Fish & Friends

Lots of progress made today! Steve and Lonny went to town setting up gondola shelving and there should only be four or five units left to do before we start unboxing product! I suspect I’ll have 95% of the air system done by tomorrow or Friday before I hit that bridge I said I’d cross when I get there. We got a visit today from the head of zoning for the township as well as an inspector and the head inspector from MDIA. The good news is that they all agreed that the work I need permits for is very minimal and they don’t foresee issues with it. The bad news is that all three of these units are listed as a different occupancy class than what I need for retail. This means that I will more than likely need to bring the architect back out to do a full scale layout which will run me $3,000 plus any additional work they require from her. It’s not really what I wanted to hear, but I’m just glad things are moving.

I also sincerely apologize to anyone that has been reaching out on messenger as I haven’t been on the store nor my personal messengers often at all. I get messages every day asking about updates, when we’re opening, where else to buy fish until we reopen, etc and, to be 100% honest with everyone, I really don’t want to have dozens of separate conversations about the store. I genuinely appreciate everyone checking in and we truly love each of you so much, but these last seven months have been so hard on my family and I just need those breaks from talking about the store when I’m not here working. I promise this isn’t directed at anyone in particular as I’m currently sitting at 14 unread store messages and 10 unread personal messages since the last time I sat down and replied to all of them. I promise I will definitely get back to every one of them, just maybe not right this minute.

Starting on the air system today! I’m so thankful that I didn’t glue it together like some people suggested at the old store because we’re able to reuse about 75% of it without doing any alterations. One of the hardest things about moving to a new location is that I designed everything to specifically fit the mall layout. From the quantity and size of the tanks to the spacing of the air valves, it was all made to fit what we had. Luckily, between myself, Lonny, and Steve, there’s a whole brain there so we’re figuring out ways to reuse as much as possible. Hopefully we’ll hear bubbles soon 🙏

Hey guys! I have a positive update for you! Fatima Moien from CBS 21 News caught wind of our story and came down to talk with me about what’s going on. After our interview, she reached out to the township. While they haven’t gotten back to her with a statement, her calling them warranted a phone call to me from the township. The woman I spoke with has definitely been the first person that I’ve had communication with through the whole process so far that actually seemed interested in helping me with our situation. Long story short, she put me in contact with the head inspector up at MDIA who, after talking to me about what we actually need done, told me to go ahead and submit my applications, don’t worry about the architect for now, and hopefully we’ll get things straightened out soon. This all happened because you guys shared our GoFundMe post 86 times!!! While I never intended for a news outlet to pick this up nor did I want to rub anyone the wrong way at the township or inspectors offices, I’m so glad we’re finally getting somewhere. Thank you to everyone who has shared and/or donated! This is just another example of God coming through for our store and putting the right people in our path.

Alright guys, I finally caved and made one since so many of you have been asking about it. Please do not give if you can’t. I totally understand how tough it is on everyone out there right now. This will be our last effort to financially stay afloat until we can open. We have currently spent somewhere in the $30,000 range just getting to where we are now and we’re already looking at at least another $20,000 at this rate getting us to opening date not including inventory, but that number will go up with each month we have to pay rent and if these permit people require more work. I truly believe we will be 100% fine once the doors are open. It’s just getting to that point that seems to be way more of a struggle than it needs to be.

Donate to Help Fish & Friends Reopen in Hanover, PA, organized by Blake Stevens My name is Blake Stevens, I own Fish & Friends with my wife, Tara, in Hanover,… Blake Stevens needs your support for Help Fish & Friends Reopen in Hanover, PA

Good morning guys. I just wanted to give you all a not so positive update. Our new location is in Penn Township and I’ve heard horror stories my whole life about how bad they are with permits. Well, I’m living it now and I’m honestly starting to regret moving the shop here. My permit process at the old location in the borough took a few days max. At this location, all I need to do is get my water heaters and carbon filter plumbed in, some sockets installed in the fish room ceiling for my fans, and my two power poles wired up.

They made me bring in an architect who now has to do a complete rendering of the whole store which she informed me yesterday will take about two to three weeks to turn around. Then, she also informed me that they’ll likely want me to bring in an engineer to do who knows what. Finally, after they’re done, the permit application has to be sent off to a third party company because apparently Penn Township is incapable of doing their own permits which could take up to 30 business days to process. If they aren’t satisfied with what is sent, we’ll have to make changes and wait potentially another 30 business days. All of this for a water heater and some simple wiring.

On top of that, I unfortunately had a bunch of people that promised to help me with a bunch of other things that needed done, but never showed up so I’ve had to spend several thousand dollars I wasn’t expecting to spend to get those things done. Add in that rent is now due, and I’m honestly going to more than likely run out of money before we can open. The store itself could easily be opened by next month, but all of these unnecessary extra steps with the permits are definitely going to push us back. I talked with Member’s 1st about getting some help, but between the store being closed for several months because of the mall and me ruining my credit getting the first location open, there’s not a whole lot they can do besides maybe a home equity loan which would still take about a month to do. I’m going to keep trying to find alternative options, but that’s where we’re at right now. Please keep us in your prayers that we can get this sorted out soon because this is becoming much more mentally taxing than I could have ever imagined.

First shipment of dry goods for the new location has officially arrived from the trade show we attended back in February! We still have a good bit of work to do, but we’re getting closer every day!

When you get 342 tanks set up and decide you want to change the fish room layout, you go and buy a pallet jack. Lonny and I spent yesterday morning moving racks around and I think we nailed down a pretty solid setup. I’ll get you guys an updated walkthrough some time this week. There’s still lots of work to do, but we’ll have the fish room going as soon as we get our permits to start the plumbing.

Just a little sneak peak for you guys. We’ll definitely have some tweaking to do on some things, but we did manage to get all of the tanks from the old store to fit in the new fish room. We did have to drop down from 5’ walkways like we had at the mall to 4’ and the right hand side of the picture is more narrow yet, but it’s only a single row of tanks and you’ll see down the road why this aisle is more narrow. Still a lot of work to do, but we’re getting there.

The Fish & Friends Story: Part 15 (Final Part)

The rest of our origin story goes from June-November 17th of 2025. We finally hit a period of several months of smooth sailing. I spent a few weeks really trying to learn and grasp the concept of CO2 and then we started stocking the supplies. I don’t like carrying products I’m not familiar with because I want to be able to teach customers how to use them, so this was totally new to me at the time. All of the outside tanks were good to go after I finished adding lights to them which really brought the store to life. On June 17th, we celebrated our one year anniversary of being open! It makes me sad to know that I won’t be open in time to celebrate our second year, but hopefully we can have a great grand opening to make up for it. We also expanded our merch a little bit by getting in tumbler cups and insulated tote bags. The bags could fit at least one Clover Mae at the time, but she may be a little too big for that now.

We upgraded our POS system in July which was another big milestone because it makes keeping up with finances so much easier. We also hired a bookkeeper around this time which is still to date the best investment I ever made in the business. We continued to bring in really cool fish you don’t see in shops every day like wild caught discus, altum angelfish, gold laser Cories, and more! We also brought in the hobbyist favorite 33 gallon long tanks from Seapora which are hard to get ahold of at times. Since we had all of the perimeter tanks up and running, it was time to take on another large project, putting sand in all of the tanks. I personally hate bare bottom tanks and, while they’re easier to clean, I couldn’t stand looking at them all day. So, it was time to order over 5,000lbs of sand to make it happen. I’ve gotta give it up to Steve as he did at least 90% of the tanks himself between the middle of September and middle of November. It’s very time consuming to measure it out, rinse it, and and then transport it to the tanks.

Also in September, we made another big boy purchase of our Hikari freezer which allowed us to expand our frozen food offerings. With this freezer, we were two more purchases away from starting the saltwater area. Our feeding cart got an upgrade and we continued expanding our inventory including adding Hygger to our line up. Unfortunately, during this time, our first customer and good friend, Scott Loughridge, passed away. We will have a little memorial area in the new store in his honor. As we enter November, I start ordering super heavy on the fish so they can all be quarantined and ready to go for Black Friday. We didn’t really get to do much of a Black Friday sale in 2024 because of still getting things in order, but I knew 2025 was going to be a great sale! Well, that all went down the drain when the mall was condemned on November 17th. So, we started selling fish and supplies out of the back door from then until February 28th of this year and that’s when our story gets somewhat of a pause until we get this new location opened up. Thank you to everyone who has followed along on this crazy journey so far. Hopefully this next chapter is a little less hectic haha!

Probably the best birthday message I could have received this morning! I can’t wait to see it lit up at night! Thanks Kyle and the rest of the team at Strickler Signs!