How about telling us a bit about yourself - seems you have loads of tanks and art work
Seffie x
Ok since you asked LOL, I will tell you a bit, but just a bit!!!
well as you can tell by my screen name im a chef and by my pics you can see my restaurant, the pics sorta show a work in progress as we had a most interesting first year here with a very interesting dishonest ex business partner. I will make sure to post pics of the end product when we are all done
have always loved fish tanks and the aquaria hobby, it is only in the past 6 monts that I have actually delved into sw, for a couple of reasons. Always wanted to keep a sw and from all the studies I have done the conclusion was always the same for a lfs KEEP A KILLER SW SUPPLY AND YOU WIN!!
people may ask how I can keep so many tanks an run a restaurant at the same time, well there is the beauty of this location, its a university location so quite the easy fast service menu. what more could a chef of 30+ years ask for but a location like this that frees me up from being chained to my restaurant. I shut down my other restaurant Fratelli's Caffe and my other catering company A Joy To Serve to come do this. Was sort of hard to put down both of them when i had spent 5 and 7 years respectively to do them, but, given the chance to grab this locale for sure decision made.
After all my long range plans are focused on formulating a franchise concept and what better a test kitchen than here on a university campus where one gets a shot at what society will be in 5 years but actuallly exists in a microcosm right here an now, I can try recipes for soups, sandwiches, pastas etc.... and see how it goes.
Add to this that my wife an I have 7 kids with more to come if god so sees to send them, what better than a location that really takes only a solid 4 hours outta my day to run and leaves the rest so that my staff can run it? And saturdays are really a total wash out in terms of business but a good day to do my waterchanges and surf the net or do the fish forum stuff.
Which brings me to my fish company, as I took a good look at what the lfs and chain fish stores are about here in regina, I took notice of a huge huge huge hole in the market that they are not really hitting or even trying to hit. THE NEEDS OF THE SERIOUS HOBBIEST!!!!!
So I spent about 6 months studying what I perceived to be a good business and lookie lookie for sure it is. So I spent the time looking for suppliers in the states who could ship to my location, as well as looking for suppliers who could ship to me from both sides of canada. I checked into the legalities of bringing fish in and exporting fish out only to find out that this hole in the market is not just situated in regina but is so wide that it spans the prarie provinces.
My next step was to go on a massive used tank buying spree getting all the tanks I could find and try to see if some of the recipes i came up with for successful mass maintaining of tanks work and they do, next step was to come up with a name which i searched and found the only reference on the net to exist is the one time i used it in chat, so i got the biz, com and ca domain names reserved. Next step was to get the provincial name search done, and register the company(thats done now). Next step will be to get the name for all the provinces of canada and all the states in the usa so that any future chain formats I come up with will be locked tighter than fort knox, after all how can you sell someone a franchise if the name is not available in their location.
The main thing about me is that I am a crazy bugger who only knows one speed of life INTENSE AND FULL OUT!!!!
I have also come up with one area where pet stores seem to miss the mark they jack up the cost of their tanks so much it is not even funny, personally I believe that if I can make it so people can get into the hobby without breaking the bank that they will become longstanding customers. To this end I made inquiry into the various suppliers and came up with the most affordable way to get tanks to people make them ourselves. To do a 5 foot by 18 inch by 2 foot tank here costs 225 for half inch glass so why not make a work shop to put the tanks together and sell it to people for moderate mark up and bam got a customer on line and the fish catch the people. Now concerning the fish, I asked to see peoples sumps and central filter systems and was totally shocked at the under gunning that most of these places have for filtration, I mean in my books where I will really make the money is in selling my stock, and the various stuff to feed them treat them etc..., does it not make sense to make sure I have a good filtration system to keep my fish alive and not lose them to bad water quality in my storefront.
here is some of the stuff(dont need to show much more to give the idea) I got to start my smaller room off with
i have 2 of these
for my sw
to the salty side
) and what form will it take. Sorry for all the questions but Just found it an interesting comment 
/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=274007
