Opening A Fish Store

Okay boys. My mom has made the ownage decision that she wants to open up a fish store. I would be the manager and everything BUT, I need help doing all the research on setting up the tanks etc. I need prices, sizes, capacity, initial cost, long term cost, maintnence needs, EVERYTHING you can get. Because, Business loans require that you have every little detail planned out. So, Anything you can get me would help extremely. Also, Those who help a lot may even get some free stuff if we open it up.

PM me or post item statistics and I will ad to list. Any help greatly appreciated

what are you planning? SW or FW? Temperate or coldwater or tropical?

To start with just simple tropical FW/SW but if business is good and demand gets up il gladly expand to temperate species etc.

We decided we are going to run with the marineland line of commercial products. We have a building thats an old pet store for years now. Only problem is the loading dock is on the side of the building with absolutely NO access. Its all grass around it so I would have to have it paved. I also am planning a fairly large back room to breed most live stock we can. Same for propogating corals. around here the only competition is petsmart. However, (this is where it gets good) The building in mind is on the side of highway 74. As you can probably assume its in an INCREDIBLY high traffic area. I have already begun to plan a prop tank and have already planned fry tanks.

Okay sounds good. For starters i would go with just FW fish so you can focus on keeping the tanks nice and clean. Brackish fish will do fine to. Just things to keep in mind are for people who go into a fish store they dont want it to smell "bad" and they want everything to be "nice and pretty looking". Quote. Once you build up your reputation you can start selling SW fish. However you can still have SW fish in your backroom until you feel comfortable enough to deal with selling SW fish to people. Dealing with policies on returns for dead fish and stuff. I think on Reef-Solutions there is an article on starting a fish store in there database somewhere. It's in the forums though. You might look at that.

Yea, My mom is pretty much having me do ALL the work on this. I wanted to do SW because the building we looked at had a LOT more problems than just the loading dock. Theres another area we are looking at but we would have to rent 2 buildings and combine them (Strip Mall basically) to have room for holding a sizeable amount of stuff in the back room. I want to do all SW but like you said FW allows more focus on reputation. Who knows though. Get the loan paid off, Some money saved up, Get the other place and REALLY get going. But the way I figure it is petsmart has this area on lock for freshwater. I mean people dont really care beyond that because everybody around here that want FW just want (Literally here) goldfish. And theres absolutely NO way you can compete with a major store on that. I will check out that article and do more research before I make any decisions. Im just trying to work out pros and cons right now.

Okay. So, Heres the downer I got volunteered to start us a lfs (Local Frag Store). Also I will have to set us up a website AND go to club meetings manage sales the tanks etc etc. Kind of annoying. I get to get a crash course in fragging though. Im going to find a HUGE rock for each of my mother colonies of zoas to grow out on. All have a big personal rock, Lots of frags, Lots of money.

Whoa there. So its a new building then? Also yeah petsmart has the lock on FW. Thats all they ell but people like going to Fish only stores. Not with a plethora of other animals. I don't know much about fragging but personally i think it would be best to have each colony on its on rock.

I am. Im actually contemplating a 10 gallon for a couple zoa frags to grow out so I can get started.

also are you going to keep real big FW fish likeID sharks?

Thats a ways down the road to be talking about. But I might who knows.

you should start getting tanks. You should run all the tanks on a 2 big filters, 1 for FW, one for SW!

Right now im waiting for a job i already been basically garunteed then im going to start getting frag tanks.

cool!

Sounds good.

Well I passed on a skimmer & pumps for the 20L to get a 48x18x18 Custom frag tank today. Couldnt pass on the price for the quality. If the weather holds il be picking it up friday afternoon. After that il finish the 20L then get powerheads sand and lights for the new frag tank. Told you all id make it happen one way or another

Welp. Scratch that. Im not paying 100 extra dollars for him to drive an hour. Welp...Skimmer and pump time.

One thing I think that could save you a lot of money if you are having lots of tanks is having two large main filtration centers. i think someone said thos already. One for freshwater, and one for saltwater. To get attention I would try to join a local reef club or fish club. Tell them what you are planning and I can almost promise they will check it out and spread the word. lol, I know I would. If you need some help with designing the filter I can help, I personally design filtration systems for a lot of tanks. Also, obviously Petco has all the basic fish like tetras, gouramis, etc. Try to bring in a few more exotic things that could make the place unlike all the others. Secondly the atmosphere. Buyers dont want to see a dirty place, I know that personally my favorite lfs here has clean floors and even has a sofa to relax on. lol

Im a LOOOONG way from brick and mortar stores right now man. I am going to do centralized filtration though. I already have a very evilly cool plan for that. Il keep you all posted, Right now im trying to negoatiate a pair of picasso clowns for the 20L.

nice. Good luck

Anyone happen to know any reputable wholesalers for aquarium equipment? I know that im going to need a tax ID number, But I can get one. Problem im having is simply finding a good wholesaler where I can get the bulk of my equipment tanks livestock etc. Any help is GREATLY appreciated thanks.

I have no clue otherwise i'd help.

Ha um...Doctors Foster & Smith?

Theyre still pretty much retail unless something is on sale.

Do you have a Big Al's in your area? I was there yesterday in Toronto, and they sell aquariums (just the tank) for dirt cheap. I think it was like $8.99 for a 10g and $16.99 for a 20g and so on right up to 40g which was $65.99. They had 27 longs and 30s and a whole bunch of other sizes (all under 40g). They had loads! At least 20 of each size tank. They had sizes smaller than 10g too, such as 8g tall, but they looked pretty useless.

Wow, those are great prices.

Thats what im talking about. Il def look into them.

It doesn't show the tanks on their website though. I looked. I think you have to pick them up locally.