Over the past 6 months Aquarium Industries have been reviewing our entire operation with the objective to ‘making fish keeping easy’.
This has resulted in several projects and changes being initiated within the business to ensure we deliver on the things that mean the most to you. With that we are working towards building on our already extensive range of fish, increasing the consistency in supply, and delivering new and exciting products to market. While some of these projects have already been implemented, there are others that are very close to being announced.
ACQUISITION OF FISH FARM – ‘Aussie Fish Aquatics’
Throughout the initial stages of COVID, supply chains for all commodity products were pushed to their limits and sourcing aquarium fish was no exception. While fish supply is starting to return to some level of pre-COVID conditions, there are still challenges in reliability and consistency of supply. As a mechanism to overcome this issue, Aquarium Industries is pleased to announce that we have purchased our own fish farm, located in Childers, Queensland. The site was originally established in 1988 by Bruce Sambell and has been trading as Ausyfish. The fish farm is certified disease free and has been instrumental in establishing the methods for breeding various Australian native species including perch and rainbows just to name a few.
Aquarium Industries intends to build on the great work achieved by Bruce and will have the farm producing a wide range of aquarium fish for the Domestic and International markets. The farm, with onsite quarantine facilities and a laboratory, will ensure that fish health is always a priority and will continue its strong history in producing great Australian natives. It is envisaged that the farm will eventually be the largest producer of ornamental Australian natives at a domestic and international scale.
GENERAL BUSINESS CHANGES
We are currently working with our supply partners, such as Aquasonic and prodibio to simplify and standardise how we care for fish while in our facilities. The aim with this will be for Aquarium Industries to provide a complete list of the salts and medication products used within our facilities for retailers and consumers to allow you to replicate what we do on our fish farm and within our wholesale facilities to help reduce the stress of fish translocations by replicating the conditions maintained at Aquarium Industries at our fish farm production sites, so the fish are in the same water conditions from birth right through to when they are placed in their forever homes all around Australia.
As an addition mechanism to ensure our fish are the healthiest, we are opening new locations around Australia to ensure the travel time from our warehouses to our retailers is kept to a minimum. Our main facility located in Epping, Victoria will soon be joined with a second warehouse for fish operational very soon. This Brisbane warehouse will be located on our aquatic plant farm in SE Qld, with additional sites already identified for future warehouses.
To complement our fish, we have just completed a review of our aquatic plant range and are pleased to be making changes to our product range as well as providing clearer information on the care of those plants with improved packaging to clearly reflect the plant type, difficulty in keeping and whether it is a true aquatic or a display product. We will only be offering plants in pots and with full root systems, as this will give the customers the best possible chance of keeping their plants alive and healthy in their home aquarium.
Over the coming months, we will be announcing other very exciting news and projects as a mechanism of making fish keeping easy. Be sure to keep an eye on our socials for updates!