Thoughts on current fish quality?

[Oscar47f]

Prices are all over the board.
I bought a purple tang small, I was looking for small, for $100 last week from a LFS a large was $150 or $160. While another was selling a purple tangs for $600, they claimed they were tank raised. A third LFS was selling them at $75 to get his inventory sold.
prices are all over the board. The guy selling Purple tangs for $75 won’t ship fish because of Covid.

That’s very interesting to hear ! Because at the store I work at in Orlando we payed more than 100$ for the purple tang at whole sale that’s nuts...

 

[Thaxxx]

I think something else has to be figured into the prices at your LFS. If wholesalers are holding fish longer because of flight availability, then the stress level is longer. I'm sure the LFS's all figure in a loss % when they figure in their prices. If that % rate has gone up, it only make sense our prices go up.

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

Why the problem on the retail side? What’s happening at the retail level to the fish?

Almost all wholesalers i have visited have a very aggressive husbandry process.
They all take precautions like freshwater dips to running copper sulfate in their system along with copper tanks for known problematic species.
They have tons of inventory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and they can't afford to let something slip by and cause mass casualties.
In my experience I have never seem them send me a sick looking fish which obviously had some disease.
Retail side is fish motel. Fish checks in and managements job is to get it out the door as quickly as its in. They hardly have a husbandry procedures in place.
Almost all lfs that I have visited and seen with my own eyes receiving fish, they pretty much all do the same. They open bags and dump them in their retail tanks.
In few days fish are sold carrying parasites from retailers tanks that you and him never saw.
Most dont even treat their tanks nor take any precautions to prevent disease.
Just my opinion

 

[joe0813]

Almost all wholesalers i have visited have a very aggressive husbandry process.
They all take precautions like freshwater dips to running copper sulfate in their system along with copper tanks for known problematic species.
They have tons of inventory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and they can't afford to let something slip by and cause mass casualties.
In my experience I have never seem them send me a sick looking fish which obviously had some disease.
Retail side is fish motel. Fish checks in and managements job is to get it out the door as quickly as its in. They hardly have a husbandry procedures in place.
Almost all lfs that I have visited and seen with my own eyes receiving fish, they pretty much all do the same. They open bags and dump them in their retail tanks.
In few days fish are sold carrying parasites from retailers tanks that you and him never saw.
Most dont even treat their tanks nor take any precautions to prevent disease.
Just my opinion

Not saying youre wrong but id be shocked if fish from wholesalers didn't have ick. Even though the tanks run copper, aren't you supposed to reset the 14-30day timer every time you add a new fish?

side note, I sent you an email about a fish list

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

possible yes, in my experience in 3 plus years buying from quality marine, carolina aquatics and consistent sea, i have never seen ich on any fish i purchased from them. Although i still treat all incoming fish in copper, in order to sell them as quarantined fish but i also sell conditioned fish which have not seen copper in my tanks and get sold as is to people that either do their own qt or simply dont (cheaper than market price) and i have never had a single person to report back with ich or velvet. Flukes yes, worms yes but nothing major ever. That is an amazing average knowing i sell 30-50 fish each week.

 

[joe0813]

possible yes, in my experience in 3 plus years buying from quality marine, carolina aquatics and consistent sea, i have never seen ich on any fish i purchased from them. Although i still treat all incoming fish in copper, in order to sell them as quarantined fish but i also sell conditioned fish which have not seen copper in my tanks and get sold as is to people that either do their own qt or simply dont (cheaper than market price) and i have never had a single person to report back with ich or velvet. Flukes yes, worms yes but nothing major ever. That is an amazing average knowing i sell 30-50 fish each week.

Im not sure who Live Aquaria uses but Ive had a bunch of fish come in with ick. Think Petco uses QM too right? or they did when they owned LA

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

From what i was told LA reps come in and cherry pick the stock and take them to their holding facility. Thats where contamination starts.

 

[shred5]

A big part of it is the loss of fish from Hawaii. I predicted this would happen if a fish ban went into affect in Hawaii as we had longer transport time or from poor countries. The biggest issue is the loss of tangs and wrasses. The ban in Hawaii didn't save fish it caused more losses.

 

[CK00020]

I want to see these jello fish

but am very interested because I think I am over medicating

 

[ScottR]

I hope I can weigh in. I live close to the origin of the supply chain. We had problems when Covid hit initially, then things slowly went back to normal. We’ve been operating quite normally here in Hong Kong for quite a few months (an hour-ish from the Philippines and not far from Indonesia). Also, corals have been pouring in at rates I haven’t seen in years. I think there must be a problem with the US shipping and cargo flights. On the other half of the globe, things are much better than this time last year. Hope this helps to see the bigger picture of things.

 

[LIreefguy]

The price of shipping went up simple because of supply and demand. With people flying less means less commercial fights. Which means cargo flying on commercial flights are down

and yes less flights means shippers have to charge more

if anyone on this thread thinks the airline industry right now is making a ton of money because gas prices are down
That is do silly and I have a bridge to sell you

unfortunately until commercial traffic picks up shipping will be expensive

Now to answer the op question. You notice more people getting fish diseases because of the sheer numbers of people being online

I don’t have numbers but I bet reef2reef numbers from 2010 have exploded

Simple is 2010 my fish died I didn’t post it online where a million people can read it in 1 second. Today I post when my fish eats a flake

 

[lion king]

I have been in business of selling Quarantined Fish for last 3 years commercially all over USA and prior to that about additional 5 yrs locally.

I agree with few things stated above.
1. Prices are higher due to import ban and less flight schedules.
2. Sizes of fish or certain species are no where to be found.
3. Quality of fish i have to disagree.
I'll explain. As I mentioned I have been selling Quarantined fish for almost 8 years.
The wholesalers do not have much to do with disease. They all have a good husbandry practices that keeps major diseases away.
In several years I have never encountered ich or velvet or brook from wholesalers and I have access to 11 wholesalers and never had that issue.
I do see flukes and internal worms etc every now and then.

Uronema: yes it is worse in chromis and anthias.
This is such a problem that I have thrown everything at them. From formalin baths to metrozidole to food soaked in meds and nothing ever cleared uronema out of them.
I had to finally euthanize most of them or some I had to sacrifice in name of science by using higher doses of meds or trying untraditional methods but nothing ever worked.
Normally they infected my other fish. So I gave up and quit selling chromis and anthias.

Honestly that is the only problem I have ever faced from wholesalers.
In my experience problem starts at retail level.
If i was to put a number 90% wholesaler fish is clean while 10% maybe minor issues.
Equation flips when it comes to retail side. 75% chances of getting something major while 25% minor to no issue. Just my experience.

I've been in the business of lfs, maintenance, large public display and a hobbyist for more than 30 years. I find the degradation of the supply chain including wholesalers disgusting and abysmal. I've been to wholesalers to see buckets upon buckets of dead and dying fish. Today I have friends that run lfs and their losses coming in from wholesalers can sometimes run 20-50% from doa to one week from arrival. Every stage of collection these days run some sort of cocktail of drugs and super low sg to suppress disease. The greed and cost cutting from not maintaining collection points to over packing freight has lead to hobby; IMO, on it's last legs. Most lfs continue the cycle with low sg and copper, and move the fish fast enough to die in your tank, instead of their store. Good luck with online retailers as well, guarantees are ridiculous when the sickliest of fish can still linger for 2-3 weeks; then it cost you triple to keep claiming your credit. New hobbyist are lasting shorter and shorter because they can barely get anything to live. It takes an insane amount of knowledge and preparedness to get any fish to live at all, and create a disease free display. And even when you do, they have usually been exposed to so many drugs along the way, their lifespan is diminished dramatically.

 

[Tamberav]

G

Almost all wholesalers i have visited have a very aggressive husbandry process.
They all take precautions like freshwater dips to running copper sulfate in their system along with copper tanks for known problematic species.
They have tons of inventory worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and they can't afford to let something slip by and cause mass casualties.
In my experience I have never seem them send me a sick looking fish which obviously had some disease.
Retail side is fish motel. Fish checks in and managements job is to get it out the door as quickly as its in. They hardly have a husbandry procedures in place.
Almost all lfs that I have visited and seen with my own eyes receiving fish, they pretty much all do the same. They open bags and dump them in their retail tanks.
In few days fish are sold carrying parasites from retailers tanks that you and him never saw.
Most dont even treat their tanks nor take any precautions to prevent disease.
Just my opinion

I see people say to let a fish sit at the LFS a few weeks before buying but this has never been good practice at my LFS. I have the best success, even on fragile fish by getting the ones that came in the same day or within a few days. They seem to deteriorate the longer they are at the LFS. Not all ofc but plenty do.. whether its being in too small of tank with too many fish, aggression issues, not being fed right and ofc being exposed to disease.

The LFS just has tons of tanks/fish and freshwater too as well as trying to answer questions of customers and selling dry goods and so on, they are busy and can't sit around watching every fish to make sure it eats and isn't scratching. So getting them home asap is great as I can observe them and set up a tank just for their care and make sure they start eating good food.

 

[breefrost]

I see people say to let a fish sit at the LFS a few weeks before buying but this has never been good practice at my LFS. I have the best success, even on fragile fish by getting the ones that came in the same day or within a few days. They seem to deteriorate the longer they are at the LFS. Not all ofc but plenty do.. whether its being in too small of tank with too many fish, aggression issues, not being fed right and ofc being exposed to disease.

I agree. The conditions theyre held in arent sustainable and the stress takes a toll. My sailfin tang looked so jacked up from being in the shop, but I could see he was otherwise healthy, so I took him home and with some TLC he was all better in a couple days. Still has some scars, but it gives him character.

But the reason people say wait 2 weeks is because of cyanide - it hits late and by the time you see definite symptoms the fish is dead within the day. Truth is its a gamble buying saltwater fish, and its a gamble for the sellers as well, since they dont know how the fish were caught either.

To better the chances imo are to watch for slight twitching and ask to see it eat. If the fish seems “spacey” and doesnt have an immediate feeding response with the others, pass. If its a group of fish that likely came in together, like damsels, and a portion of the group arent eating, pass. And find a shop with some kind of 24/48 hour guarantee.

 

[breefrost]

But even if people were willing to pay multiple times more up the chain, would that stop the collectors from using cyanide, or improving transport conditions? Im guessing not :/

 

[nereefpat]

From what i was told LA reps come in and cherry pick the stock and take them to their holding facility. Thats where contamination starts.

My understanding is that when you order from LA, those fish are shipped directly from Quality Marine to your door.

 

[cancun]

Great discussion! I too have seen crazy fish prices. My main three LFS by me have plenty of coral in stock, and I noticed the fish selection is getting better. Making sure they are actively eating and are aware of their environment has been my mission lately when I have bought fish. Although the fish stores here seemed to be getting more and more fish in, many seem to be kind of beat up, small, and skinny. So you might have to wait longer to find a specific fish that is healthy.

I have never ordered online, so I can't comment in that. A while back I asked on here about it, but I changed my mind and will keep supporting my LFS. Those guys have taken a hit during COVID too. I know the owners, they don't offer a guarantee or anything, but in the rare occasion a fish dies a few days after taking him home they will replace it. I think that shows the importance of developing a good relationship with your LFS IMO!