By Owen Sexton / owen@chronline.com
Aquarium Pro owner Jamie Lanier has steadily become a go-to resource for Lewis County aquarium owners, and the Centralia business has been doing it well. She is now preparing to expand the fresh and saltwater fish store.
Aside from Aquarium Pro offering a wide variety of fresh and saltwater fish, aquarium supplies and chemicals, along with live aquarium plants and coral frags, the business also offers pet-sitting and aquarium maintenance, among many other services.
Cats are now being fostered inside the business as well, aiding in the adoption efforts of Rochester’s Red Rose Animal Rescue.
The Chronicle visited Aquarium Pro on Friday, May 16, to talk to Lanier about her upcoming expansion plans along with how she ended up partnering with Red Rose Animal Rescue to help foster cats.
“We’re celebrating our three-year anniversary on July 23,” Lanier said. “… Hopefully, with the third-year anniversary of our grand opening, we can hold the grand opening for the expansion as well.”
For the expansion, Lanier has connected Aquarium Pro to an adjacent empty business suite. The business is located at 1739 Kresky Ave. in Centralia’s Fairway Shopping Center.
Along with expanding the business’s fish selection, the extra space will also allow Lanier to finally pursue a dream she had when she originally opened Aquarium Pro in 2022 — hosting “build-a-bowl” aquarium workshops.
“We’re gonna have a space where kids and adults can come in and take a class to work about freshwater or saltwater, and then we can build a fish bowl together with you,” Lanier said. “We’ll go through all the stuff and teach you about the nitrogen cycles, help people get familiar with the hobby.”
Education is a big part of what Lanier does, as she wants to ensure her customers know how to properly care for their new pets. She added a lot of customers have asked about aquarium workshops for children’s birthday parties.
Additionally, the business focuses on not just selling juvenile fish, but fully grown ones.
“We’re one of the few stores that try to make an example of having full grown species. There’s not a lot of stores that bother to do that between Portland and even up to Seattle,” Lanier said. “More often than not, you’ll find fish that get a foot long in less than a year put in the same tank as a fish that max out at 2 inches. You have to think about fish compatibility and make the shopping experience easy and understandable. So, having a full grown example to say, ‘Hey, I know you like this one little fish that’s super cute and personable, but just so you know, that’s him in a year.’”
As for how Lanier ended up fostering cats, Aquarium Pro’s success led to that, too. Prior to this year, Lanier was still running the business herself. Now she has two employees and one intern on her staff helping her.
One of those employees, Adriana Wyatt, also happens to be a Red Rose Animal Rescue volunteer.
“Adriana, she was a customer that shopped with me for a while, and she approached me with extra stuff because she’s a fish lover like me, and she was rescuing fish locally,” Lanier said.
Eventually, Wyatt applied to work at Aquarium Pro. Given Wyatt’s people skills and love for animals, Lanier gave her the job.
“She brought up that Red Rose was interested in finding places that would allow for them to have an indoor space to show some of the animals they have for adoption,” Lanier said.
Last January, Aquarium Pro worked with Red Rose Animal Rescue to have an adoption event for dogs and cats.
“We adopted out three dogs and two cats,” Lanier added.
After the adoption event, Lanier continued allowing Red Rose Animal Rescue to temporarily house foster cats inside the store.
“Since then, we’ve also (adopted out) like 12 foster cats,” Wyatt added.
Aquarium Pro’s current intern is The Evergreen State College student Charlie Ford, who is using Aquarium Pro to study the impact of chemical maintenance on coral growth in saltwater tanks, along with carrying out a saltwater fish breeding program involving Jack Dempsey cichlids and Cuban cichlids.
“It’s not a common pairing, so it’s been interesting to see how that hybridization should work,” Ford said.
Ford, already a computer science major, is studying at Evergreen to get a certificate in marine biology research.
While Lanier is planning a three-year anniversary celebration with the anniversary approaching on July 23, an exact date hasn’t been chosen.
That’s because Lanier is trying to get a celebrity guest to visit — Paul Cuffaro, a YouTube personality with 3.13 million followers who creates videos focusing on exotic pets.
“He is one of the channels that a lot of our locals, families and kids, watch this guy. We call him the biggest ‘FishTuber,’” Lanier said. “… I had a Facetime with him last week and we’ve exchanged a couple of conversations, and we have plans and hopes to get him to come out and do a meet-and-greet.”
Lanier added Cuffaro’s videos were also part of what inspired her to open Aquarium Pro.
“When he Facetimed me, I happened to be at the store, and I showed him the place, and he lost it and said, ‘I need to come out and see this place,’” said Lanier.
She’s also in contact with Cory McElroy, owner of the Aquarium Co Op fish store in Edmonds, who is also a famous “FishTuber,” about a possible visit to celebrate Aquarium Pro’s anniversary.
“(Cory) and Paul are some of the OGs for YouTube stuff. Cory’s more on the educational side of things and he has a physical fish store, whereas Paul is more of the influencer, content creator,” Lanier added.
She recently met McElroy in person at Aquarium Co Op’s own expansion celebration earlier this month.
Once Lanier settles on a date for the anniversary celebration or has visits from Cuffaro and McElroy confirmed, an announcement will be made on Aquarium Pro’s social media pages.
For updates on the upcoming anniversary and expansion celebrations, follow Aquarium Pro on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/aquariumpropnw or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/aquariumpropnw/.
Aquarium Pro is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. To learn more, visit https://www.myaquariumpro.com/.
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To suggest a business to be featured by The Chronicle, email owen@chronline.com.
