with nuisance algae, red/black cyano, aptasia anemones and other nuisance inverts of many kinds. There are a few positives though if your willing to keep your own opinions to yourself. The owner will usually go the extra mile to help people when there are product failures. At least in the last year they have been starting to keep higher quality products in stock than most stores. Aquacorals always has hundreds of good sized corals in stock, mostly all the really common soft corals that we all have already but some decent cherry picks can be found by those who don't mind spending an afternoon looking for waldo. Its always nice to sit down and take a break on the couches in front of the two large show tanks after walking around the store. Aside from craigslist, Aquacorals is the about the number one place to buy standard large sized glass aquariums above 55 gallons with matching stands in the state of Maine. Any tanks 55 gallons or smaller are way over priced. The incredible larger tank sales get passed directly on to the customers. Almost every other place has cheaper prices on everything else but when the other places are out of stock, generally aquacorals always has the basic reefing necessities like frozen food and such to get any of us by in a pinch. Its one of the better stores for new hobbyists to go to learn the basics. I've always been able to trade in frags there and swap out defective products under warranty for new ones. Sadly I am no longer welcome there as a friend or customer as it appears.

Petco - Augusta,
During the summer the livestock inventory runs a bit dry but come fall, the fish manager starts ordering huge shipments every week. Most of the tanks are clean of algae and detritus. Sometimes the fish have ick but I've seldom seen it. I've gotten some huge 6-8 inch zoanthid rocks with 500+ polyps each for $39 each. Most every fish I've gotten from them has lived for quite a long time. They have about the largest Saltwater section of any petco in ME.

Petco - Portland-
The fish manager has a coral tank of his own and brings in quality aquacultured frags, lots of rare or uncommon fish and they generally are all very healthy. Larger saltwater section than some other petcos.

Petco- Topsham and Auburn-
Both of these Petco's have very poorly kept saltwater setups most of the time. many of the fish I've seen there have been deformed, anorexic, or very sickly looking. I still go every so often because just like all petco's, they do have a gem to be found from time to time.

Vance's

Anyone been to Vance's? Never heard much good or bad about them. I know their website is seriously lacking.

ZooCreatures- Plaistow NH-

Great place for rare FW fish and reptiles of all sorts. Last time I was there was about 4 years ago. They had loads of coral and saltwater fish but most of the coral was pretty common. Anyone else been there recently to know if its changed?

This is all just my own experience as seem though my own eyes and we're all entitled to our own opinions of each place. Feel free to keep sharing the goods and bads of every place you've been to or ordered from.

I'm going to 2nd your comments about the Auburn Petco. It's night and day going in there compared to the Augusta location. Livestock usually looks awful, and a pretty poor selection.

When I go to Ma I always make a point to stop at Jay's Aquatics in Salem that is a top notch shop..there is so much stuff. Also there is this place in NH Plymouth Pet store it looks like a little hole in the wall off the main road but I skeptically stopped in. The place is the best SPS/LPS store I've ever seen they had 3 180's setup with nothing but stonies. They had frag shelfs that looked like vending machines 30 frags deep of various corals. If you like Tropic Marin they sell it for $75 for reef-pro and no sales tax. They just have so much crazy stuff I really wanted an Orange bubble coral they had..I've never seen another it was like $80.00 They also had decent smaller frags at good prices a large variety of fish both tropical and some more colder water stuff Catalina Gobies are awesome in person.....it's almost in Vermont but it's such a great store.

Cultivated Reef:
I'm very fortunate to live less than 5 miles away from his place. I've never been disappointed, always friendly and willing to give good advice, not to mention there is so much gorgeous eye candy my only regret when I go there is that my wallet isn't fatter...an that's not because of high prices..but because there is so much I want to buy. He will also do dry good orders and I got my Kessil and a bunch of other stuff from him...he beat the internet prices!!! His farm is in his basement which keeps his overhead low you definately notice this as he generously passes the savings onto his customers. E-mail him first to setup an appointment but it's worth the drive you will definately not be disapointed.

Deep Sea:

Can't say enough good things about Dennis, he has a great selection, great prices, and is always willing to order you anything you want. Plus everything is always super healthy. I always end up spending more than I planned!

Cultivated Reef:

I've been up there once, and it's difficult to just pick a couple of pieces since everything is so unique. If Greg was closer I would definitely end up spending way more with him.

Aquatic Creations: (Nashua, NH)

It's definitely worth checking out if you have nothing to do or if you are in the area. Myk is a great guy and his livestock is super healthy and is always worried more about selling something healthy than make a quick sale. He does an awesome invert group buy at the beginning of the year and did a drop off in Rochester and I picked up some really cool things at awesome prices. Again, if he were closer I would be in there constantly.

Atlantis Marine:

Only been in there once to buy a couple of snails, I was not really impressed. The owner seemed to be a bit out there and there were a couple of dead fish in the freshwater tanks.

Jay's (Salem, NH):

Best place I've been in terms of quantity of livestock and drystock. A lot of people rave about their prices but I actually get better deals on fish at Deep Sea Creations. However, this is not the place to go if you are looking to get into the hobby and ask a lot of questions. I went there a couple of times when I was first getting going and the customer service was awful. The people I talked to just seemed to work there and either didn't know much about the hobby or weren't really willing to share. At the time I wasn't too into corals, so I can't speak to the prices, but the selection was crazy huge and I hear you can get quite a deal because they are a high volume store.

Stopped into the Augusta Petco this morning. Its really going downhill at the moment. Lots of red cyano in many tanks with some sick fish as well. I've see a lot better from this store and hopefully they get their act together. In contrast, the saltwater setups in the auburn Petco looked like they are starting to get taken better care of finally.