Hello All,
This is Mark Schreffler @ the Marine Aquarium Council. My first time here.
I wanted to give you all a little more accurate information regarding cost of certification. First of all, I am a former retailer, and one of the first to become MAC Certified. The cost estimate of $3000 to $4000 refers to "total possible investment", ie., time, materials, and cost of certifier and thier travel/accomodations.
The certifier fees average $500/day, depending on the individual certifier.
My acutual cost paid to the certifier was under $700.
I believe most of us here are on the same side - that is having the desire to have a healthy hobby, healthy reefs and a sustainable industry. That is what MAC is all about and why I am here. Below is an article printed in TFH magazine about how Aboslutely Fish feels MAC helped improve and already great store. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
Mark
Mark Shcreffler
North America Coordinator
Marine Aquarium Council
[email protected]
www.aquariumcouncil.org
The Retailer of the Year Gets Even Better with MAC Certification
By Sylvia Spalding
When Pet Product News named Absolutely Fish the 2003 North American Retailer of the Year, owner Patrick Donston cautioned his staff to not let it get to their heads. “Quite frankly, it’s still debatable if we are truly the best,” he admonished. “Don’t let us think we are the best because, if we do, we have only one way to go.”
As Donston prepares to relinquish his reign this year, he is pleased that his business is even better than before. He credits the Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) for the improvements. Absolutely Fish became the first MAC Certified retail store on the East Coast during the summer of 2003.
“Since we became a MAC Certified facility, my customers are buying healthier fish,” Donston remarks, “and the services we provide are enhanced.”
While Donston had heard about MAC for several years, it took Finding Nemo to motivate him to seek MAC Certification for his specialty store in Clifton, New Jersey.
“When the Nemo craze hit,” Donston explains “the media called us because we have more fish than many public aquariums. They wanted to know where the Nemos are.”
Among the ensuing flood of Nemo-related news articles was a report that said MAC Certified facilities are located on the West Coast, Mid West and Canada, but not on the East Coast.
“That got me upset,” Donston says. He decided to investigate MAC during a California business trip. His staff told him, “No, don’t do this,” Donston jokingly recalls.
When he returned to New Jersey, Donston was excited about what he had learned. Then, coincidentally, MAC called to ask him to participate in the Marine Aquarium Hobbyist Day being organized at the New York Aquarium. Donston decided that Absolutely Fish would not only exhibit at the event to promote responsible aquarium keeping, it would also become MAC Certified beforehand. He arranged for a MAC representative to visit the store. When the representative arrived with the MAC Facility Management Manual, Donston was hooked.
But his staff still wasn’t, he amusingly recalls, mostly because of the amount of work they envisioned having to put into it. So he sat them down and told them: “MAC Certification will help us to run our business more efficiently and more legitimately.” Donston, who had interned for the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium while a college student, also explained to them that “this is how public aquariums do it; this is how big corporations do it. … It will be hard work, but the returns will be even greater.”
Eventually the staff supported the project with zeal, and the store—and its customers—are benefiting as a result.
For example, while Absolutely Fish had always recorded fish mortalities, the staff did not record the source of these fish and it did not save and document the list. Now, following the MAC Facility Manual and MAC Standards, it not only records the source of the fish that die, it also evaluates the quality of each shipment as it’s received. At the end of each month, Donston and his staff review the mortality list and the shipment evaluations and are able to determine where the healthiest fish are coming from by species and to change their orders accordingly. The end result, customers are buying healthier fish.
Another example is the marine husbandry list. Each day Donston or one of his managers observes each tank and records what he or she sees, e.g., which fish needs to be moved, bathed in medications, given specialized feedings, etc.
“The majority of stores have angel fishes with flukes, and nobody notices it,” Donston remarks. The daily husbandry list provided in the MAC Facility Manual helps Absolutely Fish avoid these problems. Bottom line, customers are buying healthier fish.
The MAC Standards and Facility Manual also cover operational topics such as equipment maintenance (e.g., scheduled checkups and replacement of UV sterilizers and protein skimmers, etc.) and staff training.
“I always wanted a training manual,” Donston recalls, “but I never did it.” While pursing MAC Certification, he finally wrote one with the help of his staff. Then he took it one step further. Feeding off the MAC materials, Donston created a corps of “M1 Certified” employees.
“If they are not M1 Certified, they can’t help customers with marine animals,” Donston explains. “Instead, they have to says to the customer, ‘I’m not M-1 Certified, so I can’t help you. But I’ll get you someone who can.’”
“Sometimes the shop is busy and the customers have to wait awhile,” Donston adds. “They never complain. They seem to appreciate knowing they will be helped by someone who is knowledgeable in the fish they want.”
Currently, 13 of the 22 employees at Absolutely Fish are M1 Certified. These employees are able to identify at least 80 percent of the marine fish in a store that takes pride in its wide-ranging offering of unique marine ornamentals. The M1 Certified staff must be “able to diagnosis problems, answer questions and make basic suggestions upon the health, systems, compatibility and other husbandry aspects our customers may expect from them,” Donston says. The M1 staff also must be able to collect and bag saltwater fish properly so they are assured of getting to their new home in the best of health.
“Before, when it was a busy Saturday, I’d be at the counter,” Donston recollects, “and a customer would want to buy a marine fish. I’d been yelling at my assistant to go watch the employee to make sure he’s doing it right.” Donston not only worried about how the fish would be collected and bagged, he’d also be concerned that the employee might catch a $200 fish and sell it for $20.
Donston’s M1 Certified staff is educated in how to keep the fish alive while at Absolutely Fish as well as getting them to the right person and the proper tank to live out their fish lives.
“MAC is making sure we take fish responsibly from the reef and transfer it responsibly to the consumers,” Donston explains.
As a fish keeper since the age of 8, a holder of a master’s degree in Ichthyology and a member of the American Aquarium and Zoo Association for 20 years, Donston has a passion for fish and for conservation that he believes all aquarium shop owners should share.
“Are we destroying reefs by taking Queen angels?” Donston admits he has wrestled with questions like this one for decades. In the process, he realized that aquariums are a great educational tool that has led him—and many others—to love fish and to support marine conservation.
“I do believe we have to save the reef and show the government that as responsible aquarists we care about the reefs,” Donstson remarks. For his part, Donston has engaged in conservation projects that have led to recognition from the City of Clifton and from the New Jersey Fish & Wildlife department. He has helped The Ocean Conservancy acquire 150 new members, by having a signup sheet in the store and offering to match anyone’s $25 donation. Donston is also a firm supporter of Earth Day. This past year, he paid to bring two busloads of inner-city school children to the store so they could “touch a starfish.”
Becoming MAC Certified is another way he supports reef conservation, Donston points out.
MAC Certification begins at the coastal villages, where fishermen are taught to collect and handle fish in ways that promote the health of the reefs and the captured animals. Fishermen are taught how to use nets and are not allowed to use chemicals or other destructive fishing methods. They are taught to catch only fish that are ordered, rather than to opportunistically take fish in hopes of selling of them. The fishermen are taught how to build at-sea holding pens where fish can stay until they are ready to be shipped to the exporters. This process has dramatically reduced mortalities in collection areas where fish had previously spent days in plastic bags while awaiting transport.
MAC and its partners also provide fishing communities with assistance to acquire the skills to develop a reef management plan for the collection area and to create no-take marine zones to help replenish the stocks. The MAC Standards require the monitoring of reef resources in the collection area, utilizing a special monitoring protocol that has been developed for marine aquarium organisms.
Exporters, importers and others along the chain of custody are required to follow additional procedures to optimize animal health and maintain low mortalities for MAC Certified organisms. For example, bags must be packed with enough water, air and insulation for the declared shipping time, and organisms must be properly acclimated.
Fish that are taken from MAC Certified collection areas by MAC Certified collectors and are handled only by MAC Certified wholesalers and retailers are labeled as MAC Certified and are sold in MAC Certified facilities only. Besides Absolutely Fish, these include All Wet Pets, Preuss Animal House and The Reef Shop in Michigan; Living Sea Aquarium in Illinois; and Venice Pet Center in Florida. There are also four MAC Certified import facilities in the United States and Canada, as well as additional MAC Certified facilities in the Philippines, Fiji, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and France.
Currently, the supply of MAC Certified organisms is limited, but Donston believes this will change once hobbyists begin to demand MAC Certified organisms and MAC Certified facilities.
“There seems to be a common denominator amongst those who are looking for and becoming MAC Certified,” Donston points out. “These are topnotch, reputable companies.” Donston urges hobbyists to seek out these shops and to support MAC Certification.
“If the hobbyists want it, MAC Certification will make headway,” Donston predicts.
Hobbyists can promote MAC Certification by asking for MAC Certified and labeled marine ornamentals. The more they ask for MAC Certified products and services, the more the industry and their fish shop will work to supply them. They can let others know that hobbyists are concerned about the health and quality of the marine ornamentals that are sold and the coral reefs from whence they come. They can ask their supplier where his/her marine ornamentals come from, how they are caught and handled and how any claims of “sustainable,” “cyanide free” or “net caught” can be substantiated. And they can inform others about MAC Certification in chat rooms, aquarium society meetings and other venues.
“It can’t be all about take, take, take,” Donston reflects. “Being a part of MAC is a part of giving back.”
For more information, visit Absolutely Fish at www.absolutelyfish.com/ and the Marine Aquarium Council at www.aquairumcouncil.org or write to MAC at [email protected].
This is Mark Schreffler @ the Marine Aquarium Council. My first time here.
I wanted to give you all a little more accurate information regarding cost of certification. First of all, I am a former retailer, and one of the first to become MAC Certified. The cost estimate of $3000 to $4000 refers to "total possible investment", ie., time, materials, and cost of certifier and thier travel/accomodations.
The certifier fees average $500/day, depending on the individual certifier.
My acutual cost paid to the certifier was under $700.
I believe most of us here are on the same side - that is having the desire to have a healthy hobby, healthy reefs and a sustainable industry. That is what MAC is all about and why I am here. Below is an article printed in TFH magazine about how Aboslutely Fish feels MAC helped improve and already great store. Please feel free to contact me with any questions.
Mark
Mark Shcreffler
North America Coordinator
Marine Aquarium Council
[email protected]
www.aquariumcouncil.org
The Retailer of the Year Gets Even Better with MAC Certification
By Sylvia Spalding
When Pet Product News named Absolutely Fish the 2003 North American Retailer of the Year, owner Patrick Donston cautioned his staff to not let it get to their heads. “Quite frankly, it’s still debatable if we are truly the best,” he admonished. “Don’t let us think we are the best because, if we do, we have only one way to go.”
As Donston prepares to relinquish his reign this year, he is pleased that his business is even better than before. He credits the Marine Aquarium Council (MAC) for the improvements. Absolutely Fish became the first MAC Certified retail store on the East Coast during the summer of 2003.
“Since we became a MAC Certified facility, my customers are buying healthier fish,” Donston remarks, “and the services we provide are enhanced.”
While Donston had heard about MAC for several years, it took Finding Nemo to motivate him to seek MAC Certification for his specialty store in Clifton, New Jersey.
“When the Nemo craze hit,” Donston explains “the media called us because we have more fish than many public aquariums. They wanted to know where the Nemos are.”
Among the ensuing flood of Nemo-related news articles was a report that said MAC Certified facilities are located on the West Coast, Mid West and Canada, but not on the East Coast.
“That got me upset,” Donston says. He decided to investigate MAC during a California business trip. His staff told him, “No, don’t do this,” Donston jokingly recalls.
When he returned to New Jersey, Donston was excited about what he had learned. Then, coincidentally, MAC called to ask him to participate in the Marine Aquarium Hobbyist Day being organized at the New York Aquarium. Donston decided that Absolutely Fish would not only exhibit at the event to promote responsible aquarium keeping, it would also become MAC Certified beforehand. He arranged for a MAC representative to visit the store. When the representative arrived with the MAC Facility Management Manual, Donston was hooked.
But his staff still wasn’t, he amusingly recalls, mostly because of the amount of work they envisioned having to put into it. So he sat them down and told them: “MAC Certification will help us to run our business more efficiently and more legitimately.” Donston, who had interned for the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium while a college student, also explained to them that “this is how public aquariums do it; this is how big corporations do it. … It will be hard work, but the returns will be even greater.”
Eventually the staff supported the project with zeal, and the store—and its customers—are benefiting as a result.
For example, while Absolutely Fish had always recorded fish mortalities, the staff did not record the source of these fish and it did not save and document the list. Now, following the MAC Facility Manual and MAC Standards, it not only records the source of the fish that die, it also evaluates the quality of each shipment as it’s received. At the end of each month, Donston and his staff review the mortality list and the shipment evaluations and are able to determine where the healthiest fish are coming from by species and to change their orders accordingly. The end result, customers are buying healthier fish.
Another example is the marine husbandry list. Each day Donston or one of his managers observes each tank and records what he or she sees, e.g., which fish needs to be moved, bathed in medications, given specialized feedings, etc.
“The majority of stores have angel fishes with flukes, and nobody notices it,” Donston remarks. The daily husbandry list provided in the MAC Facility Manual helps Absolutely Fish avoid these problems. Bottom line, customers are buying healthier fish.
The MAC Standards and Facility Manual also cover operational topics such as equipment maintenance (e.g., scheduled checkups and replacement of UV sterilizers and protein skimmers, etc.) and staff training.
“I always wanted a training manual,” Donston recalls, “but I never did it.” While pursing MAC Certification, he finally wrote one with the help of his staff. Then he took it one step further. Feeding off the MAC materials, Donston created a corps of “M1 Certified” employees.
“If they are not M1 Certified, they can’t help customers with marine animals,” Donston explains. “Instead, they have to says to the customer, ‘I’m not M-1 Certified, so I can’t help you. But I’ll get you someone who can.’”
“Sometimes the shop is busy and the customers have to wait awhile,” Donston adds. “They never complain. They seem to appreciate knowing they will be helped by someone who is knowledgeable in the fish they want.”
Currently, 13 of the 22 employees at Absolutely Fish are M1 Certified. These employees are able to identify at least 80 percent of the marine fish in a store that takes pride in its wide-ranging offering of unique marine ornamentals. The M1 Certified staff must be “able to diagnosis problems, answer questions and make basic suggestions upon the health, systems, compatibility and other husbandry aspects our customers may expect from them,” Donston says. The M1 staff also must be able to collect and bag saltwater fish properly so they are assured of getting to their new home in the best of health.
“Before, when it was a busy Saturday, I’d be at the counter,” Donston recollects, “and a customer would want to buy a marine fish. I’d been yelling at my assistant to go watch the employee to make sure he’s doing it right.” Donston not only worried about how the fish would be collected and bagged, he’d also be concerned that the employee might catch a $200 fish and sell it for $20.
Donston’s M1 Certified staff is educated in how to keep the fish alive while at Absolutely Fish as well as getting them to the right person and the proper tank to live out their fish lives.
“MAC is making sure we take fish responsibly from the reef and transfer it responsibly to the consumers,” Donston explains.
As a fish keeper since the age of 8, a holder of a master’s degree in Ichthyology and a member of the American Aquarium and Zoo Association for 20 years, Donston has a passion for fish and for conservation that he believes all aquarium shop owners should share.
“Are we destroying reefs by taking Queen angels?” Donston admits he has wrestled with questions like this one for decades. In the process, he realized that aquariums are a great educational tool that has led him—and many others—to love fish and to support marine conservation.
“I do believe we have to save the reef and show the government that as responsible aquarists we care about the reefs,” Donstson remarks. For his part, Donston has engaged in conservation projects that have led to recognition from the City of Clifton and from the New Jersey Fish & Wildlife department. He has helped The Ocean Conservancy acquire 150 new members, by having a signup sheet in the store and offering to match anyone’s $25 donation. Donston is also a firm supporter of Earth Day. This past year, he paid to bring two busloads of inner-city school children to the store so they could “touch a starfish.”
Becoming MAC Certified is another way he supports reef conservation, Donston points out.
MAC Certification begins at the coastal villages, where fishermen are taught to collect and handle fish in ways that promote the health of the reefs and the captured animals. Fishermen are taught how to use nets and are not allowed to use chemicals or other destructive fishing methods. They are taught to catch only fish that are ordered, rather than to opportunistically take fish in hopes of selling of them. The fishermen are taught how to build at-sea holding pens where fish can stay until they are ready to be shipped to the exporters. This process has dramatically reduced mortalities in collection areas where fish had previously spent days in plastic bags while awaiting transport.
MAC and its partners also provide fishing communities with assistance to acquire the skills to develop a reef management plan for the collection area and to create no-take marine zones to help replenish the stocks. The MAC Standards require the monitoring of reef resources in the collection area, utilizing a special monitoring protocol that has been developed for marine aquarium organisms.
Exporters, importers and others along the chain of custody are required to follow additional procedures to optimize animal health and maintain low mortalities for MAC Certified organisms. For example, bags must be packed with enough water, air and insulation for the declared shipping time, and organisms must be properly acclimated.
Fish that are taken from MAC Certified collection areas by MAC Certified collectors and are handled only by MAC Certified wholesalers and retailers are labeled as MAC Certified and are sold in MAC Certified facilities only. Besides Absolutely Fish, these include All Wet Pets, Preuss Animal House and The Reef Shop in Michigan; Living Sea Aquarium in Illinois; and Venice Pet Center in Florida. There are also four MAC Certified import facilities in the United States and Canada, as well as additional MAC Certified facilities in the Philippines, Fiji, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and France.
Currently, the supply of MAC Certified organisms is limited, but Donston believes this will change once hobbyists begin to demand MAC Certified organisms and MAC Certified facilities.
“There seems to be a common denominator amongst those who are looking for and becoming MAC Certified,” Donston points out. “These are topnotch, reputable companies.” Donston urges hobbyists to seek out these shops and to support MAC Certification.
“If the hobbyists want it, MAC Certification will make headway,” Donston predicts.
Hobbyists can promote MAC Certification by asking for MAC Certified and labeled marine ornamentals. The more they ask for MAC Certified products and services, the more the industry and their fish shop will work to supply them. They can let others know that hobbyists are concerned about the health and quality of the marine ornamentals that are sold and the coral reefs from whence they come. They can ask their supplier where his/her marine ornamentals come from, how they are caught and handled and how any claims of “sustainable,” “cyanide free” or “net caught” can be substantiated. And they can inform others about MAC Certification in chat rooms, aquarium society meetings and other venues.
“It can’t be all about take, take, take,” Donston reflects. “Being a part of MAC is a part of giving back.”
For more information, visit Absolutely Fish at www.absolutelyfish.com/ and the Marine Aquarium Council at www.aquairumcouncil.org or write to MAC at [email protected].
