There is a store I notice isn't mentioned in the thread. Tri-City Tropical Fish in Vista.
I've worked for the store for over five years now and the store's been in business I believe for 12 years or so. We carry a full line of livestock and supplies...custom and standard tanks and stands. We have a pretty good staff. Some knowledgeable, some just learning, but generally if one person doesn't know something, there's someone else there who does. Bossman can be a bit hard, but overall we do try to have whatever our customers need. If we don't currently carry it or just out of stock, we'll go out of our way to help get it. We are dedicated to our customers and in turn they are dedicated to us. It's a nice little store. Sometimes can seem a bit messy, but that's only because we're more busy taking care of the fish than cleaning up the clutter of paper notes and such...LOL. Our fish are in good shape and we keep a good system.
I was impressed with the filtration set up in the back when I first went there. Wow. Bio ball tower haven...lol. We won't be running out of bio space at all so long as it doesn't become contaminated. Each system has a set of two towers full of bio balls. Each tower is about two to three feet in diameter and over six feet tall. The only system without bio balls is the invert system and that sump is filled with live rock. Each sump is kept in a pit in the floor and they are huge. We hardly ever have water quality issues. The most of our problems is when fish decide not to behave with each other all of a sudden...and that's commonplace...LOL. Their sometimes unpredictable behavior keeps us on our toes
Anyone feel free to check us out. We are located in Vista at 1920 Hacienda Dr. 760-631-1532. We're open Monday thru Friday 10am to 8pm and weekends are 10 am to 6 pm. Christmas and Thanksgiving are the only holidays we are closed. We don't have a website up yet, but one is in the making.