# Where to find an retailer commercial Aquarium system?



## GrAveTzT (Apr 19, 2009)

I'm starting an Exotic Pet store and I'm having a lot of difficulty finding a company which provides a commercial Aquarium system.
I've already made contact with http://www.marineland.com but after much research I've found that there is some major bad reputation on the quality of their systems.

I'm also going to be in contact with http://www.petstorefixtures.com But I've found that its most likely that they will not deal with a Canadian based company.

Does anyone know of any other companies that provide these systems. I'm on a major timelimit and need to find one soon.


I realize that these systems are very expensive, so I've been searching for used systems, but this is proven to be impossible even though I have heard that they are always on sale at ebay.
Regardless I don't even know the exact search term because the two companies call them totally different things.

Where could I find this sort of thing?


----------



## Unrulyevil (Jan 10, 2007)

good luck buddy! imo not a good business, expensive equipment, expensive to maintain... never mind water + electric charges and return is minimal. I ones wanted to have that sort of business.


----------



## Unrulyevil (Jan 10, 2007)

try calling big companies like.. Petco or something.. maybe They'll give u any info


----------



## Fishin Pole (Feb 17, 2009)

have you checked out Aquabid?................from time to time, i have seen setups like this listed there for sale.......its worth a look......Good Luck!


----------



## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

petco or petsmart might be hesitant about giving you information, just because your a potential competitor and they're a chain store. Askinga LFS might be more effective since as long as you let them know your out of their market range, they should be ok with helpin you out. I've always wanted to start a pet store... 

Just outta curiosity, where id you hear about marineland having bad quality setups? I'm curious because, well this is towards normal tanks for homes, ive heard that their systems and products are generally very reliable and effective.


----------



## nixer (May 2, 2009)

i would say you might be better off building one yourself look into something with hdpe(expanded pvc) with a non corrosive metal combo.


----------



## GrAveTzT (Apr 19, 2009)

> petco or petsmart might be hesitant about giving you information, just because your a potential competitor and they're a chain store. Askinga LFS might be more effective since as long as you let them know your out of their market range, they should be ok with helpin you out. I've always wanted to start a pet store...
> 
> Just outta curiosity, where id you hear about marineland having bad quality setups? I'm curious because, well this is towards normal tanks for homes, ive heard that their systems and products are generally very reliable and effective.


Petco told me to get lost. I'm probably going to my capital city to see if someone will release info about where they get distributors but as far as their tank systems go, they either made it themselves or brought from one of the 5 MARS type places.

About the marineland bad setup. 2 different people have stated that they own them and even though the automatic water dispenser system is great, it fails often and throws pure tap water into the tank killing a lot of fish. The two individuals said that the system was a pain in the butt.


----------



## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

Its unfortunate that petco wont help you. This doesn't have to do with finding a supplier for ur system, but how big will your fish display be and what kinds of fish will you be carrying?


----------



## GrAveTzT (Apr 19, 2009)

The fish display size I would like be about 36 tanks in total. I could probably live with 20, I suppose. All freshwater. Chances are in the beginning I'd start with common fish like Pleco's, loaches, guppies, cichlids, angel fish, sharks, mollies, barbs, etc.

Once the business is established and I have a handy balance on where to get everything from distributors and suppliers, then I would get into more unique fish.


----------



## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

Hey, i just went to a petco today and they were using the marineland system... i knew what it was cuz it had the marineland logo on it. However im sure their other stores use diffrent systems since another petco a town away was using some cheapo awful looking system.


----------



## redpaulhus (Jul 6, 2008)

I would build wood or wrought iron racks with individual tanks.
Each with its own filter - I prefer one large sponge filter in each tank with one hang-on filter as well, or two or more large sponge filters.
Depending on your maint plan, you could drill them and plumb them into a central drain, and setup a drip system so you are getting a small constant water change in every tank every day, or leave them "stand alone" and vac them each indivually.
Having done both of the above (as well as using large centrally filtered units, both Marineland and seaclear) - I'd go with individual tanks with overflows and a drip. Less labor, less chance of disease spreading throughout the system.

Disease in a LFS isn't an "if ?" - I'm not even sure its a "when ?", its more of a "how bad?" 
In centrally filtered systems, you're depending on a UV sterilizer to prevent a bad batch of fish from infecting your whole system. The problem is, sooner or later somebody forgets to change the bulb on time (or the bulb blows and nobody notices) and instead of one tank of unsaleable livestock, you have 30. When I worked with the marineland system we were constantly medicating entire racks of fish and marking the whole rack "not for sale". Now that I'm in a store with individual non-connected tanks, we may get a single batch of fish in, but only that tank is medicated and held off sale.

In the store I currently work, we use powerfilters on each tank and a slow drip of filtered (ie dechlorinated) water.
I'm not a big fan of the power filters alone - I like to add a sponge filter - just because I think we loose too much bacteria when we change carts. A friend owns a store with lots of sponge filters in each tank, and his costs are lower because he doesn't have to pay for replacement carts, but he's not setup for a drip/drain system so he has to do lots of manual water changes (bleh).

In the Marineland system I used to work on, there wasn't enough flow in each section (IMO) to prevent solid waste from settling into the gravel, and we were not allowed enough time to gravel vac frequently enough - so the marine tanks (with crushed coral ugggh) always had nasty slime algae on the gravel etc.
If I had to use a marineland system again, I'd probably retrofit a reverse-flow undergravel into each section just to get the detritus out of the gravel bed.

Have you looked at jehmco.com ? He has everything to setup a fishroom, and a retail store is just a prettied up fishroom IMO. If you want a central filtration system, he has the equipment, and you could use stock 15g or 20g tanks for your smaller racks and standard 40g breeder or 75g tanks for your larger racks (for bigger fish, goldfish, etc).


----------



## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

hey, cant you make connected systems and just create a separate quarantine system for new fish? I feel like hooking a bunch of tanks up to a single huge filter would be cheaper to maintain and create. You could only medicate the quarantine for new fish before adding them to the main tank. However, it would extend your turnover period, but it seems better than takign a whole row of tanks off the market.


----------



## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Strange that the Marineland system is so bad, considering their products for home use are pretty ace. 

What with the economy and all, I really wouldn't be surprised if small pet/fish stores weren't going out of business left and right. When they do, they tend to sell off their entire systems at a huge discount. You could do the scouting yourself or, as others have mentioned, keep an eye on eBay and Aquabid.

SinCrisis: the best local fish store in my area (maybe yours, too?) is Scales in Cloverly, MD. They run a centralized system but have individual quarantine tanks in the back for all new stock. The store isn't 100% free of disease/dead fish, but it's definitely the best I've seen.


----------



## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

Hmm, i dont know where Cloverly is but i definitely need to find a good LFS in DC. I;m currently in jersey but i go to school in DC so ill go exploring when august rolls around.

Yea just theoretically a central system would be more effective than individual system. Would save so much on power alone.


----------



## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

Cloverly isn't exactly the largest of places and I had never been there myself until I read about that fish store online and checked it out. It's pretty much the area around the intersection of Briggs Cheney road and New Hampshire Avenue near the north end of Silver Spring.


----------



## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

OHHH... i go to silver springs quite often actually and a friend of mine has a car there. definitely going to google this place. Do they have a website?


----------



## iamntbatman (Jan 3, 2008)

OH NO!

I just went to look up their site for you, and apparently they're going out of business!

Such a tragedy, considering how good of a store it was. I guess I wasn't the only one who had never heard of Cloverly. It sounds like they're going to have a nice liquidation sale though. Maybe I'll pick up some tanks!

Anyway, here's the website:
Aquarium Store, Freshwater, Saltwater-SCALES Tropical Fish Warehouse


----------



## SinCrisis (Aug 7, 2008)

NO! im not in the DC area... epic fail on my part... aww they dont do online sales either... well maybe they will be like linens and things and be going out of business for like 3 months... then i might be able to buy some leftovers in august...


----------



## Reefguy29 (Nov 16, 2021)

If you google retail systems tons of places come up. This idea never came up. Google that is


----------

