I've joined the dark side. Soon to be manager of the Petland Lancaster fish dep.

[00Smurf]

I had never been to the Lancaster Petland before. So on my way home from the mall i decided to stop in and see what kind of fish they had, maybe i might find something rare or oddball. Wasn't what i was expecting. All the other Petlands i had been to had all there tanks stocked with lots of fish. There were no salt tanks (just a tank full of live rock), and only about 1/4th the tanks had fish. And what fish there were, were just the standard ones, mollies, guppy's platy, angels feeders etc.
Well i got to talking with one of the employees and over the course of the convo i found out they had lost there fish guy a while ago and they hadn't been able to find anyone to replace him, so they had just let the fish department go. I chatted with him a bit, we talked for about an hour about fish and such. I was giving him some ideas as to what to do and some tips on some of the fish they were keeping. Eventually he just asked if i wanted the task of rebuilding the the department. I figured it would be fun, and this way i would know the fishes would be taken care of and getting proper treatment. Plus I would be able to help and educated customers.
Today was my second day. I took stock of things, snagged some pictures and started floating some ideas. Things to do are,

1. restock all of the fish supplies (filters, accessories etc.)
2. I want to make some live displays (planted, co2 the full works) one for fresh and one for salt. Give the new customers some ideas as to the ultimate in aquarium owning. Plus i'm sure the kids will love it and it will draw people to the fish side.
3. Clean, scrub and refill all the tanks. They all use the same exact ugly gravel. lol
4. fish variety I'm thinking the normal staples and some exotic stuff. something to make people oo an ahh.
5. Set up the salt tanks again. This will have to be from scratch as they have none of the equipment left.
6. Fish id cards and proper resources for the customers to read about potential fish purchases.
7. Inverts

Thats all i have so far. I've started on number 6 already here are my first 3 prototypes. What do you guys think of these. I used wiki and fishlore.

And here are pictures of my dept:

So what i need from you guys are some ideas. What should i do? What might i order? What do you guys think? I'll defiantly need help with the salt things. I'm reading up on how to set those up.

 

[LeahK]

Congratulations on the new job! I think it's awesome that you'll have the opportunity to recreate the fish department at this Petland. Just think--a place where the fish are well-cared for, the employees are well-informed, and the customers are always led in the right direction.
I think the fish id cards look great. My only suggestion for your to-do list: trash those fishbowls in the fifth picture :grinyes:

 

[DAVIDFBT]

I really like the idea of the species card you have. And make sure that everyone who buys a fish knows what a cycle is. But anyways, good job.

Yeah, trash the fish bowls, not good at all. And to help kill the myth that goldfish can live in a bowl, put a BIG sign on the tank or on the hood of the goldfish tank saying, "NOT FOR BOWLS, MINIMUM OF 20 GALLONS PER FISH" (Unless they get eaten though.)

 

[BigFishKeeper]

Cong!! On new job! Looks like fun!

 

[Rbishop]

Well, congrats! Some times you will have to compromise your position though. Not all folks will want a tank, they will want the "bowl". All you can do is make recommendations and advise them on proper sized fish for the tank/bowl they buy.

You can refuse the sale, but that will catch up with a business sooner or later.

 

[Cory Keeper]

yeppers, deff trash the bowls.... stupid things, its difficult to put a filter or heater in it.

couple o suggestions. Betta Sorority tanks, heavily planted (fake or otherwise) Put the males in smaller traps in the main tanks, so even if they can't move much, they still have filtered heated water. That way you can have the best looking bettas around for miles :grinyes:

Oh, and to increase fish health, and save time in the long run, remove the gravel and go for sand. That gravel traps an incredible amount of waste and dirt, and if its on a single system, all you have to do is just siphon a little around the bottom, airline tubing would work well for that.

 

[OgreMkV]

If you're going to be the manager, insist on training the 'fish team'. Make sure they know about cycling, species ID, proper equipment and handling of the fish. Other employees need to know the basics in case they have to sell something as well.

 

[Dwarf Puffers]

Congrats on the new job! My only suggestions for you are:

1. Change the minimum tank size for angels to 30 gallons.
2. Change the minimum tank size for cherries to 10 gallons.
3. Trash the bowls, or at least don't order more after those are sold.

Well, congrats! Some times you will have to compromise your position though. Not all folks will want a tank, they will want the "bowl". All you can do is make recommendations and advise them on proper sized fish for the tank/bowl they buy.

You can refuse the sale, but that will catch up with a business sooner or later.

He won't have to refuse the sale if there are no bowls to sell

Oh, and to increase fish health, and save time in the long run, remove the gravel and go for sand. That gravel traps an incredible amount of waste and dirt, and if its on a single system, all you have to do is just siphon a little around the bottom, airline tubing would work well for that.

This is a good point. I payed about 3$ for a 45# bag of playsand. Just keep the dirt stirred.

 

[Coler]

Congrats on the job and best of luck !

I think you should set up a few really attractive 5, 10 and 20G display tanks, stocked appropriately so as to show how to do a simple, small tank well. Hopefully people who can't take a big tank will copy these instead of trying to cram Oscars in there. Most LFS set up only large display tanks and people try and compromise on tank size but keep the same fish.

 

[wildman117]

the biggest suggestion i can give you is to keep the nice tanks ie. the betta tanks in the back so that if anybody wants to go look at those tanks they have to go past all the other tanks
and i hope you will treat the feeder fish better than most chains