Date of visit: January 7 2023
Most of the time, discerning between a pet shop and a zoo isn't too difficult. Pet shops exist for the primary purpose of selling animals and supplies to keep animals, while zoos focus on exhibiting animals to the public. There's a small gray area, of course - some zoos may sell a few animals to the public, and some pet shops may have a zoo section attached to them. But you wouldn't think that this gray area extends very far. Certainly there are no facilities that can not simply be classified as one or the other, right?
That's what I thought until today. I had heard interesting things over the last few months about what I had heard was a new aquarium shop in Oshkosh and decided to check it out. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I saw.
Pulling into the parking lot, something was immediately up. Sure, I knew that Sanctuary Aquatics had only opened up in October of 2022, but I had not expecting a mere fish shop to be in a brand new, fancy looking building! I realized I was not walking into a mere fish shop when I saw a sign on the door: "Admission - $5". Excuse me!?!
Walking in, you are first greeted with a visual overload of hundreds of fish tanks. This is the Freshwater Room. The vast majority of these tanks are tanks containing fish being sold. Each of these small "stock" tanks is very barren, with some sort of colored gravel, one decoration of some sort, and a single (occasionally two) species of fish, either in a small school or singly depending on the species' habits. These tanks are all obviously very bad, but presumably the fish don't spend too long in them before setting off to a (hopefully) better home at someone's house. These tanks are all free-standing (not in-wall tanks) and are arranged in all different sorts of patterns. I noticed that only particularly colorful and showy species were present - as this facility is just as interested in exhibiting as they are in selling...
This becomes more obvious when you look at the numerous "exhibit" tanks throughout the Freshwater Room. The first two are the first two tanks you see upon entering. The first of these is a terrarium, and is the only non-aquatic exhibit at Sanctuary Aquatics. It is a tall, well-planted vertical terrarium that was signed for Red-eyed Tree Frog and Orange-legged Monkey Frog, but all I saw was a very tiny White's Tree Frog. The small frogs could easily stay hidden in this terrarium, though. The next "exhibit" tank is right next to the frogs and is a pond-style exhibit visible from the surface, although there are some viewing windows on the sides. It contains several species of large Neotropical cichlids as well a single freshwater stingray. This tanks also has mangroves growing in it for some reason.
The "exhibit" tanks are all of much, much higher quality than the "stock" tanks and are (mostly) all brilliantly aquascaped. The other "exhibit" tanks in the freshwater room include an aquatic plant-filled tanks with Cherry Shrimp and some sort of small red fish, a terrible, barren pond-style tanks for some stingrays, a large, beautifully planted community tank containing (among others) Blue Neon Tetras, Denison Barbs, Blue Rams, and Discus, a bizarre "V" shaped acrylic tank with Cardinal Tetras that looked like it came from the show Tanked, a mossy tank for various tetras, and a horrid barren tank for an Axolotl.
The Reef Room is definitely the more impressive of Sanctuary Aquatic's two rooms. It is centerpieced by the Reef Lagoon exhibit, a 10000 gallon tank that is once again only visible from the surface. Using live rock and actual, living coral, this tank is extremely impressive given its size. It is also absolutely alive with a variety of reef fish species, both large and small. The surface-only view really is a bit of a pain though - if I could get a clearer view and photos of the fish inside this would frankly be one of my favorite zoo exhibits ever. As it stands it is really impressive but not knock-your-socks-off impressive.
The Reef Room also has several very large and shallow coral propagation tanks. Coral is Sanctuary Aquatics' specialty and they had over 100 species for sale, of all shapes and sizes. One of these tanks also had mangroves growing in it.
The "stock" tanks in the Reef Room consist mostly of in-wall tanks on the smallest of the room's walls. These tanks the fundamentally similar to the freshwater ones, except there's a handful of larger tanks for fish larger than a few inches (which is not the case in the Freshwater Room). There's also a couple of random freshwater tanks among them, for some reason. I hope no one buys that Molly thinking it can live in their saltwater tank! A number of the Reef Room "stock" tanks are just in clear plastic bins on a shelf.
Other than the Reef Lagoon, there's two other "exhibit" tanks - a pretty standard seahorse tank and a tank for a Peacock Mantis Shrimp that is only visible if you lay on your stomach on the floor and is entirely lit with red light so you can't see the species' signature colors.
Overall, Sanctuary Aquatics is an odd facility that seems to be exactly halfway between an aquarium and a fish shop. Sure, nearly everything here's for sale, but there's also an admission price and guests are encouraged to stay for a long time and look at the fish even if they have no intention of buying any. The Reef Lagoon tank is quite impressive but does not live up to its full potential. Among aquariums, Sanctuary Aquatics is not notable at all. Among fish shops, I'm tempted to say it is probably among the best, although I do not have a feel for what the average fish shop feels like. As a gray-area enigma though, it's fascinating to me.
Most of the time, discerning between a pet shop and a zoo isn't too difficult. Pet shops exist for the primary purpose of selling animals and supplies to keep animals, while zoos focus on exhibiting animals to the public. There's a small gray area, of course - some zoos may sell a few animals to the public, and some pet shops may have a zoo section attached to them. But you wouldn't think that this gray area extends very far. Certainly there are no facilities that can not simply be classified as one or the other, right?
That's what I thought until today. I had heard interesting things over the last few months about what I had heard was a new aquarium shop in Oshkosh and decided to check it out. I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I saw.
Pulling into the parking lot, something was immediately up. Sure, I knew that Sanctuary Aquatics had only opened up in October of 2022, but I had not expecting a mere fish shop to be in a brand new, fancy looking building! I realized I was not walking into a mere fish shop when I saw a sign on the door: "Admission - $5". Excuse me!?!
Walking in, you are first greeted with a visual overload of hundreds of fish tanks. This is the Freshwater Room. The vast majority of these tanks are tanks containing fish being sold. Each of these small "stock" tanks is very barren, with some sort of colored gravel, one decoration of some sort, and a single (occasionally two) species of fish, either in a small school or singly depending on the species' habits. These tanks are all obviously very bad, but presumably the fish don't spend too long in them before setting off to a (hopefully) better home at someone's house. These tanks are all free-standing (not in-wall tanks) and are arranged in all different sorts of patterns. I noticed that only particularly colorful and showy species were present - as this facility is just as interested in exhibiting as they are in selling...
This becomes more obvious when you look at the numerous "exhibit" tanks throughout the Freshwater Room. The first two are the first two tanks you see upon entering. The first of these is a terrarium, and is the only non-aquatic exhibit at Sanctuary Aquatics. It is a tall, well-planted vertical terrarium that was signed for Red-eyed Tree Frog and Orange-legged Monkey Frog, but all I saw was a very tiny White's Tree Frog. The small frogs could easily stay hidden in this terrarium, though. The next "exhibit" tank is right next to the frogs and is a pond-style exhibit visible from the surface, although there are some viewing windows on the sides. It contains several species of large Neotropical cichlids as well a single freshwater stingray. This tanks also has mangroves growing in it for some reason.
The "exhibit" tanks are all of much, much higher quality than the "stock" tanks and are (mostly) all brilliantly aquascaped. The other "exhibit" tanks in the freshwater room include an aquatic plant-filled tanks with Cherry Shrimp and some sort of small red fish, a terrible, barren pond-style tanks for some stingrays, a large, beautifully planted community tank containing (among others) Blue Neon Tetras, Denison Barbs, Blue Rams, and Discus, a bizarre "V" shaped acrylic tank with Cardinal Tetras that looked like it came from the show Tanked, a mossy tank for various tetras, and a horrid barren tank for an Axolotl.
The Reef Room is definitely the more impressive of Sanctuary Aquatic's two rooms. It is centerpieced by the Reef Lagoon exhibit, a 10000 gallon tank that is once again only visible from the surface. Using live rock and actual, living coral, this tank is extremely impressive given its size. It is also absolutely alive with a variety of reef fish species, both large and small. The surface-only view really is a bit of a pain though - if I could get a clearer view and photos of the fish inside this would frankly be one of my favorite zoo exhibits ever. As it stands it is really impressive but not knock-your-socks-off impressive.
The Reef Room also has several very large and shallow coral propagation tanks. Coral is Sanctuary Aquatics' specialty and they had over 100 species for sale, of all shapes and sizes. One of these tanks also had mangroves growing in it.
The "stock" tanks in the Reef Room consist mostly of in-wall tanks on the smallest of the room's walls. These tanks the fundamentally similar to the freshwater ones, except there's a handful of larger tanks for fish larger than a few inches (which is not the case in the Freshwater Room). There's also a couple of random freshwater tanks among them, for some reason. I hope no one buys that Molly thinking it can live in their saltwater tank! A number of the Reef Room "stock" tanks are just in clear plastic bins on a shelf.
Other than the Reef Lagoon, there's two other "exhibit" tanks - a pretty standard seahorse tank and a tank for a Peacock Mantis Shrimp that is only visible if you lay on your stomach on the floor and is entirely lit with red light so you can't see the species' signature colors.
Overall, Sanctuary Aquatics is an odd facility that seems to be exactly halfway between an aquarium and a fish shop. Sure, nearly everything here's for sale, but there's also an admission price and guests are encouraged to stay for a long time and look at the fish even if they have no intention of buying any. The Reef Lagoon tank is quite impressive but does not live up to its full potential. Among aquariums, Sanctuary Aquatics is not notable at all. Among fish shops, I'm tempted to say it is probably among the best, although I do not have a feel for what the average fish shop feels like. As a gray-area enigma though, it's fascinating to me.
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) that sell animals to the public. Special Memories Zoo sold rabbits before it closed, Shalom Wildlife Zoo sells guinea pigs, and Alligator Alley sells all sorts of herps (including alligators!).
Not remotely.
