Starting an Aquarium Business

Hmmm... its really not much of an issue. I have not heard of anyone really struggling with this. You can get an insurance company to insure most anything.

I recall aquarium service folks regularly citing very low fees for business insurance since most of your liability is property damage (versus bricks businesses with slip & fall issues, electronics mfgs with great liability, etc).

My suggestion is to PM some of the service and installation/design professionals that are here on RC. Perhaps Mr. Steven Pro will chime in (else you can PM/e-mail him from here on RC - check out his authors forum on RK mag or just do a member search).
 
Here are some links to the industry related sources that Anthony mentioned.

Pet Business Trade Magazine
http://www.petbusiness.com

Pet Age Trade Magazine
http://www.petage.com/index.asp

Pet Product News
http://ppn.magserv.com/cgi-bin/subscribe?qt=new

The Center for Tropical and Subtropical Aquaculture
http://www.ctsa.org/

This is a publication put out by the public aquarium industry, and is always a great read. This was a monthly at one time, but now it's an annual. It has a great article from the Shedd Aquarium in the 2005 issue for acclimating Blue Spot Rays to captive life.
Drum and Croaker
http://www.colszoo.org/internal/drumcroaker.htm
 
Regarding the insurance, a service company locally put out that they couldn't secure insurance and was having trouble finding a new company.
 
great thanks for the links Marc :)

no worries on the insurance either. I am certain is is easy and affordable to secure. There must have been some other issue at hand with your local company.

For perspective, most service folks can get business insurance for well under $1,000 per year as I recall. Let's chat with Steve and others and see what some going, current rates are.
 
I got my insurance from the same agent that covers my home and cars. It is through Nationwide. They didn't have a little box to check for my business on their forms, so I believe they put me in as a cleaning business with a further explanation. I carry two million of general liability for less than $500 per year.
 
Steven-

Thank you for the info.

On another note for Anthony and yourself, looks like Joe Pa has the Lions into the top 5. I'm a life long fan, and even looked into finshing my Masters there.
 
Saveourreefs,

I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t intend to make this my primary income. I have much more interest in two other businesses that will pay themselves off fairly quickly and only continue to grow in value.

This is just a side hobby I would like to do and work up over a large time period to several systems. However stay small enough that I alone can handle the work load each evening.

Also I have no high hopes of profit. So long as the sells each month cover all cost then it will be good enough, although a little bit of extra cash to buy some new coral / or take the family out for five star dinner would be nice.

I want to basically help out local or regional reefers. The lfs around my area charge up to $75 for a single toadstool frag which is absolutely ridiculous, nor do any of them keep their systems properly kept.

In this endeavor I hope to make available top quality frags at a reasonable price. Since I could only manage to get frags from friends and the great online forums, I would like to help and continue in this hobby.

In short when I started this thread I was mostly concerned with the vast amount of water export / bio load management it will take to safely operate these types of systems compared to the home aquarium.

Thanks again for all the great response that have surely helped.

Ohh yeah Anthony good idea on the coral fragging technique Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m definitely tagging along!
 
Thank you all for the amazing imput. I was thinking of doing the same thing as a part time job. I have a full time job that permits me to have massive time off. I am working a parttime job that is simular to my full time job. So I am getting burned out on that so I figured I would go into something I really enjoy.

My ultimate goal is to see if I can support my own LFS. Here in Indy ( with exception of one ) do not even come close to what I would consider "the full package". I think folks become frustated because they cannot find good advice, healthy livestock, and quality dry goods. I worked for PetSmart for years as a part time job. I saw this first hand as being many folks came to me and only me asking questions.

Enough of me on this soap box. Thank you for your honest opinions and showing me the direction. Also there is no way I would leave my full time job. Due to my work schedule I could manage full time hours at my "part time" job.
 
IMO, you are hard pressed to find the "full package" in most places. From my experience you either have stores that are dedicated to serious hobbyists, or beginners... rarely do the two meet. Now I'm not saying that they don't exist, but you would be hard pressed to find a store that focuses on high end SPS selling $5 dollar GSP frags... I have seen it but very few times.

-Justin
 
Here in Indy theres only one store I know of that is really for "serious" reefers. I agree with you. Maybe its a pipe dream? You never know
 
I think I will chime in here.

I have been doing servicing and installations for 8 years now. I just got insurance a couple of months ago. I talked to numerous insurance agents for years and none could get me insurance because there was not a "category" for me. I finally gpt the name of an insurance company that will insure aquarium guys from someone here on reef central. Anthony, your estimate was off considerably, but it is still not too bad. It was not a big deal for most of the time and only a couple of customers even asked about it. But recently I almost lost a very big installation job (400 gallon reef) because the contractor needed to be listed as additional insured on the paperwork. This is hard to do when you don't have insurance. I got around it, but as I said it almost cost me the job. Bottom line though is that you should protect your liability.

As for the trade magazines, they are intended for people already in the industry. I get them because I have a business liscence and a resale liscence. This is a very funny industry and all angles of the industry seem to want documentation of your business before sending pricelists, information or trade info. My suggestion would be to start off with a business liscence. This is pretty cheap.

If anyobody has any specific questions please feel free to ask. I also propogate and sell a quite a few corals for my customers.
 
the estimate is not off wakesetter... you are perhaps speaking from the (narrow) perspective of one who lives in California where the cost of living is higher than most other places in the US?

You must consider the much broader audience here (unless you've researched rate quotes for all/many states in the union, or travelled to see a few hundred clubs across the nation and chatted with service folks in each city as I have ;).

As far as industry players wanting documentation of your legitimacy... ah, yes. This is... necessary. We are after all talking about doing good (proper) business in this thread.

Very glad to hear that you made it so many years without an uninsured loss/lawsuit. But you really did not need to go that long though... you just needed better advice or a more resourceful search.

I'm guessing you'll be gracious enough to share the name of your insurer here. To help others, yes?
 
You are right...it may be more here in CA. I tried as many resources as I could find in my area including several agents who were refered by other agents as very useful and able to insure almost anyone. None could find anything of use. It really is a very small industry which is why it was hard to insure. I don't remember the name if the insurence company but it might be Golden Eagle. The rate is based on revenue I believe. I will confirm the name when I find the paperwork.
 
CA cost of living is a whole different topic that makes my stomach turn. I am actually wondering if I want to put a tank in my house after we moved just because of electrical cost.
 
I have found all industries that I have been a part of want documentation that you are actually in business in their industry. They don't want to start selling wholesale to those that should be retail customers.

Now days most people don't understand why this is. If a manufacturer starts selling to retail customers they will have to setup a whoile new team of workers to deal with just that aspect. It is a different business than manufacturing.

The additional cost of the retail end will have to be paid for in the sale of the product so if they did this the price would have to increase from the manufacturer.

It's easy to say why can't they sell direct. But anyone that has been in business and successful will understand.

An example in my business. I repair watches. I have several people everyday wanting to by parts for their watches because they think they can repair the watch themselves. Now some may actually be able to. But parts supply is a totally different business than watch repair. If I started selling parts I would have to hire several people to take orders, fill orders, and process returns and keep and maintain inventory.

All those people cost money, all that inventory costs money. So the prices on the parts have to go up to pay for it.

Parts supply is a different business and one that I don't want to be in. There is almost no profit in it and no satisfaction.

All industries are like that and the mentality in the country now because of the 'mart' stores is that people think they should get everything for less and want to go direct to the manufacturer for it. They just don't understand what it takes to make this happen so industries have developed this self protection mode of verifying people are actually in the business they claim they are.

It can be a real pain to begin with but once you are in and go through the hoops everything is worth it.
 
I too do maintenance in CA and am insured by Golden Eagle. It took my agent about 6 weeks to find the plan after I was dropped by a different company with no losses. I would never even consider delivering water to some of my clients homes without insurance. My yearly policy runs $1400.
 
one of the most efficient bio filters I know of would be a fluidized sand filter. bio ball towers work fairly well also. if you worry about them collecting junk you could run 2 and clean one at a time. I wouldn't think with a lack of fish load you should have in a coral system they should get as much build up anyway.
good luck with your plans hopefully you will be the guy who makes us poor folks be able to afford something more than a 1 inch frag.
have you considered lighting? natural or artificial?
 
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