is it really possible to be ethical in the fish business

[ml708]

Again, I totally disagree with you on the cost of AC fish vs. Wild.

The clownfish market is a prime example. The cost to purchase a box lot of plain ORA Ocellaris is far less than a box lot of wild caught. Big name pet stores (PetCo) no longer bring in anything but ORA clowns. The quanitity and quality of those fish are far superior to wild sources. Plus the store price reflects that they are plentiful.

The only limiting factor for AC fish is the variety. ORA is doing an amazing job of bringing new species of highly desired ornamental fish into the AC market.

And again, if a local clownfish breeder wanted to be a constant supply of fish, the LFS would rip them off...

clowns are one of those fish which have been bred for quite awhile, and can be bred in a steady supply. there are even home breeders and a high school in japan that breeds clownfish so yes, it can be done.

If its indeed the case that ORA clowns are cheaper than wild caught, that would be a fantastic thing. I can't comment on this as I am not familiar with the US market.

In indonesia and the philippines, there are some AC facilities but mainly they are selling wild caught fish. I would love to see them convert more towards AC and attempt breeding (they would be able to try given the variety of ornamental species locally available). If it is indeed more profitable I don't see why they haven't started en masse.

Its still a fact that most fish we see in aquariums are wild caught.

 

[billsreef]

The clownfish market is a prime example. The cost to purchase a box lot of plain ORA Ocellaris is far less than a box lot of wild caught.

I"ll admit it's been a few years since I got completely out of the trade and ordered from ORA, but the price of ORA Ocellaris was double that of wild caught Ocellaris before shipping. ORA shipping at the time was FedEx overnight, vs. air freight from the supplier I used for wild caught fish and inverts....and FedEx overnight was and still is considerably more expensive than air freight.

BTW, due to minimum orders and the need for variety, it often isn't in the LFS interest to be buying much stock from hobbyist. If your not buying enough bread and butter clownfish from ORA, your not getting to buy the other goodies...unless they have loosened up on their minimums and requirements to buy X $ worth of clowns before you can order the goodies like corals and clams.

 

[Eric Boerner]

I've seen some small coral AC businesses in LA that are on par with ORA's size and output, many surpass ORA with coral variety. They struggle to get their product into the largest LFS reefing market in the world. Not because their product has problems, it's because they're not set up as a wholesale distributor. They can't make that leap until they have the market stream already established with LFS'. That cannot happen, because the LFS in the area are more than willing to take AC frags for pennies to the dollar or frag wild colonies themselves. It's a viscous short-sighted cycle that LFS' continue to propagate.

...many exotic frags are propagated via AC. This is a step in the right direction and indeed many stores which sell corals engage in this themselves as it does not require much space to grow SPS frags for example...

Unfortunately, this is also an unethical practice that many LFS' continue to employ. They order their box allotment of coral from Fiji/Bali/Australia. It comes in with 12 run-of-the mill colonies, and 6 super sweet colonies. Those super sweet colonies get hacked up into frags, labeled with a designer name, then tacked on with "Aquacultured Frag". The LFS makes a 500% profit on that one colony, effectively paying for the entire box allotment. The 12 run-of-the-mill colonies may die off, sit on shelves for months, or wind up as rubble rock. We the consumer feel like were buying a sustainable sourced frag, when in reality were allowing more colonies to be ripped from the wild without realizing it.

I used to call out LFS' in LA that did this, but the practice is chronic with every retail outlet on the net doing it. I've walked in on one of the largest frag distributors cutting up a wild aussie SPS. I asked why they wouldn't sell it as a colony. The answer: "I'd never be able to sell it for $1,200 as a whole colony. If I frag it 24 times, I can sell each frag for $60 and people will buy them". In my head I already know that a single box lot of 18 coral from Australia is $1,400 delivered to your door. Just that single colony is a 100% profit from the box cost. There is another 17 colonies worth of frags in there too.

Why on earth would an LFS NOT hack and sell? The profits are out of this world bringing in wild colonies.

We were developing guidelines about 10 years ago to present to MACNA on certifying AC frags that LFS sold. An unbiased, non-profit organisation would be the certifying body if an LFS wanted to carry certified sustainable sourced frags. I personally got a massive amount of flack over that, stating that it would be a vehicle to make money from LFS' and increase the costs of corals. That it would effectively force LFS' into buying more wild colonies. IE. it was never embraced, because it would tear into their profit.

 

[ml708]

I've seen some small coral AC businesses in LA that are on par with ORA's size and output, many surpass ORA with coral variety. They struggle to get their product into the largest LFS reefing market in the world. Not because their product has problems, it's because they're not set up as a wholesale distributor. They can't make that leap until they have the market stream already established with LFS'. That cannot happen, because the LFS in the area are more than willing to take AC frags for pennies to the dollar or frag wild colonies themselves. It's a viscous short-sighted cycle that LFS' continue to propagate.



Unfortunately, this is also an unethical practice that many LFS' continue to employ. They order their box allotment of coral from Fiji/Bali/Australia. It comes in with 12 run-of-the mill colonies, and 6 super sweet colonies. Those super sweet colonies get hacked up into frags, labeled with a designer name, then tacked on with "Aquacultured Frag". The LFS makes a 500% profit on that one colony, effectively paying for the entire box allotment. The 12 run-of-the-mill colonies may die off, sit on shelves for months, or wind up as rubble rock. We the consumer feel like were buying a sustainable sourced frag, when in reality were allowing more colonies to be ripped from the wild without realizing it.

I used to call out LFS' in LA that did this, but the practice is chronic with every retail outlet on the net doing it. I've walked in on one of the largest frag distributors cutting up a wild aussie SPS. I asked why they wouldn't sell it as a colony. The answer: "I'd never be able to sell it for $1,200 as a whole colony. If I frag it 24 times, I can sell each frag for $60 and people will buy them". In my head I already know that a single box lot of 18 coral from Australia is $1,400 delivered to your door. Just that single colony is a 100% profit from the box cost. There is another 17 colonies worth of frags in there too.

Why on earth would an LFS NOT hack and sell? The profits are out of this world bringing in wild colonies.

We were developing guidelines about 10 years ago to present to MACNA on certifying AC frags that LFS sold. An unbiased, non-profit organisation would be the certifying body if an LFS wanted to carry certified sustainable sourced frags. I personally got a massive amount of flack over that, stating that it would be a vehicle to make money from LFS' and increase the costs of corals. That it would effectively force LFS' into buying more wild colonies. IE. it was never embraced, because it would tear into their profit.

I agree with you on every point, but unless a critical mass is reached in terms of supply, the big names will never get the small cultured frags (not to mention the much cheaper cost of fragging them themselves). Its kind of like a dog chasing its own tail. Getting corals to be certified will also add to their cost for sure. Short of outright banning the sale of wild corals and only allowing the sale of truly aquacultured corals, I don't see a solution to this very unfortunate problem.

I used to think that captive bred or aquacultured livestock would be all the rage, but honestly got very disappointed with the reception. People just seem to not bother and just pay for whatever is cheapest. Some suppliers where I'm at have actually given up selling them, or drastically cut down on their range. It took me ages to even convince them to bring in certain aquacultured fish.

 

[billsreef]

It's always interesting to look at statistics of who's importing wild colonies, and the names at the top of the list are well known "aquacultured" coral suppliers.