Frequently Asked Questions
1
Do you accept surrenders?
Freshwater: Sometimes depending on space and ease or rehoming- call to ask. No common plecos, African cichlids, tinfoil barbs, bichers, etc.
Saltwater: We are not taking saltwater surrenders or corals at this time.
2
Should I still quarantine my fish?
Short answer: yes, always, regardless of your source.
Long answer: we are proud to do things differently as a local fish store- we follow strict biosecurity practices and quarantine procedures for our fish prior to them being available in our sale tanks, including surrenders. We have a back room dedicated to quarantining fish in independently filtered and medicated tanks where we watch and treat for parasites and disease, and won't ever sell a fish that we don't feel is ready. While in quarantine, we often take samples from fish via swabs/scrapes to observe and identify diseases and parasites under a microscope to determine what treatment procedure to use. 100% of our saltwater fish are captive bred and all of our corals are aquacultured in trusted professional facilities like Biota and ORA that follow very similar high standard biosecurity protocols. While we can't guarantee complete immunity against nature and disease, we take great pride in what we do here and go to extremely great lengths to make sure we are only providing happy and healthy fish that we ourselves would feel comfortable putting right into our own tanks at home. We've been in this hobby long enough to bring home pretty much all the nasty things in this hobby from other retailers. We are here set a higher standard.
With that being said, we still recommend to quarantine livestock regardless of vendor. Quarantine, close observation, and even just some time to destress and acclimate after transit ensures you are only adding the happiest and healthiest livestock to your aquarium. We should all do our best to provide the best conditions for the animals that we care for, but it is just not possible to have complete control over all lifeforms in our aquariums, including the ones that we don't want.
In better words, from Jurassic Park:
"The kind of control you're attempting simply is... it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us, it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers- painfully, maybe even dangerously... life... uh... finds a way."
3
Are your plants and corals pest free?
The world's leading aquatic plant farmers and coral aquaculture facilities cannot guarantee to be completely pest free, and therefore neither can we. However we do try to keep things extremely tidy. We selectively seek out the highest quality, cleanest, and most consistent supply of aquatic plants and *aquacultured* corals (we do not stock wild caught corals). We also do what we can in-store to make sure that our freshwater plants have nothing more than common bladder snails, and that our coral tanks are free from pests that we ourselves wouldn't wan't in our own home saltwater tank. However if hitchhikers are a concern, we always recommend dipping your plants and corals regardless of vendors and even quarantining them prior to adding them to your display aquarium so that you confidently add only what you intended.
Plant Dip:
If you'd like to remove the possibility of snails and snail eggs, we recommend following a dip procedure prior to planting. While there are a few different methods, at home we use alum powder to dip plants for our personal aquariums. Alum powder (potassium aluminum sulfate) can be found in the pickling/spice aisle of the grocery store; we also sell some.
Alum Powder Plant Dip:.
1) Dissolve 1 tbsp of Alum powder into 1 gallon of water.
2) Soak plants in the mixture for 4 hours.
3) Rinse plants thoroughly wto remove alum mixture before adding plants to your aquarium.
Coral Dip:
At home, we practice dipping our corals in Seachem Reef Dip or Brightwell Aquatics: Lugol's Solution to help remove hitchhikers like bristleworms and at times will even quarantine our corals in a separate tank to monitor for pests for weeks prior to adding them to a display . We carry both Reef Dip and Lugol's at our store.
4
Do you offer custom installs + tank servicing?
We do not at this time.
5
What is your return policy?
Freshwater + Saltwater Fish + Inverts: No returns.
Dry goods: 14 days to return unopened and unused merchandise with a receipt unless otherwise stated by the manufacturer's policy.
Tanks + stands: No returns.
6
Do you carry feeder fish?
No we do not carry feeders.
7
Do you sell RODI water?
Yes we do!
Please bring your own container for us to fill.
8
Do you sell pre-mixed salt water?
No, but we do sell salt to mix your own at home.
9
Are you hiring?
We are not hiring and won't be for the foreseeable future.
10
Do you run copper in your saltwater tanks?
No, we do not use copper in our sale tanks. We also do not run UV on our saltwater tanks. Just happy healthy fish.
11
What's the minimum tank size you'd recommend
for a betta?
5 gallons minimum, and would recommend even larger if possible.
With a heater and a filter.
12
Do you ever trade/buy locally bred fish?
We do work with local breeders!
However, we are very selective about who source from... if you are a knowledgable and passionate (intentional) breeder of in demand fish, come chat with us about what you do. We look for breeders that follow similar biosecurity protocols between their tanks in terms of quarantining new fish and being aware of the dangers of things in the hobby like camallanus worms, planaria, etc. We are not interested in African cichlids or anything saltwater at this time- corals, macros, live rock etc.
13
Can you custom order a tank by Ultum Nature Systems (UNS) or Fluval?
We do take custom tank and stand orders for UNS and Fluval! We order directly from the source and price everything competitively to many online retailers. Stop in our call us for more details, your dream tank is waiting.
14
Do you carry axolotls, turtles, crickets...
Nope just fih and skrimps.
