Starting a aquatic business (Part 2)

In part one we looked at how i found the business premises that suited my business plan of an online store with the option of excepting visits from local aquarist's via appointment. In part two we will start to look at some of the decisions that needed to be made to build a working fish room from scratch. With an empty room as a blank canvas, a limited budget but with lots of ideas and enthusiasm i set to work! Firstly my racking arrived, this was ordered online from a company called Monster Racking, there are several companies online selling very similar product and there seemed to be a wide range of pricing, the 3ft wide racks that i chose were strong enough for the tanks, cheap enough to purchase and very easy to put together. A couple of hours and the help from a very good friend saw the racking put together and placed in a double rack in the centre of the room, it looked great :)

The racks came in pieces and needed putting together, a simple slot system.

Blue is my favourite colour so i am happy with the final finish!

And the final position of the first racks. This is a double bay of racks, five on each side making a total of ten racks, each capable of holding three tanks which will have a divider, so 60 tanks in total to start the business with.

So once the racking was in-place it was time to concentrate on the most time consuming job! building glass fish tanks! this is an extremely expensive prospect and one that really threatened my meagre budget! so i went to the source, contacted a local glass company and bought sheet glass to cut myself and build my own fish tanks! This is definitely not the option for those that prefer an easy life! a 8x4 sheet of 6mm glass weighs a lot!!! and moving 35 of them 300 yards by hand is no mean feat! i had some good help but we certainly earned a cuppa after that job!

The truck driver stayed on board and slid the sheets to me! i ended up hand balling 30+ sheets of 8x4 glass.. Heavy work!

In and ready for cutting...

So how do you build a fish tank? pretty easy really, just time consuming and as always practice makes perfect. 1. Measure out on paper and work out the dimensions of your tank.

2. Buy a good glass cutter, straight edge and safety wear!

3. Measure twice, cut once! measure your cut with a good tape measure, mark the glass on the cutting line (I use a permanent marker)

4. Line up the straight edge, place your cutter against the measured mark.

5. Score the glass with the cutter in one continuous stroke, DO NOT stop or go back over the score line! you will crack the glass.

6. Snap the glass by gently bending it with equal pressure on both sides of the score.

7. Repeat over and over again then sand the edges to remove sharp edges, and silicone it all together!

8. Pretty easy huh..

I was surprised to find that once completed and the tanks filled, not one leaked! amazing!!

Next time we will look at filtration, air supply and contemplating stocking a new system heavily whilst avoiding poor water quality.