How LFS are preparing for shutdowns of corals supply.

[Javiv3]

LFS bread & butter are corals, if they shut down Australia from exporting corals, how are they preparing for this? Will they just fold to the online “giants” or will they try to grow their own stuff? Will it be too late if they haven’t already started? I would love to hear what everyone thinks about this.

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

LFS bread & butter are corals, if they shut down Australia from exporting corals, how are they preparing for this? Will they just fold to the online “giants” or will they try to grow their own stuff? Will it be too late if they haven’t already started? I would love to hear what everyone thinks about this.

Welcome to R2R!

I wish any of the LFS near me had corals as their 'bread and butter". If it wasn't for the local hobbyists, there would be little to be had near me except for shopping online. All our LFS (and most that I've been in) are primarily fish, and what corals they have are not great in quality or selection.

I think a ban on all coral exports would not shut the hobby down, but it would change it dramatically in terms of much higher pricing and much less species availability. A potential upside would be the opportunity for certain well-stocked hobbyists to make a transition to the commercial side. Higher prices due to demand would likely make turning a profit more realistic.

 

[doodledreads]

Luckily, some of my LFS are dedicating a lot of space and tanks for coral culture and grow out, and are doing a great job; but most LFS rely on fish/invert/goods sale.

Also, don't forget the fresh water and planted aquarium community, its as big as if not bigger than reefing community. LFS will probabbly increase their footprint that way if corals and sw fish imports decline.

 

[MTBake]

My lfs ditched half of their saltwater setups and replaced them with fresh water. I think this will be more common as more bans pop up.

 

[doodledreads]

Oh yeah, I've seen it happen too. One of my LFS had bare coral tanks for over a year now. They used to import mainly from Indo and didn't have any other suppliers until recently.

 

[Javiv3]

This will be a sad thing.....nothing like having a reef! Freshwater plants do not do it for me

My lfs ditched half of their saltwater setups and replaced them with fresh water. I think this will be more common as more bans pop up.

 

[MTBake]

This will be a sad thing.....nothing like having a reef! Freshwater plants do not do it for me

I agree.

To be honest, I've been loosing interest with the lack of new corals coming into lfs's. Mine has had the same stuff for months. They even started selling coral frags from their display tanks. Most colonies are pretty much decimated now. There's not much to choose from.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Welcome to R2R!

I wish any of the LFS near me had corals as their 'bread and butter". If it wasn't for the local hobbyists, there would be little to be had near me except for shopping online. All our LFS (and most that I've been in) are primarily fish, and what corals they have are not great in quality or selection.

I think a ban on all coral exports would not shut the hobby down, but it would change it dramatically in terms of much higher pricing and much less species availability. A potential upside would be the opportunity for certain well-stocked hobbyists to make a transition to the commercial side. Higher prices due to demand would likely make turning a profit more realistic.

My first reaction as well LOL. My LFS's bread and butter is maintenance accounts, then fish, then RODI/Saltwater, THEN corals!

 

[RichReef]

I don't know. It might be the hobbyists that save the world's coral reefs from chemical destruction.

 

[Bleigh]

My first reaction as well LOL. My LFS's bread and butter is maintenance accounts, then fish, then RODI/Saltwater, THEN corals!

I agree, I feel like maintenance makes up a large portion of most super successful LFS - probably not all, but seems to be a big thing.

 

[User1]

Welcome to R2R!

I wish any of the LFS near me had corals as their 'bread and butter". If it wasn't for the local hobbyists, there would be little to be had near me except for shopping online. All our LFS (and most that I've been in) are primarily fish, and what corals they have are not great in quality or selection.

I think a ban on all coral exports would not shut the hobby down, but it would change it dramatically in terms of much higher pricing and much less species availability. A potential upside would be the opportunity for certain well-stocked hobbyists to make a transition to the commercial side. Higher prices due to demand would likely make turning a profit more realistic.

It shouldn't affect the hobby at all. Most hobbyist throw away clippings. Aquaculture farms have plenty. If the hobby is affected it is because of greed. This hobby can almost be self supportive similar to growing crops for food. The only issue is the lag time for growth between clippings. Of course not all fish are captive bred so those prices would be expected to rise.

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

It shouldn't affect the hobby at all. Most hobbyist throw away clippings. Aquaculture farms have plenty. If the hobby is affected it is because of greed. This hobby can almost be self supportive similar to growing crops for food. The only issue is the lag time for growth between clippings. Of course not all fish are captive bred so those prices would be expected to rise.

I don't disagree that it can be self supportive, and that was why I mentioned there would be new commercial opportunities for hobbyists. While I don't have actual numbers to back this up, I do believe there is a tremendous amount of imports helping drive many commercial retailers of coral currently. If that pipeline were to suddenly switch off, I believe there would be a giant sucking sound in supply and prices would naturally go up for available stock. Keep in mind that there are some corals we just can't propagate well or at all.

Alternatively if the spigot was shut off, we are limited to whatever varieties we currently have to propagate (other than morphs that may occur in captivity). We get excited about the newest acro or zoa. Once everyone has a green slimer it becomes hard to sell them profitably anymore.

One last thing to speculate: There are a lot of people that see our hobby as bad and cruel to animals and would love nothing more than to prevent you from having Nemo in a glass jail rather than swimming peacefully and happily in his/her natural environment. The assumption that we will forever be able to freely keep, propagate, trade and sell corals is not a given anymore. It's already happening to Facebook groups.

 

[vetteguy53081]

We already had a blow to the industry and higher pricing due to actions from Indonesia and Bali. This would be a huge impact on the overall industry, stores, wholesalers, trade shows and mainly future reefers in the hobby.

 

[Angryminer_07]

My first reaction as well LOL. My LFS's bread and butter is maintenance accounts, then fish, then RODI/Saltwater, THEN corals!

My lfs switched to maintanence only......

 

[Todd Jacobs]

As a former owner of 2 LFS in Brklyn NY last one closed after Super Storm Sandy wrll both shops were mainly salt first one was right before on line was so big so we did great unfortunately rents in Brklyn were 5000and up this was 15 years ago last store Sandy wiped me out and online was getting very hard to keep up with to answer ur question i would start fraging now if I still had a shop but there are many other countries like Vietnam Kupang Tonga Kenya and many others that have some amazing corals obviously Aussie is tops but also Middle east corals are pretty nice the worlds Oceans are huge so I dont think itll be a shortage but as a business man I would frag all Aussie corals because the ones that do will be looking for big $$$$$$ alot more then now

 

[JaimeAdams]

Tag

 

[AdamNC]

My LFS has just started an 8,000 frag plug system and are now actively propagating as much as then can. They are even asking for some more rare corals to be brought in to be sold in the event it does happen.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

One local fish store i go too sells fresh and salt water... they sell fish not just corals... and this store also gets most of its money from fish tank cleaning from clients and stuff... they just have thr store to have the store.. even though it is a really nice local fish store.

Also 80% of their corals are from locals who frag corals from their tanks and bring them in for store credit.. that or from tank teardowns they did.


Another local store i like alot has thsir own grow out display tanks and they frag from those tanks.

 

[VR28man]

is there some Aussie ban afoot? we can always speculate, but if there’s no serious legislation i wouldn’t worry about it.

in the US, there is the occasional petition to list various corals or (two years ago) giant clams as endangered, effectively banning them. That’s a real thing to worry about if you want to worry, and something US reefers can very easily effect.

 

[Katrina71]

Raising prices already