Specialty Saltwater, Fresh Water & Coral Aquarium

Business Overview:

Established specialty aquarium retailer offering saltwater livestock, freshwater livestock, and in-house coral propagation from a high-visibility retail location in metro Atlanta. Operating continuously since 2011 — 14+ years of unbroken operation in the same trade area with deep recognition in the southeastern reef hobbyist community.

FINANCIAL PROFILE
Trailing twelve months gross revenue of $644,381 with adjusted seller's discretionary earnings of $172,990 (26.5% SDE margin). Bank deposits reconcile to 1099-K processor data within 0.3% — financials are clean and QoE-grade with full supporting documentation available under NDA.

MARGIN EXPANSION STORY
Gross margin expanded from 43% in 2022 to 50% in 2023 and has held through TTM. Adjusted SDE has grown from $164K (2022) to $180K (2024) and tracks $173K on a normalized TTM basis.

PRODUCT MIX & DIFFERENTIATION
Three reinforcing product lines: (1) saltwater and freshwater livestock including reef-safe and FOWLR fish, invertebrates, and live rock; (2) in-house coral propagation — a hand-cultivated fragging and grow-out program covering LPS, SPS, and softies; (3) hardware and dry goods including tanks, lighting, filtration, protein skimmers, and consumables from major brands.

Coral propagation is the meaningful differentiator. The business cultivates and sells frags grown on-site, which carries materially higher margin than wholesale-sourced coral and creates a steady inventory of unique product. Few independent retailers in the region operate at this depth of coral specialization.

CUSTOMER BASE
Diversified retail customer base with no single-customer concentration. Walk-in foot traffic supplemented by an active local hobbyist community. 1,000+ aggregated customer reviews averaging 4.5 stars across Google, Yelp, and Birdeye. Loyal repeat customer base — many have been customers for 5–20+ years.

OPERATIONS
Owner-operated with two part-time team members supporting livestock care and store operations. Day-to-day operations are highly systematized after 14+ years of refinement. Saltwater livestock shrinkage tracked and managed at less than 2% of revenue — exceptional for a coral and reef-fish retailer. The business retains the equipment, supplier accounts, and operator know-how to run a tank service and maintenance line for residential and small-commercial clients — currently dormant and a clear reactivation lever for an incoming operator.

Contact the Seller:

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Property Features and Assets:

Display tanks and aquarium systems, sumps and filtration equipment, automatic top-off (ATO) and dosing systems, point-of-sale terminals and computer peripherals, display fixtures and retail shelving, coral propagation grow-out equipment. Detailed FF&E schedule available under NDA.

Market Competition and Expansion:

Big-box retailers (Petco, PetSmart) do not compete in saltwater livestock or coral at meaningful depth. Limited specialty competition in the trade area. Online livestock retailers compete on price and selection but cannot replicate in-person consultation, livestock acclimation, or hand-cultivated coral.

Reactivation of dormant tank service and maintenance line for residential and commercial accounts. Online livestock and coral shipping. Coral frag wholesale to other regional retailers. Digital marketing (paid social, email, content). Potential second location replicating the demonstrated playbook in another metro Atlanta submarket.

Reason for Selling:

retiring. Kindly ask the seller for more information.

Additional Details:

Documents:

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