New Aquarium Advice requested

[Caesar]

Good Evening All,

New Aquarium post No#1

I am currently in the planning stage of opening my own Aquarium and Reptile Supply Shop. I have my plan well underway but would like to see what the experts and novices on this forum recommend and basically to see if there are any areas I need to think of which I haven’t.
It is my intention to submit a number of posts over the next few months to see what opinions are out there and also to ensure that I don’t bore you with too many questions at once.

So firstly I will start with Wholesalers.

Which wholesalers do you think provide the best products. (I know this is a very general question but I would like to know who you have had dealings with and why or why not you like them. (examples of individual products would be great).

On similar lines what types and brands of food would you like to see in a fish shop. Once again examples of good and bad products would be great.

Thanks in advance. Hopefully I can get a good idea from you guys as to what you like so that I can serve you with great products and prices in the future.

Ave

Jason

[taksan]

Its not a question of which wholesalers provide the best service you will have to deal with them all if you want to open a shop.

[goldenpigeon]

hey can we have some info about yourself first? are you a novice or very experienced fish keeper?

[Caesar]

G'day mate,

A little bit about myself.

I am an officer in the Army. I have been in the Army for over ten years and have done my fair share of overseas depoloyments and am looking to get out and do something I enjoy.

I have been keeping fish for over ten years and breeding cichlids for 6 of those. I currently have 30 tanks in my fish room and am looking at expanding my hobby into a business.

I believe I have a very good working knowledge in particular Cichlids and tropical community fish. I have also kept coldwater goldfish.

I an not a novice. I would not be considering going into such a competitve industry if I was.

I have done my homework and research and am now trying to get further opinion's from members of the hobby to confirm my own.

If you have any further questions please ask.

Ave

Jason

[goldenpigeon]

ok definetly sounds like you know what you are doing! reason for my asking is that a lot of idiots start up pet shops etc without any first hand knowledge. obviously we arent going to tell you every product for you to hold in your store etc.

most of us discus hobbiests have very large tanks so we are all in the market for sponge filters, canister filters (eheim, fluval), powerful heaters, uv sterilizers, high volume air pumps etc.

in terms of food if you can get hikari frozen foods you will be very popular (blood worms, brine shrimp, mysis shrimp), hikari dry foods, tetra bits are great, algae wafers etc.

the main thing we are after is quality and bang for the buck. but quality is the most important to most of us. if you sell quality products people wont mind paying for them. definetly dont fill your shop with el-cheapo stuff because then you become like most other places.

were you going to go down the road of catering for the more advanced and extreme hobbiests? i htink that could be quiet a good way to do buisness. sort of leaving the small time buyers to the other shops (still catering for average joe ofcourse but you get my point?).

cheers
David

(hope i have been of assistance)

[Waldo]

I'm an AVID OFI supporter/member.
http://ofish.org/members/members-directory.asp

Yust go to your country and it will pop a list of members. Contact OFI and see if they have had any negitive experiences with that company. This is for fish suppliers only.

[Jeroen]

A golden rule for a company where I was for a long time chief 60/20/20

A. 20% of the stock is the really expensive stuff
B. 60% makes the assortiment huge
C. 20% is the products that you sell the most


A there is always people who want best of the best, no matter what is cost, also you will impress people with what you can offer

B A large assortiment means you can offer everything to everybody (just need a few of each 1.2.3....)

C these are the producs that you will sell the most....


With this rule the company I wass working for has grown untill 250+ shops all over europe....

Hope this will help you to start up your company

Jeroen

[Caesar]

Thanks for all the prompt replies guys.

Yes I am thinking along similar lines to some of you.

I do want to cater for the extreme hobbiest (like myself) but also for average joe. I know myself I shop around for my livestock and products and can expect the same with other experienced hobbiest.

My intention is to blow the competition in my area away with an outstanding range of fish. I itend to start with no less than 200x4ft tanks ) with divisions catering for up to 300 - 400 differnt species. I iintend to stock everything from coldwater comets, thru your tropicals and cichlid range. I am currently investigating marine (which I currently have little working knowledge of).

I intend to blow people away with a series of display tanks including a massive planted discus tank, several cichlid tanks and community tanks. I also will be exhibiting reptiles inclduign green tree frogs, turtles and water dragons.

Thanks for the 20 - 60 - 20 rule. I was thinking along those lines but this puts it into a neat little thought package.

I appreciate all your thoughts. I am not after everyone to tell me what to stock but more after persoanl experiences with good and bad products etc.

Cheers

Jason

[Nathan]

your store sounds like a similar chain of stores called amazing amazon, they stock a lot of reptiles (lizards, snakes, turtles, frogs etc)

you sound like youve done your homework but i think you should check these guys out, i think the way they have set themselves up is quite good, however i think the service is shit.

Definitely need knowledgable passionate freindly staff, otherwise no one will want to even come in, i think that that is a big thing you should think about.

HTH

[Waldo]

Here's a little spare help.

(If you just want to do it without knowing why it works the here's how it's done. To prepare lower your tank temp to lower 70's. When you get the box in, cut the bag open and squirt some Amquel and Prime into the bags. Remove the fish and put them directly into the tank without acclimating.

Ammonia can be measured in two ways amount and toxicity.

Those test strips measure the amount of ALL ammonia.

Toxicity refers to the amount of un-ionized ammonia (un-ionized is a less stable molecule and is more likely to bond to something or change into something else to fill it's electrons)

When is ammonia un-ionized? It's a direct correlation between the temperature and pH. If you would like to read more into it then you can google ammonia toxicity, and read up on website's. http://www.thekrib.com/Chemistry/ammonia-toxicity.html



Table 1. Un-ionized NH3 as a percent of total ammonia (by temperature and pH).
Percent NH3 of total ammonia
Temp (F) pH 6.5 pH 7.0 pH 7.5 pH 8.0 pH 8.5
68 .13 .40 1.24 8.82 11.2
77 .18 .57 1.77 5.38 15.3
82 .22 .70 2.17 6.56 18.2
86 .26 .80 2.48 7.46 20.3


Lets go through the stages of the fish shipment. First the fish are already in a 7.2 pH (our water) as the fish breaths and poops, it releases CO^2. If you've ever dealt with a planted tank and CO^2 you will know that it will lower the pH. You can assume that the fish are now in a pH of < 7.0. Also during shipment the temp drops to around 68 F, which is cold but will not harm any of the fish; this brings the toxicity to lower levels with the same amount of ammonia.
When the fish arrive and you open the bags the first thing to happen is gas exchange and temperature rising. CO^2 is exchanged for N^2 and O^2 gasses. This in turns raises the pH back to its normal state around 7.2. If you add water (Drip and Float Method) to dilute the ammonia you are "raising the temperature" making the ammonia more lethal.

pH and temperature change can be more tolerated. Most fish are tolerable of a jump 10F warmer and 5F cooler. pH change will effect your fish for the next week regardless if it's drip or squirt dump..... Quite pointless unless it's more then 2 points, in which case I would squirt poor a cup into the bag and then put the fish into the tank. This is replicated by the rainy season in the Amazon where temp, dH, DO, and pH all fluctuate rapidly.

The chemicals in Prime and Amquel (As well as all other ammonia chemicals) are not ammonia removers. They are ammonia detoxifies. They were not intended for household tanks but are often sold that way. They were originally made for the purpose of importing wild fish that were vulnerable to ammo burn like Apistogramma and tetra.

[marg]

Something weird going on Waldo - that post doesn't belong here.,

Regards,

Marg.