asphaltpilot
New member
Donovan's Reef in Stuart, FL used to do this. It was actually pretty convenient. He'd pull up in his van, which carried about 70 gallons of fresh salt water.
I have an idea....
- Thread starter FishyBiz
- Start date
Bippus
New member
I would think to make it profitable you would have to do the service in conjunction with a tank set up / maintenance service. There are a lot of people out there that want a beautiful reef tank, but do not have the time and or knowledge to set up or maintain one. I know of a lfs around here that makes most of their money doing just that.
MiddletonMark
Premium Member
Problem is, then I'll need a guy to also deliver RO/DI for top-up every day.
Combine that with having perfect testing water ... otherwise demanding reefers IMO tend to prefer their own, chosen salt mix.
I guess in the right market - it would work. But sounds like Catalina and other products on the market already ... which, IMO, to sell to me - you'll have to make it cheaper than buying salt mix.
If you can deliver 200g of perfect SW to my door for under $50 [what I can get my salt bucket for under] great ... but if it's more expensive - IMO a hard sell personally.
I second the suggestion to just be a RO/DI water service. Could serve a lot more than aquarists - and could serve both FW + SW folks.
Much larger market - but if you just deliver SW to my door - I'll still need the RO unit for my top-up. In that case ... IMO a hard product to sell.
Also - realize that not everyone is home during normal daytime hours ... most might not.
Do you want to do evening/weekend delivery?
It's the only time I could do it .... but you've got less hours per day to deliver in that case ...
Combine that with having perfect testing water ... otherwise demanding reefers IMO tend to prefer their own, chosen salt mix.
I guess in the right market - it would work. But sounds like Catalina and other products on the market already ... which, IMO, to sell to me - you'll have to make it cheaper than buying salt mix.
If you can deliver 200g of perfect SW to my door for under $50 [what I can get my salt bucket for under] great ... but if it's more expensive - IMO a hard sell personally.
I second the suggestion to just be a RO/DI water service. Could serve a lot more than aquarists - and could serve both FW + SW folks.
Much larger market - but if you just deliver SW to my door - I'll still need the RO unit for my top-up. In that case ... IMO a hard product to sell.
Also - realize that not everyone is home during normal daytime hours ... most might not.
Do you want to do evening/weekend delivery?
It's the only time I could do it .... but you've got less hours per day to deliver in that case ...
aquaman67
Active member
I know of a store that was selling RO/DI water...with a TDS of 134 ppm.
They were running it through a softener and calling it RO/DI.
Do you really want to worry when the last time someone else changed the filters or DI resin?
You would have to, IMO, to feel safe, test purchased water much more often than you would water you made yourself. It to me, wouldn't be worth the extra aggravation and worry.
AdidaKev
New member
Along with everything everyone else has said, I think this would be one of your biggest problems. You compare this business to spring water delivery, but everyone drinks water...not everyone has a saltwater tank.
And like everyone has also said, picking the "correct" brand of salt would be impossible.
Sorry, no sale.
MiddletonMark
Premium Member
Agreed.
FishyBiz
New member
True
But I was thinking more along the lines that you could have different salt brands and stuff like that. It wouldnt be hard to have different containers with Seachem, Instant Ocean,... ect. Also this would be for mainly the aquarium hobbyist, so TDS would have to be kept at 0ppm.
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6818634#post6818634 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by FishyBiz
21Reefman
I am the VP of a multi-million dollar company. It was never my intention to sell anything. I just wanted to ask the question and see what you guys thought about it.
Hey, Sorry if I insulted you, that certainly was NOT my intent
I only wanted to get my facts straight, as to accurately discuss your idea
I just misunderstood/misread, and thought the bus. idea was to sell "seawater" instead of actual man made mixed saltwater, I'm sorry for creating the confusion.
I went to IU Kelley School of business, and always try to look at all aspects of the new venture. As I'm sure you know, to do this best, we need the facts.
I'm constantly inventing, and thinking up new business ideas. I like the discussion in this thread and hope to see more like it:rollface:
I hope we are still friends
Is there anywhere I can get the demographics of Reef Central? Maybe just the addresses of all members, from ALL the other reef chat sites as well as Reef Central. The shipping addresses for all of Dr. Fosters & Smith customers could be added to the mix too
It would be cool to see, on a map, where the hobby has dense populations of Reefers.
I'll bet there are little pockets (markets) of high "Reefer" populations, scattered throughout the country/world. In some areas there is high interest, while other regions have very few people with interest in the hobby. I would like to see where these areas of dense Reefers are. We know the larger cities and suburbs but, what about in the middle of nowhere?
This info is somewhere, how could we get it?
It would be cool to see, on a map, where the hobby has dense populations of Reefers.
I'll bet there are little pockets (markets) of high "Reefer" populations, scattered throughout the country/world. In some areas there is high interest, while other regions have very few people with interest in the hobby. I would like to see where these areas of dense Reefers are. We know the larger cities and suburbs but, what about in the middle of nowhere?
This info is somewhere, how could we get it?
