Do you guys import corals?

[HM3105]

Evening all,

I was just wondering if y'all do much importing? I was thinking this might be interesting for a club to do in a "group buy" format. I've been doing some searching trying to understand what all is involved for permitting and it doesn't seem too difficult. I was hoping someone who has actually done it could provide some feedback, maybe even discuss the process a little bit.

Thank you

 

[organism]

It's harder than you think to do on your own, gotta go through the department of fish and wildlife to get the permits...

 

[HM3105]

It's harder than you think to do on your own, gotta go through the department of fish and wildlife to get the permits...

That's what I found Googling this, but it seemed like it was just one permit? I sent them a message and they basically replied with a link to CITEs. Super helpful.

 

[organism]

It's a lot of paperwork, not just one permit since basically you need to clear each coral you're bringing in. Acros, softies, euphyllia, everything has to be accounted for and then FWS will check them at the airport where you'll need to be present and sometimes they'll confiscate stuff just because they didn't ID it properly. The other thing is no collection station is going to send you two boxes, it's more like 20-30 big boxes of corals.

Direct importing is for the bigger places, I worked with it at a wholesaler for a few years and it's not easy. We had one lady whose job it was just to talk to FWS and get all the paperwork done just for exports, and two others who covered it only for imports. I'd recommend getting corals some other way than direct importing.

Basically think of the DMV, then think of dealing with them for 60ish hours and still get your stuff confiscated because the person looking at it doesn't know corals and won't believe you because they don't have to.