| |
| |
 State of the Tank: (cont.) |
|
...I got a nice piece of A. turaki which I'd been looking for ever since I saw a colony posted on RC, and an interesting little 'Purple Monster-like' colony that may be the same as the Atlantis Aquarium PM currently displayed on their homepage. I also got a couple things from Tyree too: A piece of his Atlantis Aquarium Pink Polyped Montipora and his Echinophyllia echinoporides Branching Alien Eye. And while I do not have pictures of any of these frags yet (Eric and Steve are being nice enough to hold them for me), they can be seen at Eric and Steve's websites respectively.
Now, you may notice that in the paragraph above, Altantis Aquarium gets referenced a lot. I mean, even other vendors are attaching their name to certain pieces much like one would do to establish a pedigree or provenance. That's pretty darned impressive. And so is their website if you've never had the pleasure of thumbing through it . It should go without saying then that it has been a goal of mine to actually make the time to visit this place one day. Unfortunately Fremont, CA is quite a ways from the Los Angeles area and even for someone who likes to drive as much as I do, a 350-mile day trip (each way), was just a bit much. This year however, happenstance had me up in Monterey to photograph the Concours d 'Elegance Car Show at Pebble Beach so the trip to Fremont was only an hour. |
|
|
It was worth every mile. And I mean from L.A.!!!
First of all, their display tank is a reefkeeper's candy land and, unlike some other stores I've visited, almost everything in Atlantis' display tank is actually for sale! But their inventory certainly does not end at their display tank. They have quite a few tanks devoted to exotic and no so exotic corals and all of them seem very well cared for, i.e. good lighting, appropriate water flow, proper filtration, etc. In fact, I honestly cannot recall seeing a single distressed or dead coral in any of them which is especially remarkable given the size and sheer numbers of their livestock (remember, these guys ship all over the world). Secondly, Ming and Joleen, the proprietors, could not have been nicer and until I gave them my RC 'handle', they didn't know me from Adam. Ming really seems to know his stuff too. It was refreshing to hear someone at an LFS call each coral by its 'common' AND scientific name without having to run for a book, while casually snipping a perfect frag from one of his many beautiful colonies. I really could've hung out here all day.
So, again, what did I get? I got a frag of 'True Enchinata' which I'd also been looking for since I saw it posted, a frag of A. hoeksemi (apparently, the current rage in California), a frag of A. navini which attracted me because of its unusual teal color, and a 7-8 headed piece of 'Orange Crush' Acanthastrea. |
|
|
|
|
|
