Japan’s Best Saltwater Coral & Fish Store
Wow.. what a great store. All I can say is that if you are ever in Tokyo it is definitely worth the trip to Coral Aquatic Tokyo! One of the things that makes this store so cool are the Japenese themes of the display tanks that greet you when you walk in the door.
The small cube tank by the front door with the Japanese toadstool and trachphyllia really sets the tone for the other displays in the store, showcasing many of the awesome corals that Japan has to offer.
Since space is at a premium in Tokyo, the shop makes use of every inch of the roughly 400 square feet of space available. The layout is a classic reef store setup, with coral beds in the middle surrounded by dry goods organized by manufacturer on the surrounding walls. There is also dry rock and other biomedia available as well. All in all, it contains everything that a reefer could need to set up or maintain their reef tank in Tokyo.
The store stocks a wide variety of corals from the Indo-Pacific region, but also, somewhat surprisingly, classics from World Wide Corals such as Bounce Mushrooms. Since this store serves the local Japanese market it has the same varieties of corals that you would see in most reefing stores, albeit with a distinct local flavor.
The coral beds were well stocked with plenty of frags, as well as larger colonies of eyphillia and gonipora. Interestingly, the owner claims that one of the keys to success in keeping gonipora is to not feed them, which flies in the face of most of the advice out there, although it seems to work for him!
In terms of dry goods, Coral Aquatic stocks a wide variety of products from major manufacturers such as Red Sea, Aqua Illumination and Vitalis. While the manufacturers are the same as you would find in any North American aquarium store there are a few regional differences.
For example, all of the Red Sea tank models that are sold in Japan are braced, while European and North American models are not. For reefers in the Tokyo area, Coral Aquatic definitely is a one stop shop and deserves the title of best saltwater fish store in Tokyo.
