Aquarium Cleaning Business

Well, they say if you're doing something you love, you'll never work a day in your life. I've been thinking lately. I can't be a soldier forever. I'm 38 and have been doing this for 19 years already... actually I'm in my 20th year now. My knees hurt, my back hurts, and I'm just plain tired.

I love my fish. I love taking care of my fish tanks & the interaction with the fish I get while cleaning up after them.

Has anyone here ever had or currently have an aquarium care business, or know of anyone that has been successful with this? I'm thinking I can be the guy that goes in and does all the dirty work (cleanings, water changes, filter maintenance, treatments, plant ferts/ prunings). Can even do new tank set-ups/ establishments and installations. Really as far as start up goes, I have probably 90% of the equipment and supplies to start off as kind of a side project to see what the client base would be like without even having a financial dent at all.

I live in an area with a high population of retirees, disabled, and folks with seasonal rental properties for the tourists. Also several upscale high income neighborhoods. Basically a lot of people that would benefit by having someone who could do this for them, or people who would love to have a tank but can't/ won't do the care themselves.

So...has anyone tried this. I looked around, and the closest business I could find to my area is in Orlando (about 60 miles away).

 

I have researched this in the past.
I do not live in a large enough population base for it to work for me.

The big issues are:

liability

cost

insurance.

Liability- if something happens to the tank and it causes damage, are you responsible?
If a fish dies, do you cover it's replacement?

Cost- besides supplies, you must also figure in travel, cost of insurance ( more on that later), and advertising. As well, the costs of getting a business license, fees and other not directly related to taking care of fish, expenses.

Insurance- you have to have something in place, because something eventually will go wrong (and probably not your fault at that).

Twenty years ago, a personal liability policy was 100$ a month here for small business.

I hope this helps and would be thrilled to talk with you about it more.

 

I looked into the insurance already. It'll be about $100 a month to cover property damage liability. I was thinking I could do some type of customer contract that relieves me of any responsibility for fish death unless it actually occurs while I'm fiddling around the tank.

I would keep this as more of a tank care/ set-up consulting type thing and stay away from the fish illness treatment thing (I'm definitely no vet).

Like I said, I'd start very small just to test the client base first. Definitely not looking to trash a 20 year career unless I know there's gonna be a base for it. Also don't want to go right into trying to care for some office building's 2000G shark tank. I figure a few clients a week would be enough to bring in a little extra scratch and start establishing a rep.

edit: When I say starting small, I literally mean like flyers in the local pet stores small.

 

Let me know if there is any way I can help.
Please feel free to contact me anytime.

 

I'd try and hook up with a local fish store - see if you can use that as a platform to offer your services to people.

 

Let me know if there is any way I can help

Well....you could pay me to clean your aquarium. lol

Thanks, Dino. I'm sure I'll have more questions as I do more research. This whole thing is just an idea I had, and is still in the research and planning stage right now. First thing is to figure out why this isn't already here.

We have 3 chain stores, and several well established ma & pa aquarium stores in the area. Obviously there is enough demand on aquariums & supplies to support these stores. None of them offer this service, so why doesn't this service already exist here. I won't be moving forward until I figure that one out.

I'd try and hook up with a local fish store - see if you can use that as a platform to offer your services to people

Thanks. That's kind of what I was thinking, Jaysee. I'm literally talking about starting this off at the same level as a 12 year old offering lawn mowing services. Little flyers with the rip tabs in store windows...etc. lol. Definitely small enough that I'd be able to supply myself from local stores just to test the market in the area.

 

If you were a lot closer I would consider it.
I cannot imagine having you come across 3 states would be cost effective.

Very good thinking on the why is there not one here already.

When I was looking at it 20 years ago, I came to the conclusion that 50 cents a gallon a month for tanks over 100 gallons and 1$ a gallon for tanks under 100 gallons, was what I needed to make money.

There was just not enough tanks in the area to even bother.

 

Even though it is 99.99% saltwater related. I found this site helpful in the area you are looking. The guy runs a full aquarium business but logged a bunch of service/maintenance videos. It could give you an idea of what the actual "call" may inquire you to do or if you want to consider offering/not offering it.

The oldest videos start at the bottom. Some of them do matter if you watch in order as they may refer back to a previous episode. Regardless, I did find them very informative.
https://www.lafishguys.com/


Hope that helps a little and Good Luck.
Outlaw

PS- Thank you for your service.

 

Dino, Jaysee, Outlaw...

Thanks for the help and suggestions (and the service bump...always appreciated). This is something I'd really like to move forward with. Got a lot of research ahead of me though. Again though...still really curious as to why this isn't already here.

 

There are a few guys(fish store) that do this about 40 min from me.They do mainly salt water.Not for sure what they charge,but I do know they take care of a 30x30x15 ft salt tank in a guys house and they have divers go in and clean the tank.Pm me and I will give you the link to give you an idea what they charge and some what what they do.

 

Even though it is 99.99% saltwater related. I found this site helpful in the area you are looking.
LA Fishguys Aquarium Reality TV, Freshwater Saltwater Coral Reef Koi Ponds Installation Maintenance Service

+1 to that, for some reason the first thing I thought of was the lafishguy. I've watched their videos on youtube and they are interesting and might give you guys some info:

 

Thanks for the youtube link to them. I can't access it from work so I couldn't link.

Also, you could google search "aquarium maintenance service spring hill florida" or something else similar to that. It did bring up a few results. I just used the city/state listed under your info but you could do this for any place.

 

Really? I'll try again, but I couldn't find anyone closer than Orlando yesterday. It's all about the "keywords" I guess.

Thanks, guys.

I figure I could start this out as more of a side job type of thing. Small scale, but save some of the money to start getting better equipment/ setups. Obviously this is something where eventually I would have to move away from the 5 gal bucket and get some type of water recovery system as I begin accepting larger and more complex tanks.

Luckily I have a fairly good career to cover normal life. this would be something I could do for maybe an extra hour or two a night and still bring in a few extra hundred a week if the demand is here.

Still researching though.

 

When I was stationed at Eglin AFB in Fort Walton Beach, FL there was a guy that had a business like that. The doctors office my wife worked at had a fish tank that he set up and maintained. I know he took care of a lot of other doctors offices too. So you could probably look into setting up and maintaining tanks for the waiting areas at hospitals and doctors offices too.

 

What's up, Cletus? Haven't heard from you in a while.

That's what I was hoping. Very small scale at first. I'd like to keep it small enough for now that I may even be able to work out some type of deal with the Petco or one of the other stores, that I would do all my supplying/ stocking through them for a set time period or something. Maybe get a discount on some of the additional equipment I would need to get like refractometers and such for the marine tanks.

 

What's up, Cletus? Haven't heard from you in a while.

That's what I was hoping. Very small scale at first. I'd like to keep it small enough for now that I may even be able to work out some type of deal with the Petco or one of the other stores, that I would do all my supplying/ stocking through them for a set time period or something. Maybe get a discount on some of the additional equipment I would need to get like refractometers and such for the marine tanks.

I was thinking the same thing about you when I saw your post on here today lol. It sounds like you have a pretty good plan worked out. I hope everything takes off for you. Keep us updated. You never know someone on here may need your services one day.

 

Well...I wouldn't go as far as to say I have a "plan". Just tossing around different ideas. Not looking to get into something the level of "Tanked" or anything like that. I just don't underestimate the value of people's laziness. There's millions of lawn care companies that thrive on this concept.

Like I said for now this doesn't even have to be a "business". This could be something as small as an hour or two a night, maybe more on the weekends that could bring in a significant chunk of change.