What's new this April?

Easter is just around the corner, as is the better weather with any luck. Our stores are bursting with an array of fabulous pond plants which offer a great excuse to pop into your local store and browse the local stocks.

Pond plants at Maidenhead Aquatics Ramsgate

Pond plants at Maidenhead Aquatics Oxford Yarnton

Instore and online we have everything you need to set up or enhance your garden pond: from butyl liners to filter pumps, pond nets to algae control. What’s more, you can now Click and Collect your pond items across any of our 150+ stores nationwide to ensure the items you need, particularly the large bulky ones, are ready for you when you arrive.

For those of you with existing pond lighting, don't forget UV bulbs may be on but they lose efficiency with age. For optimum efficiency they should be changed every 6 to 12 months and as our stores are getting lots of customers showing concern about green water/algae blooms you might want to check yours. Speak to your local instore team about replacement UV bulbs or browse the range on our website and have them delivered directly to your door or Click and Collect. Check out some of the range here: https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/pond-products/uv-clarifiers-bulbs

If you’re thinking of building a new pond this year, we have a great range of self-assembly ponds which can be built in a matter of hours from the Blagdon Affinity range 

We also offer preformed plastic and fibreglass ponds in our stores, which unfortunately due to their size these cannot be ordered online for home delivery at this time but can be purchased using Click and Collect for collection from your local store.  

What is more, we are pleased to announce that you can now use PayPal and AmazonPay in addition to existing payment methods on our website for Click and Collect orders making it even easier to complete your purchases than before.

Finally, with the cost of energy going up many of us are switching over to more economic options such as LEDs instead of fluorescent lighting etc. This is particularly true in our stores where we are doing just that with all our fish systems.

We have a huge range of LEDs in our stores and online to suit a plethora of tanks! We have ones that; retro fit into T5 and T8 connections, ones with brackets, some plant specific, some submersible, some marine... basic LEDs up to fully controllable app controlled.... some... are even on offer!

Why not pop in store or browse our range online and take a look at your options ..and don't forget our price match promise too!

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/aquarium-products/lighting

In addition, here are a few more suggestions from our customers and store teams that you might find helpful as energy prices go up:

1. We lose a huge amount of heat at night when the house cools down.. who puts a cover on their tank to hold in heat over the night period? A simple sheet of plastic like a roofing tile could make a big difference.
2. Are you running your pumps on full?  One of our stores has been experimenting with this and has found running at 80% on their returns almost delivers the same flow rate! A surprising find but a rewarding one.
3. What temp do you run at? A lot of people run at 26°. Do some research, a lot of the animals in our care are fine at 24.5°. This could lead to decent savings over a year.
4. Have you thought about your lighting schedule? For the tropical fish keepers, lighting is only there for our pleasure (unless you have plants). Only light the tank when you’re there to enjoy it! Plus it’ll create less algae!
5. For the marine keepers, dropping the intensity a touch often has little to no effect on the growth of corals, especially if you look to reduce the total hours. Maybe have an 9 hour cycle instead of a 10+?
6. Try wrapping your sump with thermal insulation – one of our customers suggests 12mm was helpful in his set up.
   
   

Our Stores

Our Fishkeeper Southwest store is celebrating one year since they first opened this April and the team there would like to thank all their fantastic customers for their support over the past year.  If you're in the area this month, make sure you pop in and say hello!

For our more specialist fishkeepers, you may be interested in a recent delivery to our Summerhill store The team are excited to showcase some small Motoro Stingrays they have received this week as well as some beautiful L25 Scarlet Plec, 2 L95 orange cheek plecos and a stunning Tigrinus Catfish. Well worth a look if you are in the area.

Our Cardiff store are pleased to be able to showcase this rarely seen Gem Tang. This spectacular fish is only collected in low numbers and is rarely seen in the trade - as such, it commands a very hefty price tag when it does appear. The Gem Tang attains a reasonable size and is very active by nature, so a generously-sized aquarium is required to give it the swimming space it needs; specimens kept in smaller quarters can become very territorial. It is best to keep to just this one species of Zebrasoma in the same aquarium, as they don’t tend to accept other members of the same genus. Find out more about the Gem Tang and if you’re in the locality, our Cardiff store is well worth a visit but please note this beauty is recommended for experienced aquarists only.

Date for the diary for all you koi enthusiasts: our Littlehampton store will be hosting their first koi show for smaller koi. Visitors to the show will be able to view customers’ koi on the Saturday before the judging gets underway. Prizes and trophies will be awarded that afternoon. 

On the Sunday they will host their 1st koi auction where customers will be able to view, bid, pay and take home any koi they purchase. This should be a lot of fun and in addition, there will be a number of key suppliers in store available to talk to customers during the show weekend providing the perfect opportunity to chat through any questions that you might have. 

The seasonal availability of (captive bred) hatchling Musk turtles means that they can now be found in a few of our stores. 

Unlike the Sliders that dominated the pet trade for years and found themselves dumped in the wild, these easily housed turtles remain small but are still a commitment. Read more about their care here and think seriously before succumbing to their undeniably cute faces! 

Our Swansea store is undergoing a complete redesign of the store front to introduce a fantastic new pond area including pond plants, ponds, liner, pond piping pond soil and everything you could possibly need for your pond. The work is due to be completed by the weekend of 9/10^th April so all you pond enthusiasts local to Swansea why not come and take a look at the new section there?

Fishkeeper Fry 

Our Fishkeeper Fry schools programme is coming to a close for 2022 as the majority of our schools head off on their Easter holidays. Our panel are now tasked with selecting the School of the Year which will be announced at the end of April. Each member of the winning school class will receive a Fishkeeper Fry medal to take home, and a goodie bag and the winning school is presented with a beautiful Fishkeeper Fry School of the Year cup that they can show off for the coming year. And this year, for the first time, thanks to our sponsor, Hagen, School of the year for 2022 will be given a 168-litre tropical tank in the colour of their choice.

Our participating schools have been amazing this year and the commitment of some of our teachers in delivering the programme to their children has been massively inspiring. Whilst we provide a framework for our schools to work to, some schools have truly gone above and beyond the core programme and really used Fishkeeper Fry to support a whole range of classes for their children.