The retired police officer said the goal of the business isn’t to make a lot of money, but to support a hobby in his retirement that he’s been interested in since he bought his first goldfish at 8 years old at the county fair.
“My primary goal is just to have healthy fish here at a decent price and I want to share my knowledge with anyone who wants it,” Ratay said.
The shop is on the first floor of one of the Front Street Gallery buildings, at 1001 E. Second St., Dayton through the B-C entrance, open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and he also has availability by appointment.
The room is filled with aquariums stacked along shelves, with everything from centimeter size baby fish to a parrot fish with an infection that he took in and is carefully helping back to health. As he walks around the small shop, the fish follow Ratay’s movements, sometimes pooling in a corner with their faces all pointed toward him when he pauses near a tank.
He said the shop specializes in the unusual, from a wide array of freshwater fish with emphasis on African, South American, and Central American cichlids, to hard to find loaches and catfish. While he mostly deals in freshwater fish, though he does have one brackish tank for fish found near where freshwater meets saltwater.
One of the rare fish in the shop that day was a silver arrowana, which are predators that can eventually grow four feet long and have a habit of leaping out of the water.
“That’s a well covered tank. They’ll leap out of the tank if there’s the smallest crack,” Ratay said, who said the fish would sell for $100.
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One of the tasks with an aquarium business is managing the breeding, since far more of the eggs and new fish will survive in tanks than in the wild. He highlighted a pair of Midas fish that he split into two separate tanks because of their prolific spawning things might get out of control if housed together.
“Because in nature, of 500 (babies), one might make it. But in a controlled setting 500 of them make it,” he said.
The venture wasn’t started to make money and Ratay said many of the tanks at the business were at one point in his home. He pointed to some Koi fish he got from someone whose family member died and needed to find a new home for their fish. It’s not the kind of deal he would make money on “but I got them a good home,” he said.
He said the shop has gotten busier over the four years since he started it. Some people are newcomers looking to get into the hobby and others come in from Kentucky or Indiana in pursuit of the interest.
“Sometimes they’re fish crazy like I am and they’ve got 30 or 40 tanks. Some people just have one tank they got for their kids for Christmas,” he said.
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