theres a scary thought, Creatures back into salt water.... :rolleyes:

Steve

Just checking out the status of the hobby for the first time in a while and I ran into this thread.

Having worked at several of the stores that have tried to wade into the reefkeeping side of saltwater sales in Victoria I'll fill you guys in on some things that probably aren't so secret:

Creatures has been discussing setting up some "serious" reef stuff with SPS and halides for YEARS. The problem is that they aren't willing to fork out the money to properly set up a system nor do they want to spend the money necessary to maintain an appropriate system (the cost of supplements or equipment such as Ca Reactors and protein skimmers). So in the event that they do foray into this side of the hobby it will be short lived because things will crash in short order because who ever is maintaining the tanks will have their hands tied.

Ken and Pat have also been talking about setting something up to compete with J&L for years as well - good luck!

I wandered into Safari the other day for the first time in a couple of years (didn't even realize they had moved the store). I was impressed by the change. That old system that originated at Mega Pets was a horror show and the makeshift reef tanks I was asked to set up about 6 or 7 years ago were another lesson in futility in trying to set up a reef system for retail sales on what amounted to a budget sufficient for a Hexafun tank. But the new MH, open tanks, and more retail-appropriate set up are nice to see. I still think LFSs should avoid the temptation to set up their coral housing tanks to look like show tanks and just go the J&L route for ease of maintenance - it's inevitable that a customer with more money than brains will want to rape the tank of all the LR because they "want that stuff" and the owner will acquiesce because it'll amount to a nice little sale.

Nevertheless, it's good to see so many new hobbyists from Victoria popping up and at least one store that's making a concerted effort to do things properly.

Brad, post some new pics of your tank(s) in this forum - I'd love to see the progression.