To All The True LFS'S

[marineduud]

I'm a LFS Retailer and hobbiest and thought I would share this e-mail with all of the hobbiest out there. Its really not as easy as it seems to do what we do.
This is an e-mail from one of my suppliers, and it is so true !!


Dear Retailers,

I often ask myself, why I’m in the industry. Why we chose to lead the company toward less profitable aquaculture than wild product? I know it is where the industry must go, but it’s hard in a very competitive market climate. I’m sure as a retailer you can relate. The margins seem like they get slimmer as the inflation goes up! The demand keeps going up as the supply has been getting more difficult due to international regulation and shipping issues, but prices maintain or drop. Knowing this, we at **** ***** keep pushing toward the future. Like our mission statement says; Our Mission is to provide the out of state retailer with the best quality products and services without compromising our moral obligations to the future of our hobby, and to lead by example by setting the bar through innovation and good stewardship.
So last week it came to me. I was exchanging water on my 150 Reef tank at home and was using my refractometer. I carried on with my maintenance a top of my stool only to notice my 3 year olds interest. He had my refractometer and was going through all the motions of checking the salinity. That’s when it all made sense. Why we do what we do! He will end up being a **** ***** like his father. Hell, he already knows all the names of the fish and half the corals!
As a kid, this hobby was who I was and who I’m today. In a world of instant gratification, intense audio and visual stimulation, we need hobbies like Aquarium keeping. Where can the youth of the future learn about patience and responsibility? To learn biology, chemistry, oceanography, husbandry, conservation, and the environment and cultures which this beautiful life comes from. What forum is available to capture the interest of our future generations? Ipods, video games, TV, movies, etc.? What hobby teaches all of this and more?
You know, were all part of an old world hobby, but it’s hobbies like ours that need to be part of the future! It’s hobbies like ours that keep a sense of interest, adventure, passion, and romance with the environment and who we are as human beings. It’s a long lasting interactive hobby that can grow with child through adulthood. It’s a hobby to capture young and old. It enlightens and educates through experience by seeing, touching, smelling and holding the planets life in your hands. It creates thousands of better informed and experienced stewards of our planet. It has and will create the biologists and scientists of the future. A hobby that lets land locked youth participate in the beauty of the ocean, which they could never experience through an Ipod, TV or movie!
It’s hobbies like ours which create a better future. So when that next new customer arrives at your store, it will be you who starts him on this awesome experience and journey called aquarium keeping. It’s your job to educate and it’s ours to supply you the tools do so.

Why we do it…. By Mark CEO of **** ***** Inc


It really is alot of hard work and not alot of profit but the enjoyment is what make's it better !

So say thanks every once in a while to the guy's that help you out. BROWNIES MEAN ALOT TO US !! LOL

[Robwsup]

Love those guys over at **** *****.

[Sea.Sea.Sea.]

I know right! I'm a LFS owner too and when I read that email tonight from the great guys at "you know where" I felt relieved to know that other people in the industry, even wholesalers, felt how we feel at times. I mean, I often at times in the past believed wholesaleing was "where it's at" but now know that the slow burn is felt across the entire industry. And in all of this constant shrinking of the margins, and competition on price, and while trying to maintain top-quality livestock. Doing so with true quarantine procedures that not many customers seem to care as long as they can get it "as cheap as possible" mentality.... In all of this I am constantly being reminded that we "slaves of the industry" are connected in our thoughts and feelings at times, and our obsession and desire to work with reefs all day, everyday. I feels good to be reminded sometimes as to why I chose this as a career! Or as someone I respect very well in the industry told me "He didn't choose it as a job, it chose him.!" Basically, what I'm saying is I'm gonna have to frame that email!!!

[Deuter]

Very Very well said e-mail! Explains allot why we all love this hobby.