Petland

[mandelbrot]

In all honesty, most of you will probably skip over this post simply because of the subject line. I wouldn't blame you, really... everyone is highly supportive of UA and, to a lesser degree, PAW.

Still, I can't help but to post.

I've recently assumed the department management position here at Petland. For most people, this would engage thoughts in the likes of "What sort of bad karma have you gained, man?". It has been a... rather interesting challenge trying to bring both the fresh and salt water systems up to some sort of 'par'. (The fresh is almost there, the salt, sadly, is not).

Mind you, I'm not pushing for you to come by and see things or advertising for the store. Rather, I've come to the ends of my own personal experiences and book/web-based knowledge in trying to battle the cyanobacter flood these systems are quite capable of producing.

Obviously, the quick-fix methods (such as erytro-dosing) did not accomplish much. Nor did numerous water changes, alkalinity adjustments (it works against some algae types...I thought I'd try it...eh) or "cleaners" with very little else to consume (yes, I went with the theory that some hermits will eat cyano. They do. Very small quantities. Go figure. ).

I've read some of the past threads concerning Petland and it seems that there are some with a willingness to help, if only to prevent the needless deaths of marine species. Some who have purchased from me or talked with me in the past (those of you who have dealt with PAW for a few years...I managed the department there for about 2 years) know that I am rather open to suggestions and willing to try new things, no matter how theoretical they may be.

If you read through past Petland threads, you'll come across posts from others who have worked here and know some of the problems I might have trying to use more costly or time-consuming methods of control (such as tearing the systems down and starting from scratch). What I would appreciate would be any ideas that I'm either over-looking or over-thinking. It's only one step in the many required to get these tanks back on track, but it's a step, nonetheless.

Any advice would be appreciated and I do thank you, in advance, for taking the time to read this post.

-Matt

P.S. Chris, you owe me for sending more than a few people in the direction of Ultimate

 

[surfnvb7]

well, for starters......i can definitely see why the tanks look so polluted b/c whenever i've gone in there i see dead fish floating around, that have obviously been dead for some time. this definitely doesn't help with trying to keep the water or your tanks clean.

keeping your FO tanks up to par is a daily chore, not just a weekly or monthly one which is what it looks like. cleaning the glass daily, removing dead things daily, changing carbon weekly, installing a GOOD skimmer and cleaning it weekly (if not more), doing weekly water changes, and most importantly making sure you are using ONLY ro/di water, and making sure the carbon/di resin/membrane are clean and changed in regular maintenance.

get your FO tanks up to par, and then MAYBE you can start thinking about corals. but IMO, if you can't even keep the FO tanks clean and healthy, buying corals and trying to keep them alive to sell....is a lost cause and waist of money.


IMO, the most successful saltwater stores are obvious, b/c they have the cleanest FO tanks. this includes UA, PAW to some extent, and Atlantis in Richmond. your store, ZQ, C&P, a few here in c-ville, and Fish World in Richmond (dont get me started) are definitely not in that other group of stores I just listed.....as when i walk in the stench hits me in the face.

so in my eyes, its obvious which stores get better business.

 

[surfnvb7]

one more thing, i've noticed that you use the same nets, and other misc pieces of equipment for catching fish etc, in both the freshwater, brackish, and saltwater tanks, which is a big no-no. you can easily transfer spores of algae from your freshwater, planted tanks and brackish systems into the saltwater environment. and they will flourish even in a somewhat clean saltwater environment.

get your phosphates and nitrates under control (meaning zero), make sure your lighting is not old and changing spectrum to support algae growth. and dont add any supplements that will act like fertilizers for the algae to grow (anything including phosphates)

 

[J. Montgomery]

Those all sound like good suggestions to me.

I'm shocked when I hear that a store selling marine fish and invertebrates isn't using RO/DI water. It seems like the most basic thing that gets overlooked. Good salt water starts with good fresh water, and RO/DI is the best choice.

IME, cyano is an issue of overfeeding (in my case, over feeding phytoplankton - you know, using the recommended amount on the side of the bottle) or underskimming causing you to have too much fouling crap in your water.

I like the suggestion, don't add any supplements (unless you're dosing a calcium/alkalinity supplement). Amen to that. The magic cure to a healthy tank isn't sold in a bottle, and all their directions are a joke: Use one cap full for every 50 gallons once a week.

 

[mandelbrot]

Some of the issues are already solved... at least, the simple ones. Working/managing at PAW taught me to be anal about dead livestock in the tanks. As for the same 'catching' equipment being used, we're now using "saltwater only" cups. The only additives I'm using are calcium, Kent's Super Buffer DkH and their Essential Elements, with some occasional iodine.

Maintenance is slowly picking up from what it was prior to my being hired. We've been doing about two 10%-15% water changes weekly (complete with substrate skimming). I've had to talk with some of the older employees about the feeding methods in order to control the overfeeding issues. The nitrates and phosphates have been going down.

Now, I will say, my first few weeks had some larger water changes, as I felt they were neccesary (and there wasn't much in the way of livestock to adversely affect). The "reef" tanks are still the worst culprits, though getting rid of the crushed coral has helped to a degree. The "fish only" system tends to have more of a problem with floating clumps and an excess of cyano throughout some of the plumbing and in the sump itself.

In retrospect, asking for advice may not have been my best approach. Most of the other suggestions are ones with which I wholeheartedly agree... and they are also the ones that present the most trouble, because they have a cost attached to their being fixed. All of the bulbs need to be replaced (or, better yet, taken out and some PC and Halide systems put in). The protein skimmers are old, having been through years of poor maintenance (for the most part... there have been some past employees who tried, but it was a bit too late for them to accomplish much). As for R/O...well, I'll just avoid that issue. The belief here seems to be that an industrial DI system is more than adequate. Add to all of this a lack of manpower (I'm barely able to keep the Freshwater and Reptile maintenance going with the employees I have) and you can see the difficulty in applying a solution.

I'm almost convinced it would take a poll signed by all of the SW hobbyists in the valley to get the ownership to realize some serious money needs to be spent in order to get these systems working again.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am seeing progress in both the visual and chemical aspects of the SW systems and I do realize that taking a system from poor condition to excellent will take a good bit of time. But, in this case, and those of you who may have seen these tanks over the last few years might agree, it's going to take something more than time and patience for this to be workable.

I digress. It may have been a bit premature for me to ask for advice, as I seem to be thinking along the same lines as the presently offered suggestions. I know there isn't a miracle cure... I was just sort of hoping someone might have one without me having to fight the uphill battle in trying to get them to finance a system overhaul.

I do appreciate the responses, though.

Thanks,

Matt

 

[NbMaxx13]

Where to begin ... The sumps are not adequate.probably tainted with copper ...from past management ...the guy who used to run that ship had no clue what he was doing and in many cases made up his own infoprmation and was frequently wrong ..... The skimmer probably isn't adaquate either... Not sure if you guys are still using that bio-floss in the back pre-sump but that stuff is more than likely the cause of a lot of your problems... I worked there and toward the end of my stay I had the coral tanks looking pretty good ..and after leaving , a week later back to misery...I think you would be well served to educate the employees... Increase water flow ,change the lighting , fix the electrical ... replace the sumps ..... Chech your conductivity/resistivity on your di colums in the back ...when was the last time they were changed ...are you topping off with that water? ...do you have a carbon colum on lead there? it neads to be a lead lag system with a column and then 2 DI colums after that ....with a resistivity of less than 10 ...

I wish you luck , and hope you get it on track as I can not stand to go in there because for 1 animals are being purchased and shipped in just on a whim...they dont have the right size tank or the right environment...and 2 because of die off the prices are rediculous ... Outside of tearing that system down i guess it will take a long long time to get it right if it is possible ....

 

[surfnvb7]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10486078#post10486078 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mandelbrot

As for R/O...well, I'll just avoid that issue. The belief here seems to be that an industrial DI system is more than adequate.

I'm almost convinced it would take a poll signed by all of the SW hobbyists in the valley to get the ownership to realize some serious money needs to be spent in order to get these systems working again.


I know there isn't a miracle cure... I was just sort of hoping someone might have one without me having to fight the uphill battle in trying to get them to finance a system overhaul.

first off, the water issue. you will be fighting an up hill, and rather pointless battle unless you get this under control. i am familiar with some industrial DI water systems. we had one at the govt facility i worked at, used for separating nitric, nitrous and sulfuric acid. we had tanks of carbon pre-filters before the DI tanks, and i've seen the invoice bills, and they are QUITE expensive, but the volume of water we worked with makes it obvious RO isn't a good idea unless it can be recycled. IMO, your saltwater section doesn't come near that volume of water, i'm sure you can find an outlet to recycle that RO waste water stream with an RO/DI system. (just don't use it for the puppy mill section of the store)

it sounds like at least you have a very realistic grasp on the situation. IMO, you are doing whats right short of starting a minor overhaul. although, you are fighting what seems like an impossible, yet pointless uphill battle.

i've seen the cyano, and at least in the past, i've seen it in ALL of the tanks, esspecially the brackish. so there's some husbandry issues that need to be addressed as a WHOLE department if cyano was being transfered to multiple tanks.

IMO, like NbMaxx has suggested, you need to do a complete overhaul of the plumbing/sump system. Gut the entire thing, and sterilize EVERYTHING you plan to use in the future (bleach), then dechlorinate everything, toss ALL of the live rock/sand/rubble in the trash. and start over from scratch. it will be impossible to completely rid yourself of all the impurities by keeping the system up and running.

yes, this will take an investment, but the saltwater area is already losing money (i cant see it actually making money), its not like you are going to lose much business over shutting it down temporarily. looking for "quick" fixes in this hobby is a bad way to go about maintaining something successful. you need to get down to the core of the problem, not just trying to cure the visual aspects of it w/ cheap/easy fixes.

i'm all for a poll so you can show it to a manager, i'm pretty sure everyone will vote negatively on the store, and in your favor of a complete overhaul. if not, you may as well them to shut the place down b/c its sucking more money out of the business than its bringing in.

 

[NbMaxx13]

I think Tommy ( the owner) who I am really fond of on a personal level ,will not likely go for an overhaul @ all ... Unless you are really a convincing guy .... In truth though ... the money spent now would be made quickly if people had confidence in buying from you all ... I personally don't know one person would go there , buy something, and put it in their own tanks ... Short of a total overhaul ... going to be almost miraculous if you get that system up to par... Good luck ... I honestly hope you can ... @ least for the animals sake

 

[NbMaxx13]

P.S. ... I work for a company that does DI systems for such a place ... I know the company you all use now ... and I wouldn't want that water in my system ... The system you have has a few flaws which are counter-productive... If you would like some info on how the DI system should be set-up ... just shoot me a pm and I would 1) gladly give you my professional opinion 2) gladly point you in the direction of someone else who knows much more than I and could give you the absolute best advice when it comes to Deionazation

 

[coolfish5]

This sounds all too familiar. I worked at a Petland in South FL for a short bit (after the salt water section was torn out). It was in much worse shape than the store in Roanoke. I was basically put in charge of the FW fish, and expected to bring it up, without spending money. Tanks only had undergravel filters, and badly scratched up glass. It was quite depressing working there, hence why it was very short term basis.

I wish you the best of luck, and hope you are able to fix things up.

One note, if you decide to disinfect with bleach, first remove the substrate, and scrub everything down as best you can. Bleach is a great disinfectant and cleaner, but gets inactivated when you have thick biofilms, high organics and algae all over everything.

 

[ServantSoldier]

As if the struggles of mantaining our own personal hobbyist's systems aren't challenging enough.. I commend you for stepping up to a most arduous career venture. Best wishes on restructuring the depts with your minimal resources.. of which RC might prove invaluable!

 

[ade]

Vote to stop PL selling SW fish/corals

Vote to stop PL selling SW fish/corals

I'll second what has been said, I remember when Eric worked there with another friend of ours and they showed me the skimmer and sumps and so called water filters. No wonder fish and corals didn't live. I think that you are fighting a loosing battle. I guess in reality unless you can change things without costing Tommy anything out of pocket you are almost going to have to give stuff away for real SW hobbiests to get fish/corals from you all. Do what Pet Land is best known for doing. Sell fish/corals to people who don't know what they are doing, that way you get your repeat buisness. Plus for a young person who knows anything about saltwater or fish water they don't sty because the pay is crap. I would vote for PetLand to quite selling anything saltwater , shoot animals in general.
Sorry you have hit a nerve and I hope you all the best.

 

[mandelbrot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10491158#post10491158 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ade
Do what Pet Land is best known for doing. Sell fish/corals to people who don't know what they are doing, that way you get your repeat buisness.

Eh. I just can't do that, really. From the first time I worked at a pet store (back when Warehouse for Pets was still around), I was trained to explain the necessities of a system to a customer. When I returned to the industry a few years ago, it was the same concept.

If someone is new to the hobby, especially when it comes to marine systems (and rift lake cichlids), I prefer to tell them what they're going to need and what they'll have to do. Half of the people we lose from the hobby give up because they weren't given any information or were given incorrect information. I'd rather lose the sale rather than lose a hobbyist.

 

[mandelbrot]

Re: Vote to stop PL selling SW fish/corals

Re: Vote to stop PL selling SW fish/corals

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10491158#post10491158 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ade
Sorry you have hit a nerve and I hope you all the best.

Heh. Looks like you were editing your post while I made my reply.

No apologies are needed concerning the distaste for Petland. Given the condition of the department when I started, I can understand why most hobbyists would have issues with the store.

I'm enough of an optimist to hope that I can fix the store's reputation and enough of a realist to know exactly how difficult that will be.

Matt

 

[surfnvb7]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10491437#post10491437 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mandelbrot
Eh. I just can't do that, really. From the first time I worked at a pet store (back when Warehouse for Pets was still around), I was trained to explain the necessities of a system to a customer. When I returned to the industry a few years ago, it was the same concept.

If someone is new to the hobby, especially when it comes to marine systems (and rift lake cichlids), I prefer to tell them what they're going to need and what they'll have to do. Half of the people we lose from the hobby give up because they weren't given any information or were given incorrect information. I'd rather lose the sale rather than lose a hobbyist.

yeah, but you dont put on a good example for the customer when you tell them the equipment equipment they are going to need, but then:0
A) you dont sell the right equipment, nor good equipment
B) you dont even keep your equipment in shape

if i was new to the hobby, i wouldn't buy anything equipment wise, or live stock from your store based on the condition of your tanks just from the outside. b/c its pretty obvious its not being run correctly.

the reason why the store has gotten a bad rep (aside from the obvious tank conditions), is mostly b/c people new to the hobby have been sold a bunch of crap for ridiculous prices. you can't fix that kind of reputation without MAJOR changes.

IMO....i think ya'll should just shut it down and concentrate on the freshwater since thats requires less work/money. its a losing battle any way you look at it.

 

[mandelbrot]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10491508#post10491508 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by surfnvb7

A) you dont sell the right equipment, nor good equipment
B) you dont even keep your equipment in shape

The equipment issue (as far as what we carry) is slowly moving towards being fixed. My focus has been on the live (and still is, at present). When I was hired, they talked to me about eventually taking over the dry goods orders and re-evaluating the merchandise.

I'll be the first to agree Petland doesn't carry a good selection. I'm still suggesting products to which I'm accustomed and then realizing we don't have them or anything like them on the shelves. When they give me the go ahead to take over the ordering, there will be some major remerchandising with both the basic and specialty products. Albeit, I doubt I'll be able to pull in the higher end merchandise that many reef hobbyists prefer.

the reason why the store has gotten a bad rep (aside from the obvious tank conditions), is mostly b/c people new to the hobby have been sold a bunch of crap for ridiculous prices. you can't fix that kind of reputation without MAJOR changes.

I agree on the pricing issue. I've had a few conversations with the store manager concerning this issue. Between customer comments and my own experience with other pet stores (both working and price shopping), I *know* how insane the prices have been. I've had a few 'double take' experiences and, in a few situations, I've almost laughed when I've looked at a price sticker. I am working to bring them down to a much more reasonable level, but that's another challenge of its own.

Beyond that, I won't talk to much about pricing. I'd feel as if I were advertising and I'd rather not come across as doing so. I'm using RC as an information resource... many of the hobbyists have been doing this for years, some since before I was born. Certainly seems a better source than most of the websites out there.

 

[HOC]

Be careful what you say on RC as they'll kick you off in a heartbeat if they think you are profiting from their board. Even if you say you are not advertising you actually are. This is why I never mention anything about my store here on the boards and don't respond to many threads where the store is mentioned. Your post comes off a little "Look what were doing" IMO. I know you are just looking for suggestions, but you really do need to be careful. I'm all for the stores around here fixing themselves up as I think this area has the wrong idea about saltwater aquariums. Most don't really know what they are supposed to look like.

I would add that it takes an insane amount of money to properly set up a store. When you are doing things commercially it is completely different than keeping a tank in your home. Unless you are willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars (at least) It's not worth the time. You will more than likely lose more than you will sell. Then there's the knowledge and experience to do it in the first place. Learning the wrong way is expensive. I know that all too well. I've kept saltwater for 17 years and I'm amazed how much I learn every day. Probably didn't help much, but that's about all I can say:rollface:

 

[Doc's69]

Hey Chris I was just thinking about what you said the other day when I was there, about the number of fish that you had never seen before and how amazing it was learning. I would expect a LOT of experience would be needed.

 

[seafood luver]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10493509#post10493509 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by HOC
Even if you say you are not advertising you actually are.

This thread could hardly be considered "advertising".

But then again, isn't all publicity, "good" publicity?

Good luck Matt, all of the training in the world doesn't mean a hell of a lot when the owner won't shell out the cash.

 

[ade]

That's the truth.