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Well to make a long story short, I work at a petstore, in order to make our store an attraction, we are setting up a 210 gallon display tank. This tank will be store only, and we will not sell anything out of the tank. So my question is what would you do with it, we were thinking some kind of cichlid tank.

What about a school of red bellied pirahnas?
U could advertise the times u feed them, make a real show out of it

What type of fish does your store sell a lot of or better yet what would they like to sell a lot of?

My store just set up a 220 a few weeks ago. Something we sell quite a few of is African Cichlids so we stocked the tank with them. It seems to get a lot of attention.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

I think that you should set up a large Malawi Cichlid tank because the fish are very colorful for the visitors to look at.

-Vincent

Our African cichlid display tank (I also work at an lfs) is very popular. It has lace rock, a couple Anubias, dark gravel, a black background, and bright fish like electric blues. Many people mistake the tank for saltwater, and others constantly want to buy the fish we have in there.

---

And when he gets to Heaven, to Saint Peter he will tell: "One more Marine reporting, Sir! I've served my time in Hell."

Many people mistake the tank for saltwater, and others constantly want to buy the fish we have in there.

Sounds like the store I work at.

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Hi,
When I worked in an LFS, we called it a "Zoo Tank" and
the fish inside, "Zoo Fish." In retail, every store
or business needs a "hook" to draw potential customers
into the store and give the store personnel a chance to
sell them.
We had one saltwater, and one freshwater tank.
The idea was to showcase those two types
of tanks and draw people into the store where many would
attempt to duplicate what they saw. In many stores these
tanks are populated by fish that have grown too large to
fit into their owners tanks and the LFS took them in and
gave them a home. In others, the eye catching combinations
of plants and fish or, in a salt tank, the bright
colors of the various fish were the eye catching sights.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

My favorite LFS has several of these types of tanks. Some are huge saltwater displays either huge reefs or specimen tanks with large lionfish and one even has a remora that I'll bet someone dropped off because they couldn't keep it anymore.
The freshwater setups are really spectacular, though. One huge tank is full of cichlids, many of which came from homes where they could no longer be kept, either due to aggression or size. Then there's the real buster tank with huge pacu, some kind of black asian catfish, and of course, the red tailed catfish, Bubba, who four years ago was a fiesty one-foot cat, and today is nearly two and a half feet long with a huge mouth that could easily swallow footballs. He's in an enormous glass "pond" that takes up a ridiculous amount of space. I believe it was originally built to display koi, but since our New England climate isn't suitable for koi at all, they don't sell well, so they converted it to a tropical tank to hold the tank busters.

There are also smaller display tanks featuring different biotopes or special species. Having a heavily planted tank complete with lots of light and Co2 injection with lush growth is often a big draw, especially if your store sells aquatic plants. My LFS uses this type of tank to advertize their expensive PC fluorescent hoods, eco-complete substrates, and their plant section. There's also a discus only tank and a mbuna tank to illustrate the special needs of these fishes. My LFS also has a planted paludarium for fire belly toads and newts, that has a few fish in the water section.

Since my LFS also takes in lots of fish from people who can't keep them anymore, there are a few tanks where you can see just how large the tiny tropical fishes for sale can get. A goldfish tank, a tropical tank for overgrown clown loaches, angelfish, RTCs, catfish, etc. I personally think that this is a very useful thing for an LFS to do in order to educate people on the fish they want to bring home, as well as providing a service for those unfortunate people who were mislead about fish and their needs in the beginning.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

A Malawi tank or a planted tank with Angelfish, Discus, and tetras would be awesome. The planted tank of course would be more expensive to setup and light, but it would be worth it.

I wish the LFS in my area had huge displays like that...

*Kristin*

I see so many show tanks that are african cichlid
tanks, why not do something different?
I saw at one store a gorgeous soft water planted
tank, with its main centerpeice a group of Denisoni
barbs, and a huge school of cardinal tetras.
The tank gets a huge amount of viewership and is super
popular with the people. It looks great.

Another suggestion is to do a bala shark tank.
This way you could show people how big these fish
really can get.


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I was thinking of various types of Rainbows myself, but So very sneaky has a great idea with those Denisoni barbs. Those are awesome fish!

"Talk is cheap. Action can be almost as affordable"