There are a few main factors to why we provide leasing options to our customers. All of them revolve around the belief that we, as a company, should not only care for the animals in our customers aquariums, but to also help protect the damaged reefs where our animals come from.

Here’s how leasing one of our aquarium systems help the environment:

1 – We only use aquacultured and ethically collected livestock
2 – We only use high quality equipment that’s been tested for durability and reliability
3 – Intensive service schedule to minimize livestock loss
4 – Donate our time and money to conservation and restoration efforts around the globe

The Animals
Unlike many stores and service providers, our goal is not to just sell you an animal. Our goal is to make sure that the animals in your aquarium are healthy, beautiful, and happy. So we actually limit what we put in our lease systems. Sensitive fish that have a poor track records of survival and stress easily are OUT. Our corals come from aquaculture facilities and in some cases from other hobbyists. Due to stress and aggression issues we only put tangs into our 240g lease models. We select livestock for our lease tanks that have some type of contributory aspect. For example, shrimps that eat parasites and fish that eat pest anemones. This approach has two positive benefits; A) It limits what is collected from the wild and B) It creates a symbiotic relationship between many of the animals in our reef tanks and limits the amount of issue that might pop up like death due to infections and aggression.

The Equipment
Over the years, we’ve tried out a vast variety of pumps, chillers, lighting systems, and other aquarium gear. And after testing a lot of equipment in real world situations, we’ve developed a strict set of criteria that we use to evaluate what we use in our leases. Our equipment is all tested for durability, reliability, electrical consumption, and noise. Every piece of equipment is designed to be physically tough and to last for decades instead of a year or two. Equipment that fails kills animals and we hate that and so we don’t put cheap ass crap into our aquariums for that reason alone.

The Schedule
All our lease options come with a weekly service schedule. We will be out to service the aquarium every single week. This frequent service schedule ensures that any issues that might pop up with the animals or the equipment are addressed and fixed quickly before they cause any deaths in the system.

The Altruism
The whole point of why we started leasing aquariums is that it’s a better and more sustainable way of doing business. Our company’s future rests on whether our oceans reefs are still around in 50 years. Limiting what we pull out of the ocean and ensuring that our livestock is the healthiest it can be is only the first part. We also have to give back and help restore what’s already been lost. So we put our money where our mouth is and donate our time and 5%-20% of our profits to charities, schools, and non-profits that are working to restore and conserve damaged reefs, marshes, estuaries, and other aquatic habitats. And the more systems we lease, the more we can contribute.

-Serge
-Reef Playground Inc CEO