Questions and answers
The questions care firms ask, answered plainly.
First, the trade’s own questions — how often a commercial aquarium is serviced, what a maintenance contract covers, what a living wall’s upkeep involves, renting a display or selling it. Then what Frescalo records for your clients’ systems, what it never claims, and what it costs.
Coming soonWaitlist open
Claim early accessThe trade’s questions
Aquariums and maintenance contracts
How often should a commercial aquarium be serviced?
Most commercial aquariums are serviced weekly to monthly, depending on the system’s size, how heavily it is stocked and what lives in it. A saltwater display with corals usually needs closer visits than a freshwater display with a few fish, and the interval is the care company’s call, system by system. In Frescalo, each system carries its own rhythm on the Visit Calendar.
What does an aquarium maintenance contract usually cover?
How often the visits come, what each visit includes and the price. A visit typically covers a partial water change, the glass, filter media changed or rinsed, the equipment checked and the water tested; what is billed on top — new fish, corals or invertebrates, or a call-out between visits — is usually set out too. Frescalo keeps the contract as each client’s Stewardship Plan and invoices it monthly.
The Stewardship PlanA plan and a leased display, billed monthly
Is it better for a business to rent an aquarium or buy one?
Both are common. With a lease, the care company supplies, installs and maintains the display for a monthly fee and keeps ownership of it; with a sale, the client owns the display and usually signs a separate maintenance contract. Which suits depends on the client’s budget and how long they mean to keep it.
How are leased aquariums billed?
Usually as one monthly invoice for the term of the agreement, covering the display, its equipment and the service visits. In Frescalo, a leased display is a system on the register like any other, with its own recurring monthly invoice.
How is a new aquarium looked after in its first weeks?
More closely. While a new system cycles, ammonia and nitrite are tested every few days, and fish are added gradually once both read zero; there is no fixed number of weeks. In Frescalo, a new system can carry closer visits on the Visit Calendar until you sign it off into its regular rhythm.
The trade’s questions
Living walls
What does living wall maintenance involve?
Two kinds of work. The planting, checked zone by zone for growth, pests and any dry or failing patch; and the water system behind it — the irrigation runs and their flow, drippers and filters, the reservoir and its nutrient dosing, and the drainage at the base.
How often does a living wall need servicing?
Fortnightly to monthly is common for an indoor wall, with irrigation run times and dosing reviewed as the seasons change. The interval depends on the system and its planting, and it is the care company’s to set.
What usually goes wrong first with a living wall’s irrigation?
A blocked dripper or filter, a reservoir left to run low, or a pump or controller fault. That is why irrigation is checked at every visit, and why a dry zone is traced back along its line before plants are replaced.
Who looks after the plants, and who looks after the water system?
Often one firm does both; sometimes a plant specialist keeps the planting while an aquatic firm keeps the water system. Frescalo records the wall as one system with its zones, so the visits, the readings and the photos sit on the same record whoever does the work.
The trade’s questions
Koi and ornamental ponds
How often should a koi pond be serviced?
Many pond firms visit monthly, more often in spring and autumn or when the water calls for it, and the work changes through the year: the spring start-up, feeding that follows the water temperature, leaf netting in autumn and the winter shutdown.
Can a koi pond sit on the same record as the aquariums?
Frescalo is built to hold a koi or ornamental fish pond as one more system on the register, with its pump, filter and UV, its fish and its water chemistry, and its seasonal visits on the Visit Calendar.
About Frescalo
The record and the reports
What should a service visit record show?
What was done, measured and seen: the water change, the glass, the filter media and equipment checked, the readings, the fish, corals and invertebrates counted and looked over, any dosing or feeding note, and photos — with who did the work and when. In Frescalo each visit is logged that way, as an aquarium husbandry record.
What is a target range, and who sets it?
It is the band each reading should sit in for that system, and in Frescalo you set it, system by system. A reading outside it is flagged when it is entered at the visit; Frescalo never prints an “ideal” range of its own.
Does Frescalo watch the tanks or warn me when something changes?
No. Frescalo has no probes, controllers or live readings: every reading is one your team takes at the visit, set against your range the moment it is entered. Anything that happens between visits reaches the record when your client or your team reports it.
How are fish, coral and plant health recorded?
As observations at each visit: counts, notes and photos for the fish, corals and invertebrates, and on a living wall the planting zone by zone — written as what was seen, never as a diagnosis.
What counts as an incident, and how is it closed?
Any non-routine work on a system — a pump that stops, a leak, a loss — recorded from the moment it is reported, through what was done, to the visit that closes it. Everything else on the record is marked routine or attention needed.
Can one record cover an aquarium and a living wall in the same building?
Yes. Frescalo is built to keep every system at a property on one register — a saltwater display, a planted freshwater display and a living wall side by side — so one report can cover them all, and the history stays when your client’s contact changes.
What should a client report show?
The period’s visits, the readings against the ranges you set, notes on the fish, corals, invertebrates and planting, any incident and how it closed, the work done, photos and the next visits — written so a general manager can read it in a few minutes. In Frescalo it is the Stewardship Report.
Does the report go to my client automatically?
No. A Stewardship Report only leaves when you send it — because the client asked, because you chose to, or on a timetable you’ve given it — carrying your company’s name, attached to an email as a PDF or shared as a link. Each finished job keeps its own Work Record too, which stays on file unless the client asks for it or you choose to share it.
Does Frescalo guarantee the health of the fish, corals or plants?
No. Living systems carry inherent biological risk; Frescalo documents care - it does not guarantee outcomes. What it keeps is the record of what your team checked, measured, changed and reported at each visit.
About Frescalo
Pricing and launch
What does Frescalo cost?
Frescalo comes in three plans — The Specialist for one aquarist, The Operation for a team of up to five, The Portfolio for up to eight — billed in your own country’s currency, monthly or yearly for roughly 20% less.
Is there a free trial, and do I need a card?
Yes, from launch: two weeks of The Operation for a team of up to five, 750 AI interactions included and no card asked for. Taking live payments starts once you upgrade.
Can my clients pay invoices online by card?
Frescalo is built to take card payments online at launch, beside the payment methods your country uses; a deposit on a proposal is optional, set per job.
Can I use Frescalo today?
Not yet — Frescalo isn’t open, so there’s nothing to pay. Claim early access and we’ll tell you the day the doors open.
Frescalo keeps the record of what your team checked, measured, changed and reported at each visit, against the ranges you set. Living systems carry inherent biological risk; Frescalo documents care - it does not guarantee outcomes.
Founding access
Ask the rest when Frescalo opens.
Leave your name and work email to claim founding access, confirm the address, and you’ll hear the day Frescalo opens. Nothing else arrives before you confirm.
Launching with a 14-day free trial. No card needed.
Coming soonWaitlist open
Claim early access