Aquarium shop

[Aquascaper _IRL]

I have recently joined Reef2Reef to get the insights from the members about starting a aquarium business in Ireland. Please advise where to start from in terms of setting up a aquarium shop. I’m looking for ideas in setting up a good Aquarium tanks with brilliant filtration, lighting, and airation
Thanks

 

[revhtree]

Welcome to your new home for saltwater reef aquarium resources and fun! Welcome to the family! :D

 

[shakacuz]

welcome aboard the r2r board. hello from PA!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[kevgib67]

Welcome, glad you are here? Best of luck with your venture.

 

[edsbeaker]

I can’t help, but welcome!

 

[1112-425XL]

 

[00W]

Can't really help with that but welcome Welcome to R2R!
Best of luck to you!!

 

[zheka757]

Welcome to R2R!

 

[FrugalReeferJon]

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Welcome to R2R
You can get the UK banner here: Click Account then “Join User Group”, scroll to the bottom and click on “United Kingdom User Group‘’

 

[Vivid Creative Aquatics]

I have recently joined Reef2Reef to get the insights from the members about starting a aquarium business in Ireland. Please advise where to start from in terms of setting up a aquarium shop. I’m looking for ideas in setting up a good Aquarium tanks with brilliant filtration, lighting, and airation
Thanks

Welcome to Reef-2-Reef - I'm sure you'll find this forum to be a wealth of knowledge.

I've never owned an aquarium shop, or LFS (Local Fish Store), but we do work with many of them.

A few things come to mind

1 - be sure you have the customer base to support it. Is there need in your area and LFS in your area?

2 - line up good suppliers for your livestock. I have never done this myself before, but I'm told that it is paramount. Quality fish, inverts and coral go a long way towards the reputation of your shop

3 - develop a thriving aquarium service business. From what I understand, this is where the regular income is created. The store itself can then act as the supplier to the services business.

4 - bring in a good selection of dry goods. Both hardware and consumables. Paying special attention to those items people may need on short notice.

5 - and, this is purely self promotion, be sure to stock our popular Random Flow Generator nozzles and our Flow kits

We can even show you how to save 1000s and flow all the tanks in your entire store and grow facility without expensive powerheads.

We have a Distributor in the UK i can help introduce you to, that can help with points points 4 and 5.

 

[PharmrJohn]

Greetings and Welcome to our collective obsession!!!!

 

[danreef55]

 

[Brisk]

Welcome!

 

[Gman83]

Welcome!

 

[PotatoPig]

There’s a joke in the restaurant trade:

“How do you make a million dollars running a restaurant? Start with two million”

I’d assume similar sentiments apply to fish stores, especially going by the overall trend I’ve seen reported here of stores closing down as they increasingly cant compete with Amazon and online vendors.

Going by the stores I see that enjoy success:

1. The core business really needs to be aquarium services. Setting up, cleaning and maintaining aquariums - generally larger fancier ones. In the U.S. there’s a ton of these in doctors offices and other similar businesses - the LFS that primarily do this work seem to be the ones that do best in the current market.

2. Dry goods. You’ll never compete with Amazon or online vendors on price. Not even close. These will need to be primarily sold as part of your service business and by “added value” you can offer with service to new entrants and helping them get setup.

3. Live and dry rock - have a vat of live rock in water, and shelves of dry rock, and an area where you can help customers with rock scapes as part of the setup process.

4. Live goods are likely to be a loss leader. These are expensive to buy, expensive to ship, expensive to keep, and die all the time, especially fish in tanks that don’t have habitat - ie tanks fish are kept in for sale.

5. If you’re really good at keeping corals and have frag tanks and so on you might be able to culture some corals to offset point 4. If you’re not really good at keeping corals you might want to reconsider this business plan.

6. You’re not far from the ocean. One option if the water quality is good (low pollution) and you have storage and transportation capability is to offer Natural Sea Water as a product/service.

7. You’re dealing in species that might be tightly controlled for trade and import. Look carefully into the laws surrounding this in your jurisdiction.

 

[Peace River]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!!! Good luck with your research!

 

[Adolfo]