Northside Aquatics

This is one time I really wish Shoppe Talk had color photographs. Black and white just does not do justice to the wildly beautiful variety of creatures found at NorthSide Aquatics in Maumelle - exotic anemones and corals, brilliantly hued and patterned fish, and myriad crabs, shrimp, starfish and eels. Even the clams are colorful.

The aquarium store is a visual delight, a learning adventure, and an uplifting experience, thanks to the hard work, knowledge, and caring for creatures exhibited by the staff.

Until recently, it was a small business in North Maumelle with limited hours. "Our customers demanded that we be open regular hours," Shannon Goins said. "We picked this location in March," she said of the new store at 7610 Counts Massie in Maumelle. Ms. Goins and her partner, Mike Smith, completely redid the site top to bottom; improvements, new products, and novel critters are being added daily.

"We've got a selection that will beat everyone hands down. We want to carry everything imaginable," Shannon said. That includes aquariums, and all manner of creatures and plants that populate them, and pumps, filters, lights, stands, food, aquarium decorations, gravels, and even special water for the tanks.

"The custom water is extremely pure water. You want it to be that pure in a salt water tank. Corals have growth receptors on them. If they bind to trace elements found in tap water, it's not good." In addition, she said that while the levels of nitrates found in tap water are not harmful to humans, they will build up in a tank when water evaporates, binding the growth receptors of corals, causing them to stop growing. The staff built a special structure with the capacity to hold 1,000 gallons of filtered water. The store has the ability to mix 450 gallons of salt water in a premium salt mix needed for reef-type tanks.

C. B. Goins, Shannon's dad, said they've been amazed by the positive feedback they're getting from hobbyists all over Arkansas, and beyond.

"We were told by people from Memphis that Memphis doesn't have anything close to what we have."

The store is unique in the level of service it offers, Mr. Goins said. Consultation is a big part of the business, offering help to everyone from beginners to the most advanced hobbyists.

"The staff has many decades of experience. We offer tank maintenance for both businesses and residences; we can do as much or as little as a client wants. We offer a set-up service; we set the tank up and guide them along as they learn. We have a laboratory in-house and offer complementary testing of water. We run a comprehensive panel to see if the tank is functioning properly. It's designed to check if there is a problem, to ensure the tank is working within normal chemical and biological paramters," C. B., who is a biochemist, said.

"We can customize fish food for anyone's tank. If we know the fish and different creatures in the tank, we can custom design food that is fresh and has no preservatives," he said. The store also offers frozen food.

As interesting as all the food and other products in the front of the store are, the real stars of the business are in the large back room, which is lined with tanks filled with fish, plants, invertebrates, corals, and anemones - everything needed for large, custom, high-end systems - or a child's first small tank.

You may go crazy for a particular creature, but be forewarned: They may not sell it to you.

"We won't just sell anything," C.B. said.

Shannon agreed. "That sets us apart. We will tell people 'no.' We won't sell something just to bring cash in. If it's not right for their aquarium, if the fish will come to harm, we will refuse to sell it."

C. B. said the staff is committed to the health of the marine animals. "We have a very high standard of ethics. We care about how our creatures are treated."

Shannon said the main focus of the business is education. "There's a great deal of responsibility when you take a living creature out of its environment. It's like owning a cat or a dog. We don't really see any difference in a dog or a cat or a fish. All deserve the same amount of care."

NorthSide Aquatics is not like a pet store that will sell you 50 fish and let you throw them in a tank and then sell you more when they die.

"Sometimes we run people off," she said. "We could probably sell more stuff, but it's not ethical. You could make more money in the short term, but that's not a good way to do business and not an ethical way to treat animals."

C. B. showed Shoppe Talk around the tanks, pointing out interesting creatures and letting me experience what Shannon calls "the wow factor." C. B. pointed to some small, pale hook-like projections in the gravel at the bottom of one tank, tossed in some shrimp pellets, and stood back as blue snails began emerging to scarf up the pellets. Neat. "They'll come up for any kind of food that hits the bottom." He showed off the eels and a lion fish. "He's about the size of my palm and can grow to the size of a soccer ball. He's just a young man." Aquariums line the walls of three different areas in the room. In the center of one of the areas, gorgeous corals and anemones are displayed in a large tank. I was saying "wow" about every five seconds and gave a big "wow" to a creature with a topknot of delicate pink wavy things. When C. B. reached in to touch it, the topknot was sucked inside, and the creature looked like a stick. WOW. "That's a feather duster - a tube worm. We have them in every color of the rainbow. They are very easy to keep and a very popular creature. They are entertaining and are good for the tank."

C. B. explained that the order in which fish are added to a tank is important. He pointed to a bright yellow fish, a yellow tang, and said it, for example, is a very territorial fish. "As a result, we tell our customers to add that one last. It will be hard to add another one once he become established. There is a pecking order. Some fish have to go in first. We advise against loading the tank too quickly. It's not instant gratification."

In addition to order, the number of fish in a tank must be considered, as well as whether certain species are good around coral or will pick at it and destroy it. Some kinds of fish do well in a community tank, and others are more solitary.

Beautiful Siamese fighting fish, or betas, can often be found swimming in a tight circle in a brandy snifter. "They're colorful, and they look pretty sitting there," C. B. said. But they're not happy. People are often told that a beta must be isolated. "Nothing could be further from the truth. He loves to swim and loves to be around other fish - only not his own species. Dispelling myths like that is one of the things we like to do."

NorthSide Aquatics has a number of unique features, but my favorite for the best goes to the fish "jail," the live rock tank that serves as a bad boy penitentiary. If a tank owner has a fish that is too territorial or too belligerent, their first inclination may be to flush it. "We say, no, bring it in, and we'll take care of it. Some of them will have a good home for life there, and others who might work in a different tank, we adopt out."

If "live rock" seems like an oxymoron, Shannon explains that live rock has microscopic marine life atop and inside it, which introduces natural bacteria and algae that keep aquarium water healthy. Then there's "dry rock," a less expensive, but beautiful, rock that will over time become live rock when placed in a tank with live rock. "The creatures will colonize it, and you can't distinguish it from live rock. It looks good structurally." There are two types, Texas holey rock and lace rock from Central Mexico, that have chemical makeups that make them safe for both salt and fresh water tanks.

The keeping of salt water tanks has changed dramatically in the last few years, and today's equipment makes it much easier to keep organisms alive, she said. In addition, many species of tropical fish are bred, rather than taken from the wild. "That is a positive thing. We are now getting in a large number of aqua-cultured fish and coral." The store has "frags," or wee fragments of coral growing in certain tanks, kind of like tiny coral nurseries.

One focus of the business is high-end, custom designed tanks. One the staff built next to a spiral staircase was a seamless cylinder with a marble-topped stand custom matched to wood and marble in the client's kitchen; all together it stood about nine feet tall, including a canopy. It was slowly populated with exotic reef fish, corals, anemones, and plants. Mr. Smith is the store's plant specialist. Mike creates intricate and balanced arrangements of plants after the style of Japanese artist and aquarist Takashi Amano.

"It's stunning," Shannon said. "It is the centerpiece of their house. It just wows and amazes people. It looks absolutely phenomenal."

A recent custom job was a 540-gallon bow-front tank complete with cameras and monitoring equipment that allows the owner to check up on his tank via computer when he's out of town.

"These very big tanks are a significant investment," Shannon said.

But the staff is just as anxious to help and share wisdom with beginners with small tanks. "We love to take time with people and talk with them," C. B. said. Shannon said one of the things they have to teach beginners is not to overfeed fish. Another is to have patience: the urge to pick out a bunch of favorites and put them in a tank is strong, but wrong.

Shannon said a number of parents have told her their kids began watching less television after they got a fish tank. "It's the coolest thing they've got. They want to buy fish, and they want to buy books on fish and read them. It promotes an interest in science."

NorthSide Aquatics is located in Maumelle just outside Little Rock. The telephone number is 501-803-3434.

This story was written by Bobbi Nesbitt and appeared in the February 2008 issue of Shoppe Talk.