Last Friday I visited Mark at Coral Sea Aquariums in The Spot, Randwick. I hadn’t visited him in a year or so, maybe more. We had a chat for a while, always great, he’s a nice guy who has run the shop for 40 years.
In all those years he’s seen The Spot change so much, from what was such a great little community of diverse little shops to basically a “Little Thailand” (nearly every shop there is a Thai restaurant now).
The sad news is that the old couple who had been renting the shop to him for the past 40 years have recently sold the building to a developer. This developer has already kicked out the post office and the chiropractor next door and if Mark wants to keep running his aquarium shop he’ll have to pay 3 times his rent when his lease runs out early next year.
When the developer first met Mark he already mentioned that he didn’t like the idea of an Aquarium shop in his building and that he would have prefered a restaurant instead (he already has one Thai restaurant in the corner shop). Of-course Mark can’t afford to pay 3 times the rent, it’s simply a way of telling him to get out.
Mark is not sure if he’s got it in him to start a new business and despite running the shop for 40 years he’s never seen himself as a business man. He started out young, and had a telent for keeping fish and shared that through his shop. Like my Uncle John (who also runs an Aquarium shop), running the shop is his life.
A sad conversation I suppose. Mark is obviously very upset but I told him to look at the positives, that running the shop for 40 years was massive, a huge achievement. On leaving the shop we joked about him most likely not being there if I dropped in again to say hi in a years time.
Mark had a few Peppermint Shrimp which I grabbed (I need them as they eat pest anemones), he had a hard time trying to catch them as they were in a display tank (not to mention his eyesight is pretty bad too!). He ended up having to take out all the rockwork and when he took out one particular piece we heard a huge loud cracking noise. Mantis Shrimp we both said! Turns out it was this guy, what looks like a Tiger Pistol Shrimp (the largest one I’ve seen in real life). Mark, like many aquarists, didn’t want him (and would have killed him most likely) but I think they’re harmless and damn interesting creatures so I took him.
Whilst I’m on aquariums. I also bought this Blue Starfish (linckia laevigata) earlier. I also have a couple more interesting star fishes now. I’ll get pics of them some time soon.