Labor Day Is Booked, and the Build Begins
The full story behind this week's newsletter: the whole Labor Day weekend is now on the calendar, the first wave of our showroom expansion lands this weekend, and the aquascaping rock came back in force.
Welcome back to your weekly stop at Squeaky's Aquatics. This week is mostly about two things. First, Labor Day Weekend is now fully locked in, cookout, raffle, clearance and all, and it is worth planning around. Second, and we have been waiting a long time to write this sentence: the new tanks are here and they start going in this weekend. The first 64 cubes go in first, and that is only the opening move. The new lights arrived too. On top of all that the aquascaping rock got restocked, a wave of Innovative Marine accessories landed, and the new Simplicity line is on the shelf. Here is everything.
Labor Day Weekend Is On The Books
Two days of free cookout, a four day free raffle, and the biggest clearance table we have run.
We have written the whole thing up in its own post, because there is more happening than fits in a digest. The short version: Saturday September 5 and Sunday September 6, 11am to 4pm both days, we are running a parking lot cookout out front. Free hamburgers, sides, and cold drinks under the tent, rain or shine. No ticket, no purchase, nothing to sign up for. Come eat, talk tanks, and take a lap through the shop.
Running alongside it is a free raffle drawing with a Fluval Flex 9 aquarium system at the top of the prize list, sponsored by Fluval, plus a $40 and a $25 Squeaky's gift card as runner up prizes. No purchase necessary. Entry opens Friday September 4 at 10am at the in-store kiosk, one entry per customer, and closes at 6pm Monday September 7. The drawing is at 7pm Monday night and we contact every winner within 24 hours. You do not need to be here for it.
And the clearance table gets loaded up for the weekend, with some items up to 60% off. That table gets picked over fast, so early Saturday is the honest answer on timing.
The Expansion Starts This Weekend
The first cubes go in this weekend, and they are the smallest part of what is coming.
We have been telling you for weeks that the showroom was about to change. It is happening now. The tanks have arrived, and setup starts this weekend on the first 64 cubes. If you are in the shop over the next few days you will very likely catch us mid-build, which is honestly the fun part to walk through.
That is the beginning, not the end of it. Here is the order of operations as it stands:
The first 64 cubes, going in this weekend
Sixty-four individual cubes, which is double the space we have now. Worth being straight with you though: they go in empty. This weekend is the build, not the reveal, and stocking follows over the next few weeks. Bettas deserve heated, filtered, properly cycled water rather than a shelf of cups, and this is us finally building exactly that. We will make plenty of noise when they are full.
48 new freshwater tanks, right around the corner
Forty-eight brand new freshwater systems on top of the cubes. This is the single largest change to our showroom since we opened, and it is what finally gives us room for the fish you keep asking us to bring in and we keep having to say no to.
Then 18 more saltwater tanks
Here is the part that is easy to miss: the reef side of the shop grows too. Once the freshwater rollout is done, 18 more saltwater tanks come online. More wrasses, more gobies, more of the odd stuff we can only bring in when we have somewhere to put it.
The new lights are here, going in over the next few days
They landed this week and they get installed over the next few days. This is store-wide lighting, mostly through the product aisles, so the whole shop is brighter and it is far easier to read a label or find the thing you actually came in for. Some of the new fixtures are not about brightness at all, though. Keep an eye on the displays next time you are in. That is all we are going to say for now.
Just Swam In
A pair of Fluval Shakers, new rock, new pumps, and this week's pick.
The new Shaker series is on the floor in two cabinet finishes, Black Oak and Whiteriver Grey, and two sizes: 44 gallon at $1,042.98 and 66.5 gallon at $1,313.98. A complete set, tank and matching cabinet and filtration together, which is the honest shortcut past the part where you buy a tank and then spend three weeks hunting a stand that fits it. The 44 is the one that surprises people, because it is a genuinely large tank in a footprint that still fits a normal living room wall.
The rock shelves are full again. Real Reef Arches in medium, extra large and XXL, plus CaribSea LifeRock Nano Rock at $64.99 and CaribSea Seaflor Fiji Pink reef sand at $19.99 for 15 pounds. Aquacultured and dry rock, so you get the shape and the coralline look without importing anything you did not ask for.
Four sizes on the shelf, 1000 GPH at $109.95 through 3200 GPH at $189.95, so there is one that actually matches your sump instead of one you have to throttle down to half. Controllable DC, which means quiet running and the ability to dial the flow in rather than living with whatever the pump wants to do. There is a 4-Head Dosing Pump at $149.95 next to them, along with modular dosing containers and tubing if you are building out a dosing station.
Our pick this week is the cheapest thing on the list, and we mean that as a compliment. Ten strips, and it reads the only three numbers that decide whether a new tank lives or dies: ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. If you are cycling a tank, this is the difference between knowing where you are and adding fish on a hopeful guess. Dip, wait, read, done.
It is part of the new Simplicity line we just brought in, and the rest is worth a look while you are here: the 8-in-1 Saltwater Rapid Test at $17.95 for reef tanks, the Easy-Fill ATO Reservoir at $149.95, and the DC Return Pumps from $109.95. Sensible gear at sensible prices, which is exactly why we picked the brand up.
Also landed this week: a wave of Innovative Marine accessories, including the NuvoSkim DC desktop skimmer at $184.99, SafeScreen mesh lids for the Fusion 15 Cube and Fusion 20 Long, the CustomCaddy media basket, SpinStream flow nozzles, and the AccuDrip acclimator at $12.00, which is the cheapest insurance there is on a new fish. The freezer got restocked too, with Hikari Bio-Pure frozen silversides at $19.99 for the 12 oz flat and SFBB silversides at $10.99 next to it. On the freshwater side the plant racks got more potted stock, including Narrow Leaf Chain Sword at $8.99.
Marked Down This Week
The online headliners. And a heads up: even more deals are in-store only, with the Labor Day clearance table on top of that.
A refugium light does an unglamorous job extremely well: it grows macroalgae in your sump, and that macroalgae pulls nitrate and phosphate out of your display for free. The Prime 16 Fuge is the tuned-for-fuge version of AI's Prime, and a hundred dollars off is the most this one has moved all year.
Sicce builds the pumps a lot of other brands put inside their own filters, which tells you most of what you need to know. The 120 runs 140 gph and is a sensible canister for a mid-size community tank. The 200 is on sale too at $114.49.
The trigger that looks like somebody painted it on a dare, and one of the more personable fish you can keep. Not a reef fish and not a community fish, but in the right fish-only build it will follow you around the room. Thirty three dollars off a fish this size does not happen often.
Fresh Out of Quarantine
These earned their showroom spot the hard way, with a full stay in our quarantine room first.
Heavy black with three clean white spots, and one of the more striking designer ocellaris variants we get in. Captive bred, so it eats prepared food from day one and it is a genuinely easy first clown.
The classic pistol shrimp partner. Pair one with a tiger pistol and you get one of the best relationships in the hobby playing out in your sand bed, with the shrimp digging and the goby standing guard at the door.
Black and white blotching that no two fish wear the same way. Angels get tall fast, so give them height, and buy a group of young ones if you want them to sort out their own pairings.
Two of them, and extra large is the size you want, because a bigger mandarin has a much easier time keeping weight on. They are out of quarantine and on the floor now. Mandarins do need an established tank with a healthy pod population, so come find us before you commit to one and we will tell you honestly whether your tank is ready. Alongside them: a Yellow Goby and a Ruby Red Scooter Blenny.
The fins are the whole point. A sailfin flares that dorsal and anal fin and instantly looks close to twice its own height, which is exactly the trick it plays on anything thinking about bothering it. Reef safe, and one of the better algae grazers you can put in a tank. Same honest caveat as the hippos, though: sailfins get big and they want real swimming room, so build the tank around one rather than squeezing it in.
Thirty Sterbai and a dozen Raphaels came out together. Sterbai are the cory to buy if your tank runs warm, and the Raphael is the armored one that hides all day and cleans up all night.
Kubotai are the neon green ones that look almost artificial under a planted tank light, and they are in at $4.99. Cardinals and zebras came out alongside them, in numbers.
Clean solid yellow all the way through, which is a genuinely hard color to get right in a betta, and a plakat's short finnage means he actually swims like a fish instead of dragging a ballgown around. Alongside him on the shelf: Black Vampire Plakat, Snow White Yellow Dragon, Radium Rosetail, Avatar Plakat and a Blue Alien, roughly $25 to $50. These are individual fish, so when one is gone it is gone.
Just Landed, In Quarantine Now
The top grabs from this week's shipments, doing their quarantine time now and hitting the showroom over the next couple of weeks.
The one everybody recognises, and the one we get asked about most. They are in quarantine now. Worth knowing before you fall for a small one: hippos get big and they need real swimming room, so this is a fish to plan a tank around rather than squeeze into one.
The best algae eater in the saltwater world, and a fish that changes its whole color pattern when it sleeps. More on that below.
One, and a proper personality fish. Big tank, no corals, plenty of hard food to keep the beak worn down.
Three of them, another shrimp-pairing goby and a bright one. Pair with a pistol shrimp and you get the same burrow-and-guard routine as the pink spotted, in yellow.
The wrasse for a pest problem, and three lawnmowers for a rock problem.
Around a hundred small schooling fish in quarantine right now. Gold Ring Danios are the quiet standout, tank raised and a lot more interesting in a group than a single one lets on.
A dozen of each. The Venezuelan orange is the cory that actually has color on it, and the neon Mickey Mouse platy is still the easiest fish in the shop to keep alive.
How Much Rock Do You Actually Need?
Since the rock shelves are full again, here is the answer we give at the counter.
The old rule was one to two pounds of live rock per gallon, and it is out of date. It came from an era when rock was the entire filter, before anyone was running a decent skimmer or dosing bacteria. Follow it today and you fill your tank with stone, lose swim room, and create dead spots where detritus piles up.
One more thing worth saying plainly: dry and aquacultured rock like Real Reef and CaribSea LifeRock will not bring you aiptasia, vermetid snails, bristleworm blooms, or a hitchhiking crab that eats your fish at night. It also will not be biologically active on day one, so give it bacteria and give it time. That trade is worth it almost every time, and it is why we stopped stocking wild live rock.
Trivia, Answered
From this week's newsletter: one fish in our quarantine room can change its entire color pattern in seconds, from bright yellow to mottled brown. It is not for hunting. What is it for?
On The Calendar
Everything currently scheduled at the shop.
Fluval Flex 9 aquarium system grand prize, plus $40 and $25 gift cards. Enter at the in-store kiosk, one entry per customer. Entry opens 10am Friday, closes 6pm Monday, drawing at 7pm Monday night.
Free hamburgers, sides and cold drinks under the tent out front, rain or shine. Nothing to sign up for, just visit.
The clearance table gets loaded for the weekend. Once these are gone they are gone, and early Saturday is your best shot.
Everything we schedule lands on the store calendar first, and you can subscribe to it in Google, Apple or Outlook so new events show up in your own calendar automatically.
The Road Ahead
What just landed on the floor, and what is coming next.
New on the floor
Three pallets of Innovative Marine
We did not exactly start small. Fusion AIO cubes from $99 for the 15 gallon, the 20 Gallon Lagoon, the 40 Gallon Fusion Pro 2 in black and white, plus skimmers, screen lids, media baskets and flow nozzles. We also build Squeaky's equipment packages around them to make getting into saltwater a lot less confusing. Want one of the larger reef systems? We can special order those and have them delivered to your door.
A showroom full of new aquariums
Fluval Shaker Series in two sizes and two cabinet finishes, the Fluval Siena in 72 and 88 gallon, Fluval Betta 6 gallon and 2.6 gallon complete kits, the Flex 32.5 saltwater kit, and more arriving most weeks.
New partners: NYOS, ATI and Simplicity
More aquariums, equipment, salt, water care, foods, ICP testing and reef products on the way. ATI ICP-OES Pro analysis is already on the shelf at $49.95, along with Simplicity ATO reservoirs, DC return pumps and rapid test kits.
A real water testing and recording system
Every test we run, on our tanks and on the water you bring in, now gets logged instead of scribbled and forgotten. We can pull your last set of numbers up next to today's and actually show you the direction things are moving. Bring a sample in and see it.
Coming soon
The rest of the tank rollout
The first 64 cubes go in this weekend. Behind them come 48 new freshwater tanks, and behind those, 18 more saltwater tanks. Full details are up in the expansion section above, but the short version is that both sides of the shop are about to get a lot deeper.
Double the saltwater invert capacity
Shrimp, snails, crabs and stars have needs that do not match the fish systems, particularly around copper and stable salinity. A larger dedicated system means a much bigger selection of reef critters.
A coral information kiosk with grid placements
A screen at the frag racks where you can look up any coral we carry, read its care, light, flow and temperament, and then see exactly which grid spot it is sitting in. No more hunting the rack or flagging someone down to ask what the unlabeled frag in the corner is.
Reptiles, turtles and frogs
The Exo Terra wall has been up since the start of July, misting systems, heat, humidity and habitat gear, and the supply selection keeps growing. The animals are the next step, and we will say so loudly the week they arrive.
And something we are not explaining yet
Was that thunder? Atmosphere has always mattered to us. We do not want Squeaky's to feel like just another fish store, we want it to be the kind of place you bring the kids on a Saturday just because it is fun to walk through. Keep an eye on the displays next time you are in. That is all we are going to say for now.
Coming Soon: A Revised Rewards Program
An easier way to see your rewards, with more ways to use them.
Our rewards program is getting an upgrade. The revised version makes it much easier to check your points balance, and it opens up more ways to earn and redeem them. Already have points with us? Do not worry, none of them will be lost, they carry straight over to the new system. We will let you know the moment it goes live, so keep an eye on the newsletter.
Come See Us
Squeaky's Aquatics, 1885 Braselton Hwy, Suite D, Lawrenceville, GA 30043.
Mon, Tue, Thu 11am to 6pm. Fri and Sat 10am to 7pm. Sun 10am to 4pm. Closed Wednesdays for maintenance, with curbside pickup available.
Labor Day Weekend: cookout Saturday September 5 and Sunday September 6, 11am to 4pm both days, and raffle entry from 10am Friday September 4 through 6pm Monday September 7.
The first 64 cubes go in this weekend and the new lights follow over the next few days, so expect to catch us mid-build. Come look anyway, it is the fun part.
Questions on a tank build, or want to skip the wait on a fish still in quarantine? Come see us. That conversation goes a lot better in person, and we can put the actual fish in front of you while we have it.
Shopping with us online from somewhere else? Thank you, truly. You keep this little shop growing.
Squeaky's Aquatics
