A Look Inside Saint John’s Only Specialty Aquatics Store
SAINT JOHN — Walking into the Maritime Aquatics’ location on Rothesay Avenue in Saint John, you’re greeted by the sound of water from rushing fish tanks, a meowing white, black and orange cat, and the voices of employees, eager to assist customers.
One of those voices is Curtis Baird, the owner and founder of Maritime Aquatics. After wanting to be his own employer for a while, Baird started researching to open his business while his parents went on a vacation, leaving him at home for two weeks.
“I always wanted to be my own employer and back end run a business since I never knew anything about that,” said Baird. “I’m usually a hands-on learner, so the best way to do it would be to jump in with it.”
Before launching Maritime Aquatics in 2018, Baird worked for almost eight years at the Pet Corral on the west side of Saint John. But his love for aquatics started long before that, way back to when his mother bought him a Beta fish for his seventh birthday.
“The addiction just grew from there,” he said. “I started breeding fish at home and I think I had up to eight fish tanks in my parents’ basement at one point.”
Baird started his company while studying marketing at the New Brunswick Community College, focusing on aquarium installation and maintenance. After running the operation out of ConnexionWorks, a co-working space in uptown Saint John, Baird moved to the city’s east side in January.
Baird describes his job as similar to a pool boy, but instead, he runs around to commercial companies like doctors’ offices to perform maintenance on their fish tanks. In addition, he said Maritime Aquatics isn’t your typical pet store.
It offers a wide variety of fish, dried goods and tanks of all shapes and sizes. Baird believes his store is the only specialty aquarium shop in Saint John. As a long-time aquatics hobbyist, he finds many people have to travel outside of New Brunswick to find what they want.
“All the local hobbyists have never really had a niche or specialty aquarium shop in Saint John,” said Baird. “There’s definitely a need for it, and I wanted a spot that customers could come in see things with their own eyes to see what they’re buying before they buy it.”
Most recently, Maritime Aquatics has started shipping some of its livestock through Maritime Bus. Baird said there could be many challenges with the process, including keeping fish at the right temperature and making sure they don’t become “stressed” during shipping.
“Shipping handlers usually just throw the boxes around, so when they do arrive, fish are often stressed out, which leaves them open to disease,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot of that with the online shops and people aren’t too fond when they get fish that are beat up and tattered.”
With Maritime Bus and its express shipping, Baird can bring livestock directly to the bus and deliver it in neighbouring cities like Fredericton and Moncton within two or three hours. He’s used other services in the past, but he’s found Maritime Bus to be more reliable.
Baird said his company hasn’t faced many challenges related to the pandemic, other than figuring out how to ship livestock around the province and businesses like restaurants closing down their fish tanks to cut costs.
As the province edges towards the “green phase” of recovery, Baird is looking forward to expanding in the service industry side of his business. But with some businesses closing their offices and working remotely, he’ll be interested to see how that will affect his shop.
“It’s hard to say in any industry, it’s all new for everyone, so I’m excited to see how it’ll go once things start opening up again,” said Baird.
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Aaron Sousa is a summer intern for Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].