melev

Before attending Fragniappe, I had the opportunity to visit this fish store. Coral Connection is a two-story business with a history. Years ago, it was a place to hang out, where you enjoyed a daiquiri and talked about the hobby. Over time, it morphed into a full business, but as you walk around you still feel like it used to be a bar.

As soon as I walked in, I was amused by the sign on the door.

The lower level has a number of larger holding tanks filled with live rock and some very purple (man-made) rock. There were also two large coral displays for topdown viewing, and I spotted tons of tiny rose Bubble Tip Anemones.

The livestock tanks are very shallow, which is challenging to fill up since the vertical height in each is less than 10".

Upstairs are more tanks, a drygoods area, and an area filled with tanks and stands. Yes, that's a pool table under all those goods.

Numerous display tanks provide some examples for customers.

I spotted a very old Blue Ridge colony, but it didn't act at all like the one I have. Mine extends what look like hairs. This one extended true polyps making it look very fuzzy and interesting.

It's always fun to see what's behind the display tanks.

I'd refer to this as the sun room. I'm somewhat certain it was sunlight coming in from above. The mangroves were doing great.

A thriving 65g tank filled with softies. The purple tang needs more room; he seemed skittish with nowhere to go. I'd like to see him in that large keyhole shaped trough.

This store has a lovely Macaw parrot that seemed very tame.

Jerry was my driver for the weekend and he pointed out that I seemed to be the most fascinated by the Silversides I spotted in this particular store. He was right. I've only seen them in frozen flatpacks at the LFS, so to see these swimming around was a real treat. They truly are silvery in color, almost like chromed mirrors. The mop hangs down for the fish to lay their eggs, and this store was breeding them.

Most of my camera gear was in the car, so this picture was the best I could do with the 18-200mm and no flash. It really was neat to see them swimming around, alive instead of frozen.

On the way out, another sign caught my eye.

Here is the link to their store.

Coral Connection
2637 Delaware Ave.
Kenner, LA
(504) 467-4566
http://www.coralconnection.com/start.htm