Founder
Seth Harris
UConn biology. 31 years at Granby Memorial. Fifty years of fish. He built the first shop as a house of tanks.
The Harris story
From a house of tanks to Route 44.
Biology, not scripts. A fish-keeper who taught high-school science, a herpetologist with field time on four continents, and the person who will tell you the showy animal is the wrong one.
1940s · West Hartford
Seth starts with fish
A breeding hobby out of the house, then a shop on New Britain Avenue while he studied biology at UConn. Military service and 31 years teaching at Granby Memorial closed the first shop.
1999 · Bloomfield
Reopened next to a bar
October 1999: four hundred square feet adjacent to a bar, then 1,800 next door once the smoke got old. Six years of the modern shop.
Avon
Two village rooms
Old Avon Village downstairs for seven years, then street level a quarter-mile away for four. The collection outgrew both.
Now · Canton
364 Albany Turnpike
Parking, handicapped access, road frontage. Grey building attached to BreMar Rentals. The snake-handle door is the landmark.
The shop is first and foremost an exotic reptile and amphibian house. It still earns a place on any Connecticut fishkeeper’s map — freshwater, a dedicated marine room, pond installs — but the front of the room is the herp collection.
Dedicated parking, handicapped access, road frontage, and a facility built to hold live animals instead of a village storefront. The snake-handle door on the grey building attached to BreMar Rentals is the landmark. Come through it.
Many animals are captive-bred here or by local people the shop will stand behind. They raise their own feeders for the collection and sell the surplus — frozen rodents, crickets, and roaches are why regulars drive even when they are not adding a new animal.
Keepers
Ask for them by name.
Reptiles
Adam Harris
Hartwick biology. Two decades breeding. Field time in Costa Rica, Thailand, Australia, South Africa, and the Bahamas.
Husbandry
Ashlee Carlson
The person keepers ask whether that animal is actually a good fit. She will shrink a ticket if the setup is not ready.
Remembering
Jim White
Jim worked the fish room for several years — African cichlids especially — and was an active member of the Pioneer Valley Aquarium Society. He passed unexpectedly. The shop still talks about his enthusiasm, and so do the people he helped.