A Peek Behind the Curtain at Sea Dwelling Creatures

During a very recent trip to Los Angeles, we got the opportunity to tour aquarium livestock wholesaler and distributor, Sea Dwelling Creatures. We spent the better part of the morning wandering from holding tank to holding tank, peaking in at all of the random and amazing livestock. We spied everything from the super rare Cirrhilabrus earlei wrasse to newly hatched cuttlefish and even some sharks and rays. There was almost every kind of fish and coral that you could think of, and it was total AquaNerd heaven.

Pictures were a bit tough to capture, as the acrylic tanks were pretty hazy from scratches (that place moves some serious livestock), but we still managed to get a few decent ones. Also keeping the picture quality at a minimum was the poor warehouse style lighting, though the coral tanks were lit up nicely with a variety of reef friendly lighting.

As far as equipment goes, there is just so much stuff that it’s hard to describe the layout. There were tanks of various shapes, sizes, and styles, as well as a super elaborate drip acclimation system (all incoming fish are acclimated for 24 hours) and an extensive quarantine/hospital area. For filtration, the facility was split up into several different systems. Fish were on one system and corals were on another, and beyond that many of the “islands” were further broken down to keep some systems separate.

Other than those brief descriptions, there really isn’t anything specific to look at, other than the livestock…which changes daily as the facility receives shipments on 5-6 days a week. Needless to say, they are quite busy. Unfortunately, we just so happened to be there on a Friday, which is the day everyone is off because the SDC crew doesn’t really ship or receive livestock on that day. They operate with a bare bones staff to take care of the tanks, take phone calls, and make sure the place doesn’t blow up, but that’s about it.

We have included approximately 50 of the best images from our SDC tour, and while some of the pictures aren’t out of this world, they do give us a small peek behind the curtain, so to speak.

Livestock: