Fresh off the Net - February 2022

With the endless days of January now passed, and the nights becoming slightly lighter, our stores are starting to prepare for brighter days of spring ahead and the new pond season on the horizon. Many of our stores who tend to stock-down for pond fish are preparing to re-stock their tanks and are busy tidying pond areas and getting shelves ready for spring stock.

Our Stores

Now is a great time to check with your local store for any remaining pond plant stock from last year, as many of these will provide the benefit of an extra year’s growth before the new plants come into stock again.  Indeed, now is the perfect time to start your preparation for a new pond, if this is on your ‘to-do’ list for 2022, and you may also be able to grab yourself a bargain at your local store for last season pond liner, filters, pumps etc. You can also check out our clearance offers on our website here: https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/special-offers.

Although the mandatory requirement by the UK Government to wear face coverings in stores has now been removed, we would still encourage our customers to keep their distance where possible and support the wearing of face-covering when in store when stores are particularly busy or where customers may be in contact with our  staff for any length of time. This of course is completely down to individual discretion and personal preference, we still want to keep both you and our staff safe, even as restrictions lift, and ask for your help to continue to do this.

Our new Sheffield store is now open 7 days a week from 17^th January and will be stocking a huge range of tropical fish, shrimp, molluscs and aquatic frogs. The team are crazy for “oddball” specimens so expect to see plenty of unusual species such a freshwater puffers, sting rays, catfish and L number plecs. Discus and soft water systems will hold some very interesting fish too.
The store is bringing in fresh plants from Holland every week to ensure you have everything available to keep your aquarium looking amazing. Its worth noting that the store offers a free delivery service for ponds and aquariums purchased in Maidenhead Aquatics @ Sheffiled and their 2-person delivery team will unpack and unwrap your aquarium and where possible, bring it into your home or workplace  and put it in to position for you. They will even take away all the packaging, so please ask in store for details. The store covers Sheffield, South Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire and Leicestershire.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/storefinder/sheffield/

We have also recently finished the total relocation of our Birmingham store, by moving it approximately 100 yards within the garden centre. With the entrance now directly off of the car park, the brand-new custom-built unit has really allowed us to maximise the space and improve our offering considerably. The indoor space has increased, and the brand-new systems offer a huge variety of tropical, coldwater and marine species. The dry goods area and aquarium showroom is perfectly laid out to offer everything a fishkeeper could wish for. And the new enlarged pond section will soon be brimming with a huge selection of pond fish, koi and pond plants, again with all the relevant dry goods to keep any pond in tip-top condition.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/storefinder/birmingham/

We’ve improved the functionality to locate our shops on our Storefinder page (https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/storefinder) using the ‘what3words’ references, so now it’s even easier for you to navigate your way to your Maidenhead Aquatics store of choice!

Finally, we pride ourselves on not only the goods we bring to the world of aquatics but also on the service we provide to our customers. If you have had a particularly good or bad experience at one of our stores, please leave us a Google Review and tell us about your experience. Our customers’ views really matter to us and whilst we love to share great feedback with the teams that deliver excellent service we also want to ensure we are addressing  any concerns or issues which  may crop up from time to time so that we can continually improve what we do.

New Products

This month we have a new range of plastic plants from AquaManta which are worth checking out in-store and online. These new gravel-based plastic plants come in a variety of colours and sizes. They are very realistic and would add vibrance and interest to any aquarium. Prices start at £8.99 for Band A plants and up to £16.99 for Band E Plants. Available at all Maidenhead Aquatics stores now.

What’s on Offer this Month?

Our AquaOak Tank Sale continues in store and online, with some great deals this month on the 76cm Doors aquarium and the large cube aquarium. Don't miss out on a bargain - pop into your local store or check out the details on our website for some great savings.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/aquarium-products/aquariums/premium-aquariums

Fishkeeper Fry gets underway

Our 5^th Fishkeeper Fry programme kicked off at the end of January and we have already had some great feedback from our participating schools and our schools have started to use the project in some fun and creative ways to support their wider educational curriculum.

This year over 70 schools are taking part and have just completed their first couple of weeks of the programme, setting up their tank in preparation for their first fish.  Find out more about why we set up this programme here https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/fishkeeper-fry-page and read more about what our schools have been getting up to so far here: https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/stories/fishkeeper-fry-week-1

What’s new online?

You can now check the balance of any gift cards you may have and redeem your gift cards and vouchers against your online purchases on www.fishkeeper.co.uk  as well as in store.

For those of you who prefer to leave gift-buying to the last minute, we are also pleased to now be able to offer the option of a digital gift voucher on our website which can be redeemed in-store and online and is sent by email as soon as you make the purchase. We also have a range of greeting card voucher holders that can be purchased in some stores and online.

https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=gift+cards

Click and Collect continues to be popular option with our customers online and offline. Did you know you can now check stock availability in real time even if you don’t want to use Click and Collect so that you can be sure that the item you are after in your local store is in stock before you head out to store?  Give it a go if you haven’t already.

Giving back - LINI

The LINI Foundation seeks to establish firm and lasting connections between all stakeholders involved in coastal resource management and many of you may already have come across the LINI collection boxes in many of our stores. For those of you who have not yet come across LINI you can read more here. https://www.fishkeeper.co.uk/stories/lini-foundation

In spite of an especially difficult year for many of the vulnerable coastal communities with whom they work they continue to make amazing inroads into the projects they have been working on.

15 fresh Indonesian graduates were hosted in their field sites in Selayar, South Sulawesi, in the Kedonganan area, South Bali, and in Les village, North Bali, where their training centre is located. The interns have been helping with the reef restoration project, and the implementation of catch data monitoring for the small-scale octopus fisheries.

In 2021 the charity deployed over 180 artificial structures in Banggai to rehabilitate the Banggai Cardinalfish habitats, and planted over 300 corals at their reef restoration sites in North Bali. They are also pleased that six conservation communities of North Bali who are part of the ‘Indonesia Coral Reef Garden’ initiative have continued to maintain and monitor the reef restoration sites near their villages, and have reported their activity on a social media page that LINI helped to set up for them.