Continued my visits here in Houston today. Made the trip to Galveston to see if a shop was still open, only to find it closed...permanently. I was stoked to see the gulf, which ended up being very much a let down because the weather was nasty. Fog, clouds, and rain ruined what could have been a very cool visit. Oh well.

On my journeys today I stopped at a shop called All About Fish in SE Houston. What an awesome shop! Kevin, the owner, was a super cool guy who was very friendly and runs a tight ship. I took some pics of his display/frag tanks, but forgot my cable so pics will have to come later. Kevin had some AWESOME live stock, and had some of the nicest acro frags I have seen in awhile. He had some A. horrida frags, true A. echniata, and his mother colonies were out of this world. His coral selection was huge! If you are ever in the area you should certainly check his store out.

The stock tanks along the entry to All About Fish in Houston, TX

The amazing SPS frag tank at AAF in Houston

Close up of some of the SPS frags in the above tank

An awesome anemone & LPS display tank @ AAF, Houston

A stunning LPS/softie display tank @ AAF, Houston, TX

So back to my story. I moved to northern Colorado to pursue an academic career in Biology and Secondary education at the University of Northern Colorado. I started working at a shop in Greeley called Animal Attraction, and eventually left that shop to open another called Don's Hobbies and Tropical Fish. At Don's I started a hardcore fragging operation that resulted in successfully selling coral on ebay, via our store website, and even wholesaling coral frags to other shops in CO, as well as one of the largest livestock distributors in California. Things were jamming, and then all of a sudden I found out that rent wasnt being paid and walked in to work one day to find a 3 day notice of eviction waiting for me. We broke the store down in 3 days, and I ended up buying a bunch of the rare livestock that we were focused on culturing, and eventually set up my own frag system at my home where I continue to collect and propagate corals in my spare time.

After working in LFS's for the last 7 years, I was pretty through with the whole retail aspect of the hobby, and kind of gave up working in the industry alltogether. I tried to find a science job that would allow me to capitalize on my degree, but jobs were non-existant (and still are from what I hear)