Happen to travel to Chicago over the weekend with my wife to attend Stars on Ice. While in the area, I can’t resist but to stop by Beyond the Reed in Schaumburg, IL. If you live anywhere within 2-3 hours from the Chicago area and are looking for great corals, frags, and invert both in quality and price, you cannot miss this store.
The new prize I scored is this beautiful 5″ piece of Gold wall anchor/hammer coral. I’ve seen a comparable coral’s online priced at the low to mid $100’s. This piece was $98, retail! It is now happily expanding in my tank (shot below), and I am looking forward for this to wow any guests over!
A bit more about Beyond the Reef- Their staff is nice and knowledgable. And the store floor is DRY and CLEAN! The store’s crown jewel is a huge (my estimate 1500 gallon) all glass FOWLR tank housing a pair of magnificent foot long uniform tang, along with a foot long Queen angel, 10″ orange leopard spotted rabbitfish, full grown harlequin tusk, an almost full-grown black moray eel, along with many other beautiful fish. The only downside of the store I’d say is it didn’t offer much of a clam selection. But they have 3 cubic inch acro frags (a full tank of them) for $49 each- a steal. Plus many other corals that you’d normally find 2-3X price in any other retailers, even online.
Even though I hate driving to Chicago area, even though the tax is higher down there, but I am almost getting ready to make this place my go-to store for all future coral excursions!