Glynn Galloway steps into the basement of a Fox Chapel home, where a soft blue glow spills from a 300-gallon in-wall reef tank built between a recreation room and a former wine cellar.
The 48-year-old aquarium technician turned the room behind the tank into a pump room filled with humming equipment and natural biofilters.
Galloway visits between four to five clients a day with his Pittsburgh-based business Fishy Things.
He maintains freshwater and saltwater aquariums that range from small 20-gallon home setups to elaborate 500-gallon installations. Depending on a customer’s budget, he provides weekly, biweekly or monthly maintenance.
“I love the smell of fish rooms,” Galloway said. “I love the bubbles, I love the look, I love the colorful gravel, I loved it all. That’s kind of how it all started.”
Galloway services 69-year-old Marlon Fedele’s home tank once a month. They’ve been working together off and on for the past seven years. Fedele’s first build was a tall 75-gallon tank. Later, he switched to a wide 100-gallon tank after a power outage killed everything in the 75-gallon tank while he was away on a trip.
“He was recommended to me by someone a long time ago,” Fedele said. “Sometimes if I have a problem, if the fish get sick or whatever, he’ll stop by on his own. ‘Keep up with this medication, or change the medication.’ He’s just outstanding. I’ve never seen anybody as knowledged as him on fish tanks. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with my tank with all the fish and all the corals in it, He really knows the business.”
Before Fedele considers buying anything new for his tank, he calls Galloway. He said that keeping fish is his hobby and watching the tank calms him down.
“There’s a lot of people who just come to look at my tank, friends or relatives,” he said. “They’ll look at my tank for 30 or 40 minutes, the fish and the type of corals that are in the tank.”
Galloway drives a Toyota Highlander, dubbed the “Squid Car,” with its vinyl wrap detailing green bubbles and cartoon squids. As a traveling technician, it’s his physical storefront.
“I hate plain things,” Galloway said. “I always have to have fun with what I’m doing. Hopefully, my reefs show it.”
Yet, the car vinyl isn’t just for decoration, it also has a purpose. It’s for advertisement and protection, to let others know in the neighborhood that he’s working and not breaking into their neighbor’s homes.
“I feared for my life at one point like 10 years into the business,” he said. “I was at a house and (the home owners) weren’t there, but I was out there cleaning a tank and a neighbor came out with a gun. Back then, I didn’t have any signage on my cars. After that, I knew that I needed to do something.”
Today, his license plate says “FISHBOY,” and the only advertising he pays for is on the back windshield of his car, which he replaces three times a year. Most of his clients find him this way or by word of mouth.
Mike Murphy, 43, vice president of the Sampson Morris Group, said he found Fishy Things through a recommendation at Elmer’s Aquarium in Monroeville. It’s his 20th year working at the business, which has a fish tank in the office. This is the second time the tank needed to be replaced. So Murphy commissioned Galloway to design a new saltwater reef for the office.
“He built the thing from scratch and did a really nice job,” Murphy said. “The owners in the company were fly fishermen. That’s how the whole idea started.”
The office’s first tank was stocked with trout that the owners caught themselves. Once it was installed, Murphy said that everyone in the office fell in love with it, and it raised morale. So as the tank evolved, the group transitioned to a salt-water set up.
Murphy said it’s his job to take care of the tank between services, in addition to managing the real estate development and property management firm.
“The fish tank became one of my projects,” Murphy said. “I had no experience (in the hobby) prior to work in the Sampson Morris Group, and it’s been pretty cool.”
Douglas Trumpower, 62, said Galloway is in Elmer’s Aquarium just about every morning to stock up on supplies. He’s a manager there and said Galloway is one of three or four other traveling technicians who buy from them.
“What a cool service to offer to people who want a fish tank who don’t want to or can’t care for it,” Trumpower said.
While one of his jobs is to buy the merchandise for the store, he is one of few who work there who isn’t into the hobby.
“I don’t dislike fish, but they’re not my thing,” he said. “I really like the whole vibe of what’s offered in this industry. I like the atmosphere of the store, love how the owners run the store. It’s the most fun job that I’ve ever had.”
This year marks the 25th year for Fishy Things. Today, Galloway has 83 clients, and some own more than one tank.
Galloway didn’t always think he would end up as a fish tank designer and technician.
He first moved to Pennsylvania to attend the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport, studying forest technology. But two years in, he realized he didn’t want to work at a factory clearing wood.
So he dropped out and went to work at Petland.
“I knew it was a fine and easy job. I didn’t want to do anything else. I was confused to do anything else,” he said.
He worked in the fish section at The Waterworks and Monroeville locations, learning what he could about maintaining and designing fish tanks. Eventually, he realized he could make extra money by traveling to clients on the side.
He said his interest and love for fish goes back to when he was a 12-year-old paper boy in South Carolina. He was so infatuated with the water that he saved up $300 to buy a jon boat for himself. Today, it’s still in his Pittsburgh backyard.
“When I wasn’t on the water, I was fishing on land. When I wasn’t fishing on land, I would go and hang out at a pet shop — a mom-and-pop shop, a really cool little place,” Galloway said.
He used to follow around the owner, who one day gave Galloway an algae pad to sit and clean tanks and then his own fish to take home.
He learned a lot about the trade through his work at pet shops and also from classes he has taken, aquarium meetings and big aquarium shows that he attends every year.
His only regret, he said, is not making more money at first.
His base price starts at $175 per service, a big shift from the $35 jobs he took on 25 years ago. For larger tanks, it can go to $275 and above per service. Supplies are an additional cost.
“I will always be the guy who sits there and says, ‘Look, if you can’t do it right, then you’re not going to be working with me,’ ” Galloway said. “I won’t put the animals in jeopardy because the budget’s not there.”
Galloway, the sole employee of Fishy Things of Pittsburgh, can be reached through his business’ Facebook page.