Advanced aquariums

[z28cam]

I use to live in green bay and frequented Advanced Aquariums. They always had a nice SW setup and was wondering if the store is still got a nice SW section?

All the "Salt water" stores in appleton are pathetic. Animal Adventures use to have great stuff and now today when i was there half of thier corals where dead/dying. Some of the fish had ICH or some fin disease. And had probably a total of 20 fish for sale.

And we wont even mention Pet Supplies Plus :eek:

:D Im sick of half @ssed pet stores selling cheap defective crap and the uneducated clerks selling it.:mad2:

Who wants to start a REAL aquarium store with me?

[percula3]

I live in GB, and I would say that Advanced still has a good selection, and well kept tanks. I have nothing bad to say about Advanced Aquariums. Anyone else live in GB that goes to Advanced?

[puddingskin]

My wife went to college in Green bay, and I made it a point to go to advanced every time I visited her. However I noticed last year things seemed, real low stocked and some larger tanks were missing. Then this summer while visiting Gooch for some corals I stopped at advanced to see what they had. I decided it wouldn't be worth a trip their anymore. Tanks just bare, prices higher than before, and nothing out of the ordinary. Seems they just stopped caring.

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by z28cam
Animal Adventures use to have great stuff and now today when i was there half of thier corals where dead/dying. Some of the fish had ICH or some fin disease. And had probably a total of 20 fish for sale.


Things have changed a bit at Animal Adventures in the past few weeks.

I just took over the SW dept. and have control on livestock, pricing, drygoods, vendor sourcing, etc..

First order of business was to remove the 10 year old trickle filters on the dsiplay tanks and add refugiums on a reverse light cycle in all the sumps.

As a result nitrates dropped from 200 ppm+ down to 0 in the 72 G. Bowfront coral display, 200ppm+ down to 12ppm in the 135 G. Coral display (mostly softies) and 200ppm+ down to 20ppm in the creature feature displays (last to be upgraded).

We now have our own 6 stage RO/DI unit (GB tapwater was used for the last 10 years) and a refractometer. They were using swing arms the last 10 years. The deep sixes they were using where 3 - 4 points off.

Salinty in the systems were 1.032+ when I took over. Calcium was 585 and alk = 18DKH from using treated tap water. All params are right on target now and salinity is kept at 1.024-25.

You can't find a SW fish in the store that is not readily eating prepared foods. Unhealthy fish are removed and quarentined. I have only lost 3 fary wrasses from my orders so far and they were in very poor shape on arrival. I managed to save 2 of 5 total.

I take great pride in getting new fish to feed an readily show customers. Nori is a godsend and even the triggers mow it down like crazy. Finicky angels take to it right away especially the Lemon Peels.

Since I have been ordering the livestock is slowly expanding.
Two of the holding tanks that have unhealthy fish are a 130G and a 60G. These tanks hold negelcted, fish that get too large for their keepers or are ailing fish brought into the store from hobbyists who no longer want them. Some of these fish are in bad shape but are improving.

I am culturing Cheato, Red Gracilaria and Red Kelp for our refugium systems and for fellow reefers when harvested.

I am also culturing Berghia Nudibranchs for Aiptasia control. As far as corals I am starting slow but have been selling out fast.
I aquire large colonies and carefully frag them and then run specials on them.

All the corals I inherited are improving and some are thriving.

Lighting upgrades are next. T5s from SLS supply will be providing light for all the coral displays and creature features.


Great thanks has to go the RC as I am implementing many things that the hobbyest dearly wants in an LFS after gleaming 1000's of threads here over the past year and a half.

Hope to see you guys stop in and would love to hear your input!
Wish me luck and happy reefing!

~Spike

[z28cam]

Good to hear your taking things over aquabucket..... But just so you know i was referring to the appleton location.

I will be in green bay tomorrow and will be stopping in to check out your stuff. Im on the prowl for Some RBTA's.

was at the appleton one again today and the stuff is more dead then the last time i was there..... to bad cause i like to spend lots of money :D

[cichlidgeek345]

I believe that this post should be removed as it is commercial in nature, normally i would not have problems with posts such as this, but a post of mine was recently edited and removed very promptly. i'm just the small guy who's been a hobbiest for about 4 years, and just opened up my pet shop 2 months ago struggling to keep my head above water so i mention my store here on reef central just to get some recognition, but i guess that's not allowed, whereas i don't see that this post from the new employee from advanced talking up quality and mentioning prices is any differant from mine.

if you are going to require me to remove my commercial in nature post, everybody should have their commercial in nature posts edited as well, not fair to slap the new guys hand while the big store gets a pat on the back

just my 2 cents

[DiverD rufus]

I like the posting it's about time someone took over the fish there and he has no prices on the live stock. He's just letting us no that things are changed for the better, keep up the good work I'll have to stop in there and check it out.

[gooch]

I think Spike has a right to defend the store he works at and let people know that they are working on improvements. They are not a big shop per se. They have about ten salt tanks for fish and two reef tanks and a large invert system.

I think Spike did go overboard with listing inventories and some prices and will probably get warned. Very little gets by the moderators here. I do not think it was really an intentional shill but more a state of our systems and the direction we are heading kind of post. You have to look at the intent of the post.

Spike works for one of my competitors in town. I have helped him with his berghia's by giving him some rubble with aptasia. I also think the macro's he is growing for his store is from our shop as well but I do not know for sure. He is turning the store around and will hopefully get it where it needs to be. I have no problems with what he wrote. I set up my first systems as a hobbyist with help from Scott(the owner of AA). I am glad they are improving and wish them luck.

cichlidgeek
FWIW I have been warned by moderators here a few times for comercial posts. They are willing to work with you but will not tolerate blatant shills. You may not of intended anything but rules are rules. If someone posts something about bobs bait garden, bob should be allowed to respond. That is all spike did, IMO. I wish you well with your store, I really do. It is a hard business to get going succesfully. Very little reward, very little money and many many head aches. If I had to do it over again I wouldn't. You just have to watch what you post on RC. After talking to a moderator at IMAC last year I understand better now why they do what they do. I do not always agree with everything but I have to respect it. If you think about it really if there were 500 pet stores around the country shilling on this site all the time what good or benefit would this site be. No one would pay to advertise and the site would go downhill faster than anyone here would realize. Every post would end up being a sales pitch.

[MalawianDude]

the animal adventures down in madison, the SW selection looks poorly and in bad condition, perhaps someone should be hired with more experience or something in that dept. as one tank had red slime algae in a bigger reef tank, and anemones were in deed looking pretty said.

I believe that the other animal adventures must be else where and not in madison?

[wizardgus®]

I agree that the inventory and price listing was wrong and have deleted them. Otherwise Kudos on stepping up to the plate and working on getting the store running right. :thumbsup:

[specsirl]

I was at Advanced Aquariums this last sunday and was deeply disappointed to say the least. Other than damsels (which they only had a few) they had one tang. For corals they had a few leathers and tons of star polyps.... When I asked about ordering some corals, they didn't know if they could or not and told me to come back (I'm from 3 hours away...and won't be back!)

[z28cam]

Thats to bad it use to be such a cool place.

I remember a long time ago they had a pretty large shark and it was fun going there and watching them feed it. Oh well maybe they will come back around.

[Aquabucket]

I am very sorry for posting too much info.

I am new to this and the RC rules and how they apply.

I promise to be more careful in the future.

Thanks for the kudos wizardgus ~ the salary I make is very little ~ especially compared to what I get for doing my art for a living. I am mainly in it for the learning experience, ethical reasons and the free frags.

BTW, Scott thanks again for helping me out. The macros I used in the stores tanks were purchased from Inland Aquatics (I needed alot). I also did not think it would be right to use any of yours. The Berghias I am raising are being done at home for myself and others ~ although if I raise enough some will be offered for sale in the store.

Its going to be some time before things get turned around to my liking.

We all know how things take time in this hobby.

Happy reefing,
~Spike

[sebastian munster]

Hi all. I am very new to the site....like days but I hear ya all. I have been to the stores mentioned with similar findings...Not G.B. stores....Appleton stores. I am from S.E. WI and here too the SW stores are in shambles. Tanks full of bristle and fireworm covered rock, employees whipping rocks around in search of the fish you are purchasing, fish with spots, thin fish, torn fins....
But there is a large selection. I have since turned to places like Fosters and Smith and that pet place. ITs a shame as I got into SW because at one time these places were ...well awsome. Now its sad. I have to search wide and be so carefull and choosy and my trust is not there.

[z28cam]

I think one of the main problems is for the most part, the local stores dont specialize in one thing so one person has to wear many coats when working at a place like this.. either that or the managers really dont care enough to put the time and effort into selling and stocking healthy specimens. I use local stores whenever I can but for live stock there really are no options anymore. Although i've heard Gooch's up in green bay is top notch i haven't bought anything from him yet. But he gets rave reviews from what i've read. So at least some people do try still.

[z28cam]

Just a little update.. Yesturday(saturday) was running around appleton checking out all the pet stores. Well at pet supplies plus they had a nice selection of corals and a few fish. But alot of the fish itch themselves on the rocks in the tanks whenever im there so i dont buy my fish there. Then I went to Animal Adventures and was kinda horrified by what i saw. There was at least 3 dead fish in each saltwater tank. So I left there real quick lol. So I said to myself "self, lets go to green bay". So I got to Advanced aquariums (haven't been there in like 3 years) walked into the salty area and even though there wasn't much for fish stock all fish and the tanks looked really clean and healthy. Everything was cheaper then the other stores. The tang i was 10 dollars cheaper then the stores in appleton.

They have a decent coral collection lots of polyp coral type stuff, ok prices. And those tanks to looked in tip top shape.

Well I bought two perculas and a yellow tang, which he discounted the clowns cause i bought two (how nice is that) then i bought a coral and he threw a small frag in for free, I am super impressed and will be driving to green bay for the rest of my purchases.

[Aquabucket]

Just after reading your post I decided to hop in my car and take a look see.

What I saw was just plain jane type of stuff ie., leathers, shrooms, yellow polyps, star polyps, and some ordinary looking zoos ~ nothing else besides that. No LPS corals at all.

On top of that the corals were mainly on rocks that contained bryopsis, culerpa, valonia and other assorted hair algaes.

Nothing special in my book ~ plus they are still running UGFs on all their fish displays.

[z28cam]

I had a quite lengthy conversation with the guy there He's worked there ever since i could remember. He said he will not order or keep in his tanks what he cant keep alive... thats why you saw no LPS or SPS corals he said he doesn't have good luck with them.

Ya the corals there were pretty run of the mill except the one i snagged up :) Plus he threw in a small piece that fell off of a mother colony a couple weeks ago not sure what it is im gonna be taking pictures in couple hours and will be posting them in a thread i have going if you wanna see what im talking about.

[TropTrea]

After having a pet store and being involved inm the trade for many years I realy must agree with you here.

Qith the exception of lard metro areas a specialized store does not have enough customers to keep its head above water. Having a store front creates a large amount of overhead. Most store owners are specialists in a particular area of the pet industry before they open up there store fronts. After they open up they realixe the amount of overhead they have and see that being specialized usually does not give them enough sales. Therefore they end up branching out.

In these new areas that they branch into there knowledge is considerably less than in the area of there initial specialization. Though industry classes and reading there knowledge base slowly increases however it is generally influenced strongly by the main line manufacturers, rather than being unbiased. Several large main stream manufacturers are still claiming reverse flow UG filteration is the best possible filteration for salt water. Protien skimmers made by some these manufacturers are some of the least effecient and over rated in the industry. These are the companies that spend there money on advertising proproganda rather than research and product quality.

Stocking livestock is another area where they can either go broke or make money. By buying delicate livestock or live stock which they are not equiped to handle results in extreme cash loss. Therefore they stock what they can keep alive and healthy.

As an example if a store brings in $1,000 of live stock every week and all goes good they have around 20% losses. Certain species will repeatedly give them high DOA numbers so they learn quickly avoid these. Of theis $1,000 of livestock there weekly overhad might be another $1,000. So now they need to sell $2,000 in livestock in one week to simply break even. If they stocked livestock that does not sell or dies for them or there customers they have less opertunities to simply break even.

Dennis


Originally posted by z28cam
I think one of the main problems is for the most part, the local stores dont specialize in one thing so one person has to wear many coats when working at a place like this.. either that or the managers really dont care enough to put the time and effort into selling and stocking healthy specimens. I use local stores whenever I can but for live stock there really are no options anymore. Although i've heard Gooch's up in green bay is top notch i haven't bought anything from him yet. But he gets rave reviews from what i've read. So at least some people do try still.

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by TropTrea
Stocking livestock is another area where they can either go broke or make money. By buying delicate livestock or live stock which they are not equiped to handle results in extreme cash loss. Therefore they stock what they can keep alive and healthy.
Dennis

I think the main reason why Advanced does not stock these corals is because the nitrates in their displays are probably through the roof.

I doubt that they use anything but dechlorinted tapwater as well.

[TropTrea]

Well when I opened my store even though I only started out with fresh water I put in a large enough RO system to handle all my tanks. Unless you have a real good and stable water source when your in the business you cannot risk variations in the water supply. Also by using the RO sytem I was able to keep a lot of fish that other stores could not and had much better color on most of the other fish.

Personaly if I know a store is not using a RO system I would start to wonder about there knowledge.

Dennis


Originally posted by Aquabucket

I doubt that they use anything but dechlorinted tapwater as well.

[ynot]

@Dennis I was wondering where your store was located?
If there are rules here about posting that sort of thing could
you please pm the details...I am always up for road trip...:D

[superlazy]

Hey steve, Have you gotten your corals setup yet?