Who we are, and what we are about

[philciccone]

Who We Are:
An online e-tailer, founded in 2014, Aquatic Playground was a concept in the making for a full year. Why for one year? Because we do it right the first time. We put time, care and money into our operation to ensure we have nothing but the best! After some trial and error, we ended up with many custom-made state of the art tanks, filtration systems and quarantine tanks – all of which are monitored 24/7 through the Internet, so our team is alerted to the slightest changes, even if we are not on premises at that precise moment. Each of the key members of our staff has different specialties that meld together to form one solid team. All of our items are sourced from reputable suppliers. We have researched and have only chosen suppliers who meet our highest standards of quality. Our livestock goes through intense scrutiny and quarantine procedures to ensure that you receive the highest quality and healthy specimen. We stand behind out products. If we wouldn’t put it in our own personal tank, we won’t sell it to you. We strive for the gold standard in customer service. If you aren’t happy, we aren’t happy. We are active on social media and love interacting with the public and our customers. We know we cannot please everyone and you will have those “off the wall” comments, but we pride ourselves on our reputation and integrity, we have nothing to hide. We do not delete any comments. We address each and every one. If you ever have an issue, please do not hesitate to contact one of our competent staff members!

What to Expect:
While our warehouse is not open to the public, we are staffed, full-time, during business hours. This is not a business in mom’s basement. We have customer service if you call us, and we are onsite every week day from a minimum of 8AM to 5PM. We are pretty active on Facebook, and always monitor the forums. Since our proximity is very close to the Atlanta Reef Club community we have free shipping with a very low order amount.

What We Sell:
Our specialty is LPS corals and specific dry goods. While we do offer, from time-to-time, fish, inverts and SPS corals we find that specializing in a specific area works best for us and our customers. At our grand opening we had about 500+ corals for sale, and now we have the capacity to increase upwards to 1,000 corals, depending on the average size. While our facility is closed to the public, our selection is larger than most local fish stores in our area. We don't always have what is in our tanks on our web site. We don't sell stock as it comes in, we quarantine and hold it until it's ready for sale.

Key information about our business:

Web site: http://aquaticplayground.co">http://aquaticplayground.co</a>
About Us: [IMG]http://aquaticplayground.co/index.php/about-us">http://aquaticplayground.co/index.php/about-us</a>
Shipping: [IMG]http://aquaticplayground.co/index.php/shipping">http://aquaticplayground.co/index.php/shipping</a>
Our phone and email info: [IMG]http://aquaticplayground.co/index.php/contactus">http://aquaticplayground.co/index.php/contactus</a> [I]<- WE ARE NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC</em>

Debby, Tony and I (Phil) will be attending as many meetings as we can in 2016. Come say hi to us! :up:

-- Phil
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[genesis]

wow very nice! welcome aboard

 

[skriz]

Looks great! Nice and clean. Kudos to whoever's keeping those tanks looking like that

 

[philciccone]

Skriz;1066446 wrote: Looks great! Nice and clean. Kudos to whoever's keeping those tanks looking like that

Thanks for observation! That would be Tony, our operations manager. I really don't know what I would do without him! He works not less than 6 hours a week with a scraper in his hand. We also have a cool shop-vac like vacuum that sucks the detritus off the floor, filters the water, and returns it back to the sump without stopping. Something we created in-house that comes in handy.

 

[crew]

This place looks awesome. Glad to have you guys.

 

[bcavalli]

Your setup is looking amazing Phil!

 

[elithelion]

We need local pick up! Youd be the closest lfs to me

Very nice set up. Imaculate tanks

 

[bulkrate]

Understand the no storefront browsing policy... totally different build needed on a place that has to cater to both grow-out/husbandry versus customer display. Probably also some business license & insurance concerns as well.

But nonetheless another vote for local pick up, even if it's simply stopping at the curb and grabbing a box you bring out by appontment. I hate shipping stuff even locally and will often pass on livestock given how shippers treat packages in my area. Air mail the last 50 ft, more often tHan not. ;/

 

[urbanknight]

BulkRate;1066481 wrote: Understand the no storefront browsing policy... totally different build needed on a place that has to cater to both grow-out/husbandry versus customer display. Probably also some business license & insurance concerns as well.

But nonetheless another vote for local pick up, even if it's simply stopping at the curb and grabbing a box you bring out by appointment. I hate shipping stuff even locally and will often pass on livestock given how shippers treat packages in my area. Air mail the last 50 ft, more often tHan not. ;/

+1 Phil, You have some beautiful LPS, zo colonies and frags. I'd rather take the one hour (1 way) drive to Canton than risk one of those beauties getting mauled in the mail. Curbside pickup would definitely be a plus!

 

[elithelion]

That's what I meant by local pick up. Reefs2go does a weekly meetings at a designated spot for locals. I think soemthing like that would work quite well

 

[philciccone]

Thanks everyone for the positive comments! You are correct, insurance and permitting don't allow it at the moment. We did look into local customer access, but the cost outweighs the benefits at the moment. A small few ARC members have been to our location who have helped with the equipment build-out, but that was different as we were not conducting sales. We do have an experimental courier service for corals, where we deliver to you. It was originally designed for our maintenance professionals when they build tanks out that we drop livestock off for them so they don't have hassle of getting stock. I will see if we can come up with a solution for our local friends, like you, and certainly keep you updated.

We have been shipping a good amount, and almost always the corals arrive in great condition. Since we are an online e-tailer we really spared no expense in the way we process our shipments. In my opinion, we pack better than the industry does. This was important to us, as we want the coral to be perceived equal, or better, than shown on our site after it is acclimated to the customers tank. We utilize the proper types of heat packs (which costs more than the common heat pack), we use well insulated box shippers, bags are 6 to 8 mils thick in total, and all the bags are sealed with a professional closing machine that utilize metal clips. The boxes are labeled with perishable notices for the carriers and our logo is outside to identify it easily. We ship solely using FedEx. Most customers get priority AM delivery, but for my local ARC friends it would be FedEx Ground.

 

[skriz]

philciccone;1066447 wrote: Thanks for observation! That would be Tony, our operations manager. I really don't know what I would do without him! He works not less than 6 hours a week with a scraper in his hand. We also have a cool shop-vac like vacuum that sucks the detritus off the floor, filters the water, and returns it back to the sump without stopping. Something we created in-house that comes in handy.

Tony is my hero

 

[ghbrewer]

Phil has an awesome setup, and is doing things right! Kudos to Phil and Tony for taking on such a huge project and doing such a great job with it!!

 

[porpoiseaquatics]

I was at Phil's yesterday to discuss some upcoming Group Buys and the place is awesome!!!! Phil really has it going on over there.

 

[philciccone]

I really appreciate all your praise! We have listened to you, and others who have emails us, and worked out a local pickup option now. Please see our new thread (