Went to the LFS today. Hadn't been there since my Biocube was wiped out by what I feel was tainted shrimp... A mystery ill never solve. They have a virtual tour on Google Maps that was very cool and I saw some things that had changed so I decided to check it out.
My visit gave me mixed reviews. I heard some disturbing advice being given to a family that was just starting out and wanted some advice on buying corals. Long story short, the worker described what was needed / recommended for housing corals, and the husband and wife described their equipment (or lack thereof) and rather than break the news that they weren't quite ready, the worker said, "that should work out fine, it's not that important."
The couple were very new and had extremely small knowledge about anything, including what they had. What I got from them was that they had a small HOB filter on a 40 long tank. A small heater, and a small LED light. The LFS told them that they were able to keep any coral. Wow. Not impressed.
To be fair, the 10 other LFS workers that I normally deal with are almost anal about knowing your system before selling anything.
Going in, my plan was to pick up a Royal Gramma and some snails for the Mantis. The only RG they had was around 1" and they wanted $25, so I passed. I ended up talking them into (2) firefish (the regulars) and (1) purple pseudo-chromis, plus three red legged crabs, 3 Ceriths, and three moon snails, for $30. Not too bad. Didn't gets pics because I literally got called into work as I was acclimating and just got back after lights out.
On a side note, the RBTA seems to have settled.
On another side note: I am updating my review of my small mag-rock. For those who don't know what this is, it is a man-made rock with a magnet built in. I had the mag-rock less than a year if I can recall, and along the time, it took quite a while to be covered by coralline and other stuff, but it finally did, and I had several corals, the latest being a large acro colony. Today, one of the Floating bags hit the rock and Knocked the coral onto the sand bed. No biggie, snails bump it all the time and it turns and dumps the coral. Today while gently placing the coral on the rock, the whole thing came apart in about 10 golf-ball sized pieces. Some fell on. My new, one hit a clownfish, serval fell on my cup coral, and most just hit the sanded. It was a gigantic mess and when I tried picking up the pieces they broke into popcorn sized pcs and it was terrible. Since I got the rock, a few small pieces had broken off, but this was crazy. Just a warning that if any of your tank structure is using these, beware that most likely you are in for a rude awakening. I haven't googled to find others with same issue. I suspect I'm not alone.