| The mission of The Marine Scene is to bring the
greater DC Metropolitan area, and beyond, the highest quality
selection of: Marine fish, Live corals, and Invertebrates available
anywhere. We continually strive to expand the educational resources
and knowledge of our customers and employees. We are firm believers
in the importance of being "ahead of the game" when
it comes to understanding and practicing the latest technology
and scientific discoveries that contribute to the successful management
of salt water aquariums.
We carry out these practices for our clients in our 2,200 square
foot store, located at 293 Sunset Park Drive in Herndon, VA.
The Marine Scene store encompasses "state of the art"
livestock holding systems, comprising of approximately 3,500
gallons of water in four separate systems. All systems are running
on large protein skimmers, with additional wet-dry filtration,
chemical filtration and UV sterilization for our "fish-holding"
systems. Approximately 1,700 gallons are is dedicated to living
corals and invertebrates. This makes our store the proud owner
of the largest "Invert/Coral only" system in all of
Northern Virginia! In addition to our fish and coral tanks,
we also have two large live rock holding vats where we cure
and display approximately 800 lbs. of Fiji and Tonga isle live
rock. Our in house water purification system which consists
of a .5 micron pre -filter, a large commercial carbon filter,
reverse osmosis membrane (under 150 psi pressure) followed by
three deionization stages produces 750 gallons of ultra pure
water per day. This is the water we use and sell in our facility.
In addition to our top quality facility, The Marine Scene keeps
with it's commitment to good health and humane treatment of
all live stock in a variety of ways. For example, we've established
a true quarantine system where each batch of new fishes are
kept separately for 6 days for observation before being moved
to the main selling area where they may be held for an additional
3 days. During this time our staff carefully examines each fish
for good health and feeding habits. If a fish does not demonstrate
to us that he is prepared to be successfully transferred to
your home aquarium, we will NOT recommend him for sale. In turn,
our highly trained staff will continue to work with the fish
in order to further his domestication (feeding habits), and/or
treatment for illness.
Of course it is always better to correct certain problems (such
as bad health) at the source. Bringing us to another example
of our commitment to top quality livestock; The Marine Scene
refuses to purchase livestock from any distributor that practices
inhumane catching techniques (such as Cyanide poisoning). Each
livestock distributor The Marine Scene orders from is carefully
"hand picked" for their own commitments to high quality
facilities, well trained staff, and exceptional selection of
healthy livestock. We also DO NOT believe in selling livestock
that we have found does not do well in captivity (i.e. we will
not intentionally sell a fish that looks good but is KNOWN to
not survive in captivity.)
It is these standards of quality and high levels of education
that set our organization apart from the rest. Our founders,
Thomas & Tina White, set out in 1996 with the philosophy
that someday we, The Marine Scene, could be "The best marine
store in the United States", And we will continue to work
diligently towards that goal so that someday Thomas & Tina’s
philosophy becomes a reality!
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