Over the last year or so, we’ve seen an increased amount of reports on people stealing from aquarium stores. Whether these increased illegal activities are a response to economic issues, hobbyists looking to exact revenge on a particular store, or people with intense aquatic addictions that just don’t know how to cope, the stores suffer from livestock and equipment losses that surpass $20,000 in some cases. And regardless of the monetary amount of the damage, the negative impact can be long lasting. The latest two robberies to rock the aquarium world come from Buffalo fish store A Reef Creation and Houston-based Aquarium Design Group.

In a recent Advanced Aquarist story, two males in their mid-twenties broke into New York-based aquarium store A Reef Creation in the early morning hours of January 2nd and stole more than $20,000 worth of cash, equipment, and livestock. The two men started their robbery by breaking in through the front door and quickly nabbing drygoods located on shelves near the front of the store. After getting all they could carry, the robbers quickly left, only to return a little while later to continue grabbing what they couldn’t get the first trip. They were seen on infrared cameras navigating the store with cell phone illuminating the way, all the while tossing corals into buckets and stealing a significant amount of cash from the register on their way out.

Our second fish store thievery story hits a bit closer to home, as it occurred at Aquarium Design Group located right here in Houston, Texas. During the annual holiday party of the local aquarium club the Marine Aquarium and Reef Society of Houston (MARSH), which is hosted by ADG, some brazen bandit made off with a handful of mangrove propagules that were hand picked by an ADG employee during a trip to Florida. While we realize the theft of these propagules pails in comparison to the theft that took place at A Reef Creation, the fact is a member of the club stole something from the company that graciously opened its doors to host a club event. Even though the financial value of the propagules is minuscule, the impact that the theft could have might be far more significant, as ADG might close off its doors to the club and stop offering to host events. ADG has taken the high ground and promises they won’t hold the entire club responsible for one person’s actions, but imagine if they weren’t so forgiving.

Don't let her see the new coral frags

Let’s face it, our spouses aren’t always as supportive of our hobby as we’d like, especially when it comes to spending the dough. We as hobbyists have a constant desire to fill our tanks with stunning reef life, and it can get very expensive very fast. To make it all worse, the local fish store or your favorite online retailer are always getting those awesome fish and corals that we just have to have. Buying for our tanks can cause some marital issues for some couples, especially if one of you wants to spend the money on more important things like mortgages, so hobbyists need to develop ways of carefully navigating through that matrimonial maze of shared bank accounts and financial responsibilities.

Fortunately for those with an aquarium addiction and an overly financially conservative partner, there are some tips and tricks to sneaking new fish purchases past the ever watchful eye of your spouse. These are all meant to be tongue-in-cheek, so please read them as such.

Disguising your fish store visits
We all form routines that cause our day-to-day schedules to become very predictable. Because of this, our spouses know exactly what time to expect us to arrive home from work during those days when we have to commit 8-12 hours to the man. Often interrupting that routine is a fresh batch of fish arriving at the local aquarium store. The unfortunate thing about these fish orders is that they arrive sometime during the week, prompting most hobbyists stop by on their way home from work. And when you show up a half hour or more late to your house, the suspicious wife starts to question what kept you, all the while looking for receipts and other tell tale signs of aquarium store spending. Of course, you could be honest and tell her that you’ve been spending all that money saved away for braces on that hot new Acan coral, or you could come up with a creative story that gets you off the hook, at least until the coral or the receipt are discovered well after they’ve been purchased.

One tip to disguising the fish store visit is to tell the wifey that you’re heading somewhere else entirely. Say you’re stopping off at a friend’s house or picking up something for dinner. A personal favorite of mine is to say that I had to stop to get gas. Either way, like a spy with top secret information, keep the truth buried unless you want to explain what really held you up…which will obviously prompt more questions like, “how much did you spend?”.

God help you if she gets to the box before you do

“Honey, that fish isn’t new”
If you’ve successfully gotten away with spending a little time at the fish store, chances are you were also successful in bringing home a new pet for your fish tank. The wife doesn’t know what has transpired to this point, but despite the fact that you’ve burned the receipts and thrown away the saltwater soaked plastic bags, one last piece of evidence remains…the fish you just purchased. Fortunately, our wives typically don’t take as much an interest in our aquariums as we do, so they may never notice anything new. However, some spouses are a bit more involved and might start asking questions when they see something they don’t recall seeing before. Here’s where the creative talking comes in. Just say that the fish has been in there for months and that you haven’t spent any money on the tank for quite a while. Taking it a little farther, you could even put on a guilt trip to turn the tides of the conversation. Simply insinuate that you’re insulted by the fact that she’s never noticed the aquarium livestock before and that you work too hard on the setup to let it go under appreciated.

Another effective tactic at this point in the game is to play the amnesia card. Just act like the details of that particular acquisition are a bit foggy. She couldn’t get too mad at that could she?

“Sure it’s new, but it was free”, or alternatively entitled, “That? Oh, I actually traded for it”.
If you’re spouse knows almost every fish in the tank by heart, getting something new past her will be next to impossible. She probably even knows how much you spend on the tank regularly, making new items even more difficult to sneak in. One little white lie you could use is telling her that the item was free, or if you want to take a more realistic approach you could say you traded for it. Sometimes fish stores do give away livestock that isn’t in the greatest condition. It’s a pretty rare occurrence, but it does happen every once-in-awhile. What does frequently happen among hobbyist though is trading. Frag some corals, trade them or sell them to the locals, and you can populate your tank that way. Unfortunately, selling frags and trading livestock takes too much effort sometimes and it’s just easier to purchase what you want. Despite that, it’s still a convenient cover story for new aquarium livestock.

The Smoke and Mirrors Technique
If you aren’t comfortable with outright lying to your spouse, you could try distracting her with a small gift. The gift doesn’t have to be big and flashy, but it does have to be something she’ll want and it does have to be presented first. As your wife is enamored with here new gift, you can casually say that you stopped off at the fish store to pick up a new tank inhabitant. If you play your cards right, she won’t even care about the fish store expenditure.

So many frags, so little money

Covering our tracks
No matter what route you take, the one thing you have to do above all else is cover your butt. If your wife watches the bank accounts and credit cards like a hawk, try using cash or gift cards. If your only method of payment available is a debit card, hide receipts and pray the wife doesn’t find them. It is somewhat okay for her to discover them several days, or better yet weeks, after the purchase has been made. This way, it’s all in the past.

Another thing to keep in mind about covering your tracks is to not draw attention to the acclimation process. I’ve been busted acclimating livestock many times, and it’s an easy point in the process in which to get caught. To throw the wife off, place buckets near your tank regularly. This way, she won’t suspect a bucket with acclimating fish. Instead, she’ll just see the same old eyesore that’s been next to your aquarium for the past week or so.

When it comes to ordering online, the key here is to know exactly when the box is coming so that you can intercept the delivery guy at the door. Don’t let the wife see the box and especially don’t let her open it.

The last point about keeping your secret a secret is to not tell others about it. Just like Fight Club, the first rule of secret fish purchases is to not talk about it. Don’t show off your new fish on Facebook, don’t post videos and photos with titles and captions that have the word “New” in them.

Disclaimer
We do not condone lying to loved ones, and we only offer this article as a comical approach to fish keeping. We warn that following these tips could get you into some serious hot water, and if you follow any of what we say in the article and get into trouble, don’t blame us. We warned you.

Since aquarium keeping represents many unnecessary expenses for families and individuals, it often suffers severely in economic downturns. People cut back on spending for their aquariums or shut them down entirely. This in turn affects stores, which either cut back on the size and frequency of orders, let people go, or even downsize to remain afloat. And those that can’t adapt usually close down altogether. That in mind, it’s not always a bad sign when an aquarium store downsizes or makes cutbacks. Some cutbacks help out in a big way and allow the store to better respond to the local economy and better serve its customer base.

I was chatting with a local pet store owner, as I usually do any time I visit any of the stores, and he indicated that he would be seriously downsizing his space and getting rid of a lot of the products they carried. I am familiar with the economic climate around this city, so I immediately assumed this was merely the start of a long term process that would eventually end in the store’s closing. Much to my surprise though, the owner has high hopes for this drastic change. Essentially, the store is merely cutting the fat in order to become better. Since it is a broad spectrum pet store that offers products for mammals, reptiles, insects, and fish, a lot of the slow moving products are going to be cut out and the store will be drastically downsizing. According to the owner, the cheaper rent alone will save so much money that he can reinvest it into a much better fish room. This means more aquariums, more fish and coral orders, and a happier aquarium community.

So, despite downsizing and responding to economic pressures in a way that would normally indicate issues, the store is actually positioning itself to be better and to offer more to its customers. The overall changes will include moving into a space that’s a third of a size it’s in now, cutting out animals and products that don’t move or aren’t very profitable, and refocusing on products that do sell. While I hate to see the store having to take such drastic steps, I’m glad the right moves are being made.

Over the previous weekend, we got to spend a significant amount of time doing some fish store hopping here in the greater Houston area. While we visited several stores in the area, we took a little extra time to video the amazing livestock at that new T&T Fish and Reef. The video, which can be seen above, features two of the large display reef systems at the store, as well as select livestock from other non-display aquariums. The information on the livestock from this video can be read below, along with a few more details about the yellow frogfish seen at the end of the clip.
 

 
The first tank in the clip serves as a gorgeous room divider and houses a pair of longnose hawkfish, a massive fighting conch, and several beautiful LPS corals. The second tank is much larger, being in the 300-gallon neighborhood, and features a diverse mixture of shoaling fish and a handful of corals. Unfortunately the glare bouncing of the front glass made viewing the reef a little difficult, so we had to settle with recording our videos from one of its three-foot long sides.
 
Moving on from the massive deep dimension reef, we saw the typical ORA black and white clowns hanging out in a green bubble tip anemone, along with a porcelain crab which does nothing more than filter food particles from the water while remaining protected in the anemone. Rounding out our latest video is a vibrantly colored yellow frogfish, which is hanging out on the edge of a very large plating Montipora coral and can be seen flicking its lure in an attempt to draw fish in close to its mouth. Of course, this isn’t the only video of the frogfish that we have, as we are working on a close up video highlighting the frogfish’s hunting behavior, which will be released in the next few days.
 
During the week leading up to our excursion, we scoped the local aquarium forums for any new livestock that was brought in for weekend shoppers, noticing a handful of different things from T&T’s stock list and an anniversary sale at FJW Aquarium. The crew from Precision Marine was scheduled to show up at the anniversary celebration, and T&T teased forum readers with a gorgeous but way too large bandit angel, a vibrantly colored yellow frogfish, and all sorts of Acropora corals to drool over, so we knew from the onset that we’d be in for a treat. We gathered up a few friends, loaded up the cameras, prepared the styrofoam ice chests, and headed into the heart of Houston to see what the fish stores had to offer. We stopped by Fish Gallery first, witnessing the Aiptasia destruction by way of the Aiptasia Zapper, then we stopped off at T&T looking for their bright yellow frogfish, a fish that I have been seriously considering to purchase. Wrapping up our visit there, we trekked north to hang out with the crew from PM at the FJW Aquarium anniversary event, making sure to soak up as much info about their current lineup and anything new they might be working on. All in all, the three stops made for a very long day, but well worth it, especially since we got to spend quality time with like-minded individuals.

Vivid Aquariums, one of the premiere online and storefront based aquarium stores, recently announced on their Facebook page that they are looking to do a little hiring. The position up for grabs is a full-time sales associate spot at their store in Canoga Park, California. Of course, to be considered for the job, some knowledge of saltwater livestock and aquariums is a must. After all, the term sales associate is really just code for the guy (or gal) that knows everything customers need to know about saltwater aquariums while at the same time selling them livestock that is compatible with their current setups. If you  think you have the knowledge and customer service skills, and are interested in applying, stop by Vivid Aquariums’ store or shoot them an email with your resume’.

This announcement, like most aquarium job opportunities we post, is limited to the readers that live in the general vicinity of the store hiring. Despite that, we love to share these sorts of opportunities, especially given the economic climate our country currently faces.

Houston-based aquarium installation and maintenance company Aquarium Design Group recently showed off their new digs in a video that was originally created to show off the Current USA TrueLumen Pro LED strips. Before we discuss ADG’s new shop, which we are very excited about, we’ll describe the strips first. The TrueLumen Pro strips are simple and sleek, providing an energy efficient way of illuminating the fish-only freshwater and saltwater aquariums seen in the video above. The lights are mounted directly to the aquarium stands, not at all getting in the way of the day-to-day tasks that require putting hands into the display aquariums. The TrueLumen Pro strips are water resistant and are available in 12″, 24″, 36″ & 48″ lengths. They come in 8000K white, 12000K white, 453nm actinic blue, a combo strip with 12K white and 453nm blue.

Details about the new ADG store can be read below.

As for the store itself, it’s been one that we (Houston aquarium keepers) have been waiting on for a couple of years. ADG was previously located in a showroom in downtown Houston. The showroom was nice, but somewhat small and the space didn’t allow much for a shop that was open to the public. Instead, they had holding tanks in the back, but that was pretty much it. Realized a need to have more contact with the aquarium purchasing public, ADG moved to a larger space on the south side of the city. When they originally announced the relocation a couple of years ago, they also told us that ADG would have it’s own storefront. It’s still not exactly open to the public, though people can walk into the showroom and see all that the showroom and store have to offer.

Fish Gallery recently announced that they will be conducting aquarium-related seminars at their Houston location. The seminars are designed to educate hobbyists and potential hobbyists about a wide range of topics and are open to the general public. Both freshwater and saltwater topics will be covered, including the discussion of fish, plants, and corals. Because the seminars are actually part of a series, the very basic of aquarium keeping will be covered first, increasing in complexity as the group learns more with each meeting. The first Fish Gallery seminar is scheduled for Wednesday, July 13th at 6:45pm. This seminar will be on the basics of keeping aquariums, focusing entirely on freshwater aquariums. Despite the first seminar’s focus, the principles will be tied into the saltwater side of the hobby as well. The first seminar is free and will last around 45 minutes. Participants in the seminar will receive a discount toward a new aquarium purchase and refreshments will be provided.

A high end aquarium store in the city of Houston has decided to add a little more social atmosphere to the aquarium trade. Fish Gallery Houston recently announced that on Tuesday evenings from 6pm to close, customers can come in and get a free beer or soda while they shop. On top of the free booze, a 20% discount will be applied to one full-priced item. Obviously the free hooch will be limited to of-age customers, and other kid friendly drinks will also be available. The only issue I even have with this is the fact that it takes place on a Tuesday.

More info below.

The reasoning behind mixing booze with aquariums probably has a lot to do with the fact that Fish Gallery is located in downtown Houston, in an area close to both the bar scene and tons of office buildings. When people get off work, they need a place to relax, and most hit up happy hour for cheap drinks and a little elbow rubbing. Fortunately, Fish Gallery is providing a place to get that relaxing drink along with some relaxing scenery.

Similarly, another Houston fish store is actually located inside of a liquor store, though I think it’s a misdemeanor in this state to imbibe alcohol at liquor stores. Instead of being a place to relax and mingle, I guess that store serves more as a “kill two birds with one stone” sort of place. Pick up your corals and alcohol and take the party back to your place. Just don’t get too tipsy that you wind up drinking what’s in the bag and try to acclimate your new bottle of Jose Cuervo to your reef tank.

Apparently the city of Chicago has been experiencing a number of blackouts in recent days due to inclement weather. As many of you know, especially those in coastal areas where hurricanes frequent, a power outage for only a few hours can spell disaster for a reef aquarium. And many aquarium keeping residents of Chicago, specifically in the North Shore area, have been without power for a full week. Unfortunately, most hobbyists are not equipped to handle a power outage, or any other disaster for that matter, and many have lost thousands of dollars in aquarium livestock. Fortunately, there’s a company in the area that is equipped to lend a hand to troubled aquarium keepers, and that company is Midwest Coral Farms. The aquarium store has been taking in fish and other aquatic life from aquarists who are without power, saving many animals and the hopes of many tank owners in the process. For their efforts, Midwest Coral Farms has been treated to immense public exposure via Fox News Chicago, and we couldn’t help but celebrate their actions as well.

As is indicated in the video, saltwater fish cannot survive long without a fresh supply of oxygenated water. When the power goes out, the tank immediately starts to become stagnant and animals in the tank start using up all of the oxygen while also giving off CO2 and ammonia. The aquarium’s temperature is no longer regulated and can skyrocket during warmer months. This further depresses oxygen levels and fish start to die from swimming in a soup of toxic compounds. The best thing to do in a situation such as this is to have a generator on hand. Plug in the necessities, like water pumps to keep the water circulating. If a generator isn’t available, the next best thing is batter operated air pumps or using car batteries or other power backups to keep the water pumps moving. If these are also unavailable, you have to get the livestock out as soon as possible, otherwise you’ll end up losing everything. If you are fortunate enough to have a fish store or fellow aquarium keeper nearby that still has power and is willing to help, don’t hesitate to use that resource.

In closing, we wanted to say thank you to the Midwest Coral Farms for truly being a leader in the crowd of local fish store and actually caring for the well-being of the animals in your city. Hopefully other fish stores will see what you have done and will follow suit, not only in Chicago, but cities across the nation.

Original story can be seen on My Fox Chicago.

Some terrible news out of Montana. A large aquarium system at Underwater World apparently had bleach dumped into it by an unknown man. The man entered into the store, was very friendly to the store’s owner, and was seen on tape dumping a white powder into the fish tanks once the owner turned his back long enough. The man left after staying just long enough to see if any of the animals he just poisoned were dying. The store owner began to notice the fish and invertebrates dying and reviewed the surveillance footage, calling the police shortly thereafter. According to reports, the white powder is believed to be dry chlorine bleach and it caused the death of 70 rare fish, totaling around $8000. Victims of the chemical onslaught include various fish and invertebrates, some seahorses, and even a nautilus, which happens to be the stores prized possession and most likely some form of a mascot.

According to the owner, this incident will probably put the store out of business. After all, $8000 in livestock is a tough loss to overcome. Hopefully the local community will pull together to help the fish store along during these trying times and hopefully the police will catch the person responsible.

Sources: Helena IR and Advanced Aquarist