Thread: Bit of a Vent
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Old 11-01-2007, 04:56 AM
Ken Ken is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: Campbell River BC
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Hi Neal, I sincerely support and understand your frustration and venting because I have a similiar business and maintenance company that we operated. I live in a small town on Vancouver island, population less than 50,000 people, and the few aquarium reef hobbyists supports mostly online or out of town. My percentage of retail is less while my maintenance clients is my living. As our town is fairly small, there is not a huge reef hobbyist here compare to larger city like the mainland. Maintenances takes me up and down the island just to make a living. I have been in this hobby for 37 years and very passionate about, I am still learning and I am not about to quit. We have spent many hours with maintenance clients just staring at their prize aquarium because they are themselves passionate about the hobby. I just took a drive around town lately and noticed many retail stores have closed down. I feel supporting your local store for whatever at a reasonable price is fair, considering where you live. We are small but we provide good service and support our local stores and local charities. Where in our town can you come by at 10:00 pm and get a 10k MH bulb in an emergency? Tonight, we just picked up 3 boxes of Bali shipment, each and every one of these livestock will be accilimated carefully, housed in a stressfree environment, fed the best quality food and trained to aquarium life and then after 6 weeks or more, will be sent to one of my maintenance client's aquarium. They will not be advertise as "new shipment in" tomorrow. We are passionate and we do care about the livestock that are placed in our hands for their well being. Neal best of luck to you sincerely. Regards Ken