New from the driftless area

attiland

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Hello everyone. My name is Ricky, I’m from the driftless region of iowa/minnesota/Wisconsin. I live about 20 miles from La crosse Wisconsin. I’m not new to reefing, but I am new to the forum. I currently don’t have any tanks setup, but want to start another pico and nano soon, followed by a predator tank down the road. Does anyone from the area know of any good local fish store? I used to go to olde town, but they shut down. La crosse has a marine land, but I’ve never been a fan of them. Other than that it’s petco. There are 0 stores with coral now either. The closest I can find a good fish store is in Minneapolis and that’s about a 4 hour trip for me. Anyway, I hope I can someday be a benefit to the community hear and I’m eager to learn all I can from everyone here.
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ShrimpBandit

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I agree, my wife loves taking the trips up to the cities and going to the fish stores. There’s some really nice ones up there. I’ve never bought anything offline. I always ordered stuff through the shop that shut down, who do you buy from online? Do you have good luck with your livestock surging with as unpredictable as the weather can be up here?
Most of the fish I have now came from a couple of shops in the cities or Duluth, brought home in a cooler.

I get most of my maintenance supplies from BRS and I've bought various live stuff (CUC, corals, pods, macro) from SaltwaterAquarium.com, Algae Barn, Live Aquaria (in Rhinelander, but they won't let you pick up), and corals.com.

So far, everything has done really well except for a batch of cerith snails that came during a particularly cold week. Now, if I can't pick it up in person, I'll at least make sure it's supposed to be above single digits before I have something shipped.

There's a MN Reefing USA show in February, and I expect I'll bring some new corals home with me. Until then, I hear patience is a good thing in this hobby...
 

Fish Think Pink

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Hello everyone. My name is Ricky, I’m from the driftless region of iowa/minnesota/Wisconsin. I live about 20 miles from La crosse Wisconsin. I’m not new to reefing, but I am new to the forum. I currently don’t have any tanks setup, but want to start another pico and nano soon, followed by a predator tank down the road. Does anyone from the area know of any good local fish store? I used to go to olde town, but they shut down. La crosse has a marine land, but I’ve never been a fan of them. Other than that it’s petco. There are 0 stores with coral now either. The closest I can find a good fish store is in Minneapolis and that’s about a 4 hour trip for me. Anyway, I hope I can someday be a benefit to the community hear and I’m eager to learn all I can from everyone here.

Hi Ricky and Welcome! Glad you joined.

This thread may help you find things & people near you, but so close to the tri-state corner you might want to check all three:

Have you considered starting your build thread? I found its a great place to document my tank's evolution for myself. I wish I had started in the planning stages, like it sounds like you are at right now. I started tank first then joined, so I'm still finding myself going back collecting pictures & updating historically as well as current state. Once you create your first post in your thread and link it to your account, they will give you build badge (look left, under my ID)

This is a good reference book type online article I still review:
 
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ricky817

ricky817

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Hi Ricky and Welcome! Glad you joined.

This thread may help you find things & people near you, but so close to the tri-state corner you might want to check all three:

Have you considered starting your build thread? I found its a great place to document my tank's evolution for myself. I wish I had started in the planning stages, like it sounds like you are at right now. I started tank first then joined, so I'm still finding myself going back collecting pictures & updating historically as well as current state. Once you create your first post in your thread and link it to your account, they will give you build badge (look left, under my ID)

This is a good reference book type online article I still review:
I honestly never thought of starting one until I had the the equipment and everything I needed. But I am liking your idea of starting one now. I think the guidance and help from more experienced members would definitely benefit me and help prevent me from accidentally doing something stupid. I’ll definitely check out those links you posted.
Thanks for the welcomes everybody!
 

Ghostweim

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Hello everyone. My name is Ricky, I’m from the driftless region of iowa/minnesota/Wisconsin. I live about 20 miles from La crosse Wisconsin. I’m not new to reefing, but I am new to the forum. I currently don’t have any tanks setup, but want to start another pico and nano soon, followed by a predator tank down the road. Does anyone from the area know of any good local fish store? I used to go to olde town, but they shut down. La crosse has a marine land, but I’ve never been a fan of them. Other than that it’s petco. There are 0 stores with coral now either. The closest I can find a good fish store is in Minneapolis and that’s about a 4 hour trip for me. Anyway, I hope I can someday be a benefit to the community hear and I’m eager to learn all I can from everyone here.
Hi Ricky! I am new to the forum too. I can tell you first hand to avoid Marine Land in La Crosse. I don't like bashing businesses, but the place smelled of ammonia horrible and the tanks were beyond scuzzie. Yuck. Might be a place to pick up supplies but not any livestock.
 

Richardsonic

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I'm in Viroqua so I understand your situation well. I frequently drive to Milwaukee fish stores and Best Fish is my favorite there. I've stopped at a couple in Minneapolis and was unimpressed (and honestly I didn't do enough research in advance to make an educated decision about which stores to visit. I'm sure there are some great stores there). However I will say that my new favorite is Aquatic Environments in Davenport IA. Great selection of livestock and super clean tanks. And in actuality, for me it's about 15 minutes closer than Milwaukee. So if you're going to road trip, keep them in mind. Good luck with your tank.
 
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