Nathan Freedenberg

LFS Myths Debunked

November 22, 1998 on #reefs

Hello and thanks for having me tonight. We will be talking about LFS's (Local Fish

Stores) tonight. I work in one, I am just a humble employee, but I bring a background in

business management. I was the owner of a successful produce distribution company that I

sold to go back to my love, playing with the fishies.

Since everyone always asks, the store is located in Baltimore, Maryland, we do not mail

order and we don't have a web page, yet. For those in the area a shameless plug, it's

Exotic Aquatics. Come visit, we are currently constructing a new invert system. Hopefully

ready for stocking with enough time to pick your holiday corals.

One thing almost everyone invariably asks is why do items seemingly cost more at the lfs

than from mail order. So lets get this out of the way first.

It's quite simple. Overhead. It costs more to have a retail store then just a mail order

(MO) operation. There are places that blur the distinction now but you will find that most

of them are huge volume places where customer service is lacking. I speak from experience,

one shop I worked in bills it's self as an aquarium superstore. It is, tanks are

inexpensive, some dry goods are, but everyday items are not. Livestock is expensive and

employees mostly work there for the discount. We were constantly told to spend as little

time with the customer and to get onto the next one. An aquatic Wal-Mart if you will.

At the lfs we fix a lot of MO problems. You can't get your skimmer working right, you've

spoken to the MO guy but you need to "see" how it should be adjusted. Where do

you go? To the lfs. Now if you're at least a semi-regular customer we'd ask you bring the

skimmer in and we'd set it up with you on our system and show you how it works, but

someone has to pay for that. Your florescent fixture doesn't work, bring it to the lfs for

a starter replacement. A $1.99 sale, 10 min worth of work, and yet we get grumbling when

the new That Fish Place catalog comes and the same starter is $1.19.

Hopefully I'm preaching to the choir here and you all use your lfs for more than just a

place to get some live brine shrimp. I too have been to the places where the employees

were just glorified fish dippers, and if they knew how to spell their own name they were

management material.

Now that's out of the way. What's it like to work at a lfs you may wonder.

Exciting, nothing like that new shipment arriving and looking in each bag to find

something new and different, and getting first pick at it!!

Sad, shipments arrive all to often mostly dead. Either the airlines have bumped it,

shipped it to the wrong place once or just plain left it sitting on a frozen or sun baked

loading ramp for hours. Lazy transhippers don't re-ox, forget to slip in heat packs/cold

packs and neglect to rebag specimens in leaky bags. Martin Moe once said airlines kill

more fish then the entire group of hobbyists. 

Frustrating, giving well-founded advice to new tank owners that do otherwise thinking they

know it all.

Gratifying, having successful customers.

I read a lot on this forum and on newsgroups that many lfs's are poor in the reef area. I

have seen many examples of poorly run shops. I am lucky I work in a good one and that

colors my judgement. I still say if you have a lfs near you that you should try and work

with them. Reef customers are a very small part of the business mix for a full line lfs,

yet can be one of the most demanding.

Captive Raised Specimens

At every lfs I have worked in we have tried to introduce captive raised fish, corals and

rock. All to limited success. The  common complaint with corals is the size for the

price. In talking to people on here that frequent my lfs they say on here they would buy

captive. They get to shop and scoff at the pieces claiming they can get nice wild stuff

that is bigger for a lower cost. What are we to do? We try to educate but when even the

educated turn away the captives we have to go with where the $'s flow. We can't afford to

sit on inventory for a long time.  We do a brisk business in captive raised

clownfish, but they are now in short supply at the busiest time of year. Hopefully some

local breeders will step up and begin to fill the voids.  But I say again with some

disdain. You all want us to have the captive raised stuff, you Ohh and Ahh over it, but

then purchase wild caught.

What to look for in a quality lfs.

Try and visit during the weekday. Sometime between 11 and 4. Most shops open at 10 but are

still trying to get open after that and the major influx of customers is in the later

afternoon and evening. The in-between time you should find plenty of roaming space and a

staff that can spend some time with you. Look in all the tanks, freshwater too. See how

they are maintained. Depending on size of store you may find a dead fish or two. It

happens, get over it. A well-run store should be relatively algae free, have signage on

all the tanks and be somewhat neat and tidy. When you see a fish you want ask to see it

eat. You'd be surprised how many folks don't ask that. Ask water parameters. Ours are for

SW Fish, as of this past Thursday, SG 1.021, pH 8.2, Nitrates ~80ppm, CU 0.015ppm, Temp

79F. It's far from pristine water. When you feed 4-5 times a day you can't expect perfect

water. But the fish are well fed. Watch the way your fish is caught. I reject them if they

are chased around for more than 2 or so min.  The poor fish is very stressed at that

point and may not do well.

Look for sick fish in the tanks. A well run shop should have very few if any. We strive to

pull them out and place them in a quarantine system we have. We do miss one every now and

then. Ask a few questions you know the answers to. Check out the dry goods, is there a

nice selection? If you use something they don't stock ask if they will carry it for you,

many will if you ask!

I could go on and on about what we do, but then again we are not typical of a lfs. Thank

you for having me.

What are some things we can look for at our lfs to see if they are good, or know what

they are talking about, espicially us that are new to the hobby?

If you are new and come to a furum such as this you learn fast. Asl your lfs a question

you know the answer to. see how they handle it.  Also look in the tanks, if there are

dead and or dying fish, run, dont walk but run.  Now a few of the places will have a

few dead but they should have lots of tanks...don't be scared, but you should no dead in

SW

What steps do you take to acclimate corals and fish? Anything you'd like to improve

with your current methods?

There are a lot of steps I'd like to see done but the problem is time. Right now we get

shipments in and we transship, so an item has been in the box for near 35 hours when we

get it.  We tend to quickly open the boxes and float every bag, dead or alive and

bring the temp back up, then we open them up and place them.   I'd like to see

them better aclimated but many times it is just not possible due to the amount of time in

transit.

Followup: Do you float in a sealed bag or open them first?

Float the sealed bag. They are packed with O2 and we don't want to spill the bag water

into the tank. We unpack 10+ boxes at a time, that is usually 150+ specimens

When you have a customer ask what to do for a first time setup, what would you

typically recommend?

Point them to Tullocks Natural Coral Reef Aq first, then reccomed 75 gal or larger,

quality skimmer, sump and good lighting, vho or netal halide, depedning on what they plan

on keeping, but we stress they shuld read the book first. A small investment before a

really big one

I see an overall lack of reading material on marine fish and invertebrates at most

or...?

I agree, we have to push books. Also the big distributors don't carry the specialty

titles. We have to deal direct with Microcosm to get their line, and 2 lil fishes to get

sprungs and the nillson/fossa books

Wouldn't it be the "uneducated" aquarists that are turning around and

whining about the prices/size etc of capitve breed stock? Not vice versa?

HAH!!   The uneducted can be taught, the educated is too set in ways it

seems. I keep hearing "Well let someone else experiment with that, one more piece

will not make a difference."   Little do most people know that for

mortality rates are high for large pieces. I thingk Eric can tell us more about that

Does your LFS buy captive raised corals and/or fish from hobbyists? Is this done

very often in the lfs industry?

We do buy from local sources when we can.   Many stores do have trade in

policies for fish/corals you have breed and/or have gotten to big. The standard is 1/3 or

retail in store credit

Does your store sell any fish or corals which are almost impossible to keep, like

disservice to the customers and the environment. Your thoughts?

I don't like selling gonipora, we don't order it. BUT many times the shipper is loaded

with items and they send them un asked for. I was fired from one store for refusing to

sell gonipora.   We also do not import ar ask for impossible to feed fish, but

again sometimes they are placed in a shipment un asked for. We try to learn in back tanks

and not put them on display

How long should we wait to buy corals/fish/other inverts after they are received from

the LFS's supplier?

For best selection and if you are brave buy them the next day. I hide everything I want

for a week at least.   If you frequent the store they will now you, ask for a

specimen to be put on hold for a few days, you can even stretch it to a week, but if you

hold it and it does well you had better buy it if you want to do that again

I myself am worried about the future financial health of LFS with the competition with

Mailorder and chain mega-petshopstores,what are your thoughts?

In our case the local mega-petshop sends customers to us when they can't figure out the

problem, (a lot) and we win new converts that way  Mailorder is fine if you live

someplace that has one or no lfs nearby but in this area, Baltimore, we have a and

aquarium super store, a large lfs and many many small one. mail order should be a last

resort for unuauall items.

If the store is good it will stay, if not it deserved to go

Followup:  What to do if you carefully evaluate every LFS in the city, and it

turns out that by your own criteria, every LFS in the city sucks?

Cry... and then resort to MO if need be, BUT I'd hasten to bet that not every one sucks

Do you know of any stores that are propogating their corals in-house?

A few in our area are now. We intend on it also in our new system, but it wil be a while.

I am also building a system in my home to suppliment the stores system.  There was

just an article in a full line pet rag this past month bu Tullock about setting up such

systems. We may soon see more of them

How can you correct some of the employees without upsetting them?

As a customer or employer?

As a customer, with some of the less experienced employees?   Or should you

do it for that matter?

Try to talk to mangement if the error is glaring. If it's a small thing then talk to the

employee as a friend. again if you frequent the shop they know you and wil respect your

input. . Yes you should make it your concern, you don't want others to learn wrong info.

You had better be sure you are correct however

Do you keep a show tank at your store?

Yes 265gal reef, 94 gal african cichlid, 10 gal reef w/eclipse and 29 gal FW community.

Others are planned

How do you feel about warranties on fish? Good or bad?

We have one on FW, 48 hours and we ask for fish, reciept and a water sample in seperate

container from fish. It works very well, we tend to diagnose a lot of problems with water

testing and sell items to fix that. We do honor the fish warrenty too even if glaring

problem on customers end.  All we ask is that you fix problem before adding new fish,

and we will retest water as ofen as needed to be sure problem is cleared up.  We

don't offer on SW but will work with customer if there is a problem

What changes do you see coming in the near future in the LFS industry?

There should be a shaking out of the smaller less effective neighborhood stores as more

mega-stores open. The stores that close will deserve to anyway, they are the ones selling

bad fish.   I also see problems with getting SW livestock if we don't try and do

something about it. We are an easy target. Walt Smith does a lot keep that market open,

but for how long...

Do your corals come wrapped in wet paper or just packed straight into plastic bags?

Depends on shipper and species. We have yet to get any "dry shipped" save for

the punctured bag every now and again.  As of late they have been packed better than

1. years ago. then they were tossed in bags and sent. now many are floated

Why do you want to see the fish eat in the store?

If it the fish is not eating in the store what makes you think it will eat in your tanks?

You want to be sure it has aclimated. The hardist aclimation will be in the store, so if

it eats there chances are very good it will in you home tank

Can you tell us more about your Berghia nudbranch "ranch?"

The systems can be quite small, a 10 gal to grow food (aiptasia) and a few containers to

grow out/breed the nudies. You can find a lot more about how to do it in the breeders

registry. They have 2 great articles

Let me add it is very time consuming.

Thanks for the great talk, Nathan!

©1998 www.reefs.org