How LFS are preparing for shutdowns of corals supply.

[NeverlosT]

honestly, if your local LFS is struggling that badly, they aren't trying hard enough or are poor businesspeople. There are still plenty of importers bringing in plenty of good stuff, despite the indo ban.

That being said, any shop that isn't supporting captive raised fish (by selling them) and has or supports aquaculture institutions or operations has their head in a hole and needs to wake up.

The more that we can show that we are a science, a force for good, and not just a bunch of goofs killing everything in our tanks and feverishly drag-netting the seas for more, the better.

WWC is doubling down, Tidal Gardens is doubling down, Battlecorals, on and on, things are moving in the right direction. We just need to support that movement.

The nice thing is that in the case of SPS the decision is obvious since when you buy aquacultured stuff from known stock it lasts and looks great, when you buy wild, it lives 1/2 of the time and stays looking good 1/8 of the time. So the incentive is clear.

 

[Snookin]

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.

This is a question that successful business owners answered years ago. Aquaculture was the answer 10yrs ago. Others that didn’t adapt will probably die off. Small LFS that sell the same garbage livestock and dry goods at a premium will not exist in 10yrs

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

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.

Your assumption that corals are the bread and butter of an LFS is incorrect. It is fish. If the shop owner is smart and has a good market, then their B&B is selling professional maintenance and installs. Betta fish and betta accessories sell better than corals. That's from a guy who worked at and managed a few different LFS over the years, also run aquatics at a high volume petco.
So what are the LFS going to do about coral bans? The good ones will adapt, the bad ones will go under. They'll source corals from other locales that are allowing export and ramp up their aquaculture and mariculture games. The prices will continue to increase and the corals will get smaller. It's really poopy for us as reefers. The Indo ban and Fiji (walt smith) were catastrophic for our hobby.

 

[suta4242]

It was also a very contentious issue when collection was first allowed in qld and export has seen license holders maximise collection too.

is there some Aussie ban afoot?

Not yet but my guess is when it happens it will be pretty quick. TBH am surprised wild collection is still allowed given widespread coral bleaching in qld. Would be very easy to politicise this and the govt could then ban it.

 

[Snookin]

Your assumption that corals are the bread and butter of an LFS is incorrect. It is fish. If the shop owner is smart and has a good market, then their B&B is selling professional maintenance and installs. Betta fish and betta accessories sell better than corals. That's from a guy who worked at and managed a few different LFS over the years, also run aquatics at a high volume petco.
So what are the LFS going to do about coral bans? The good ones will adapt, the bad ones will go under. They'll source corals from other locales that are allowing export and ramp up their aquaculture and mariculture games. The prices will continue to increase and the corals will get smaller. It's really poopy for us as reefers. The Indo ban and Fiji (walt smith) were catastrophic for our hobby.

I don’t think the bans were “catastrophic”. At least not in the US. My life hasn’t changed and the places I buy from haven’t created catastrophic reverberations in my life. It may suck for Fiji and I understand that but it wasn’t catastrophic for the hobby as a whole as you insinuated.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

It's hard to know, but based on a lot of reading, it would appear to me that Australia tends to take a middle-of-the-road approach to natural resource exploitation. Perhaps some of the reason for that is that they never had a "wild west" period in marine resources where cyanide fishing and over-harvesting caused local reef ecosystem collapse.

At any rate, here's a couple of relevant articles on the topic if anyone's interested:

Discussion of Indo ban on LFS & the industry.

Fiji rock/coral Export Ban.

 

[Javiv3]

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

Remember you can only have so many fish in a tank, we tend to pack our tanks with corals and they are $$$$ they don’t make as much on fish as they do on corals. They will not survive on selling fish alone. As far as maintenance if they are not setting up new reef tanks they will not survive either, it is a trickle down effect . Water/ rodi is cheap they are not making $$ on that lol

 

[Javiv3]

Agreed!

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.

 

[Javiv3]

Yes

honestly, if your local LFS is struggling that badly, they aren't trying hard enough or are poor businesspeople. There are still plenty of importers bringing in plenty of good stuff, despite the indo ban.

That being said, any shop that isn't supporting captive raised fish (by selling them) and has or supports aquaculture institutions or operations has their head in a hole and needs to wake up.

The more that we can show that we are a science, a force for good, and not just a bunch of goofs killing everything in our tanks and feverishly drag-netting the seas for more, the better.

WWC is doubling down, Tidal Gardens is doubling down, Battlecorals, on and on, things are moving in the right direction. We just need to support that movement.

The nice thing is that in the case of SPS the decision is obvious since when you buy aquacultured stuff from known stock it lasts and looks great, when you buy wild, it lives 1/2 of the time and stays looking good 1/8 of the time. So the incentive is clear.

but if the LFS does not double down they will not survive , that is the point I’m trying to make, if no imports are coming in than what? They need their own supply.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Yes

but if the LFS does not double down they will not survive , that is the point I’m trying to make, if no imports are coming in than what? They need their own supply.

As a former full line pet store owner, here they have to be Proactive and NOT reactive and prepare in advance for supply whether it be local or wholesalers and structure their stores to store and captivate any coral they have on hand.
I Fear the price of an Elegance coral when that time comes !!

 

[JaimeAdams]

@kevinl @ReefQueen

 

[hart24601]

I would miss a lot of the LPS in the hobby since most of those are collected, but honestly I don't get too excited over new corals entering the hobby and would be perfectly happy to have a tank of ORA or WWC or battlecoral or any other vendor aquacultured coral. While they can get dismissed as common, mature colonies of those corals are still stunning and always will be to me.

 

[Coastie Reefer]

Remember you can only have so many fish in a tank, we tend to pack our tanks with corals and they are $$$$ they don’t make as much on fish as they do on corals. They will not survive on selling fish alone. As far as maintenance if they are not setting up new reef tanks they will not survive either, it is a trickle down effect . Water/ rodi is cheap they are not making $$ on that lol

Frankly they’ve been in business for 20+ years and they make hand over fist in fish compared to coral. Also when you have accounts for Fortune 500 CEOs and a ton of doctors you don’t have to rely on a constant influx of new accounts. There’s also a limit to the amount of accounts a single business can accommodate. As for water they run a half off water sale on salt and RODI every week, they don’t make money off that but it brings traffic to the store and a lot of people walk out with more than just water, great marketing in my opinion.

 

[ZoWhat]

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.

The Market is changing. I worked for a Coral Shop part time for 3 yrs. It closed down bc we didn't have an online presence.

Look at R2R Live Sale Events...... Look at how WILDLY popular they are

That's where the Market is going.... pay for a shipping module and then buying 5-10 corals on sale.

Vendors like WWC are market leaders.... having a small store front with a much much larger warehouse style grow out facility where 90% of their sakes are ONLINE.

Many LFS owners are in their 50s and 60s and don't understand how to market online. They are use to foot traffic....and that is their demise relying on foot traffic.

In the past 3 yrs I've bought everything online. mostly from WWC and Cherry Coral who 1000% have their online marketing act together



.

 

[Javiv3]

Frankly they’ve been in business for 20+ years and they make hand over fist in fish compared to coral. Also when you have accounts for Fortune 500 CEOs and a ton of doctors you don’t have to rely on a constant influx of new accounts. There’s also a limit to the amount of accounts a single business can accommodate. As for water they run a half off water sale on salt and RODI every week, they don’t make money off that but it brings traffic to the store and a lot of people walk out with more than just water, great marketing in my opinion.

True! They want to get people in the door, that is smart.

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

I don’t think the bans were “catastrophic”. At least not in the US. My life hasn’t changed and the places I buy from haven’t created catastrophic reverberations in my life. It may suck for Fiji and I understand that but it wasn’t catastrophic for the hobby as a whole as you insinuated.

Catastrophic may be a bit overly dramatic, but it's definitely the worst thing to happen to the hobby in it's existence. As a consumer, sure maybe you haven't had any major impact to your hobby, especially if you've always only bought small aquacultured frags. But for people in the aquarium business, especially wholesalers, it's very bad. A large percentage of the wholesaler I worked for sales were coral colonies from Indo and Fiji. That is just gone now. There isn't that much variety in Aussie and it's really expensive. Or Tonga.

 

[ca1ore]

None of the LFS I patronize make much on corals; the only exception being one chap who closed his retail location and went online with coral growout tanks in his basement ..... so I guess he’s not a LFS anymore . All of the ones that survive do so because of maintenance revenues. THAT is their ‘bread and butter’. Agree with the sentiment that wild coral bans have been, and likely will be, largely inconsequential to the hobby. It’s mostly self sustaining at this point. I’ve not bought a wild harvested coral colony from LFS is probably two years. I get a few from places like LA, but it’s almost all trades/purchases from fellow hobbyists. The bigger problem would be wholesale bans on wild fish imports.

 

[Snookin]

Catastrophic may be a bit overly dramatic, but it's definitely the worst thing to happen to the hobby in it's existence. As a consumer, sure maybe you haven't had any major impact to your hobby, especially if you've always only bought small aquacultured frags. But for people in the aquarium business, especially wholesalers, it's very bad. A large percentage of the wholesaler I worked for sales were coral colonies from Indo and Fiji. That is just gone now. There isn't that much variety in Aussie and it's really expensive. Or Tonga.

Blah blah blah. Same end of the world storyline for the last 20yrs. Aquaculture is the new norm and the businesses that made the transition and were proactive are making $ and most consumers are happy. If you want green and brown corals for $10 that are mariculture plucked from the earth you are living in the past.

 

[Reefcowboy]

honestly, if your local LFS is struggling that badly, they aren't trying hard enough or are poor businesspeople. There are still plenty of importers bringing in plenty of good stuff, despite the indo ban.

That being said, any shop that isn't supporting captive raised fish (by selling them) and has or supports aquaculture institutions or operations has their head in a hole and needs to wake up.

The more that we can show that we are a science, a force for good, and not just a bunch of goofs killing everything in our tanks and feverishly drag-netting the seas for more, the better.

WWC is doubling down, Tidal Gardens is doubling down, Battlecorals, on and on, things are moving in the right direction. We just need to support that movement.

The nice thing is that in the case of SPS the decision is obvious since when you buy aquacultured stuff from known stock it lasts and looks great, when you buy wild, it lives 1/2 of the time and stays looking good 1/8 of the time. So the incentive is clear.

I was watching yesterday the video of Tidal Garden's new store tour... WOW.

They went all in investing in top coral propagation systems.
WWC also opening a monster store. I really doubt these businesses would be investing so heavily if they thought coral trade would be at jeopardy to the point of no more corals coming in.

I do think however there is high risk of an ecological threat such as the recent unexplained Australian reef deaths pushing local legislation to shut it all down. These unexpected scenarios do keep stores up at night I'm sure, but if that happened, the ones preparing themselves now with propagation systems will bank big time as prices will sky rocket.

Just like we no longer buy live rock like before because we found viable alternatives, corals will also become sustainable. I really hope so because I will go nuts if I'm forced to keep plants and freshwater fish!

 

[ca1ore]

Blah blah blah. Same end of the world storyline for the last 20yrs. Aquaculture is the new norm and the businesses that made the transition and were proactive are making $ and most consumers are happy. If you want green and brown corals for $10 that are mariculture plucked from the earth you are living in the past.

Made me laugh! So true. Companies that see and anticipate the future survive; companies that don’t, don’t! LFS (or should we rename them LCS ) are a dying breed anyhow - most physical retail is! If I were going to go into retail for this hobby, I’d never sink $$$ into a physical storefront. Completely pointless. Aquaculture corals and sell them on line; have a local maintenance service. That’s how to butter your bread in this hobby.