What's the deal with ORA?

stealyourhouse · Feb 26, 2022

I stumbled across the ORA Glassdoor page, and there are negative comments that leave me wondering if I should continue to buy their animals.

Notable comments include:

Fish are constantly dying. And they sell 80% of their fish to PETCO. If you care about animals do NOT work here. There’s a reason Harbor Branch no longer funds them.

It would be utterly pointless to advise management of anything, because they will not even consider "common sense" thoughts on progress.

Management has no ability to manage their way out of a paper bag let alone a facility full of people and fish. they inherited the management job, any normal.company would have replaced all of them immediately with talented professionals

Conch pearls failed, 1000+ corals die monthly

Certain departments are very toxic. Very little room for advancement. Employees that have worked here for 5+ years can expect to see a $0.25 cent raise if lucky.

Back in the early 2000s, ORA was on the cutting edge of fish breeding, and I have actively sought out their fish. Today, I am noticing that it has become a lot harder to find ORA products at the LFS, and some animals that they used to breed are no longer available (fighting conchs and yellow assessors are no longer being produced there).

Does anyone have any background on the ORA story and insight into these comments?

blaxsun · Feb 26, 2022

It's really hard to get a picture from some anonymous posts (likely from at least one or two disgruntled employees). I'm sure there's an element of truth there though and the reality is probably somewhere in-between.

I'm fairly certain the working and survival conditions for wild-caught fish in the Indo-Pacific probably make ORA look like a trip to Disneyland by comparison.

stealyourhouse · Feb 26, 2022

blaxsun said:
I'm fairly certain the working and survival conditions for wild-caught fish in the Indo-Pacific probably make ORA look like a trip to Disneyland by comparison.

I've been committed to buying captive bred fish to avoid the high death rate I've heard of from imported fish, which is exactly why these comments have me so concerned.

blaxsun · Feb 26, 2022

stealyourhouse said:
I've been committed to buying captive bred fish to avoid the high death rate I've heard of from imported fish, which is exactly why these comments have me so concerned.

It's anyone's guess where the truth lies, but even under the best conditions and with the best of intentions - things sometimes die.

Ultra Aquatics · Feb 26, 2022

I’ve gotten corals shipped directly from ORA multiple times recently. All DOA, packed poorly with ice cold water by the time it arrives. Things were much better years ago.

Most LFS don’t order from them due to their large fish orders required in order to obtain corals.

kaos14 · Feb 26, 2022

Transportation is hard on aquatics. There are many factors that lead to death after transport. Ph, salinity, temp levels differ vastly from one aquarium to another. It is very hard to maintain both levels in a tank that is constantly being dipped out of all week long, to bag and sell livestock. Breeder and seller tanks are not run the same way a home aquarium is. Captive breeding is great and helpful but there are still casualties.

stealyourhouse · Feb 26, 2022

I understand that casualties are a reality in the pet industry, but I try to be as responsible as I can with my tanks and to buy from vendors who take care of both their animals and their employees.

As a comparison, Biota seems like a company that is using aquaculture in positive ways, both for the people in Pulau and for the ecosystem.

kaos14 · Feb 26, 2022

When it comes to fish I prefer to support my LFS and try not to think too far beyond that. Ask your LFS often times they have fish that were bred in captivity. One of our LFS has a partner whose wife breeds most of their clownfish stock why they don't advertise that I have no idea. Depending on where you live the fish are still being shipped a long way my UPS driver recently gave me telling me to. This is really just not an ethical hobby no matter how much you want it to be or try to make it.

Reach out to ORA or Biota personally to see what they have to say about their practices if you really want to find out more about them.

Sean Clark · Feb 26, 2022

stealyourhouse said:
I've been committed to buying captive bred fish to avoid the high death rate I've heard of from imported fish, which is exactly why these comments have me so concerned.

I would imagine that for every one captive bred fish that makes it into a reef tank there are lots that did not survive the rearing process. This is an unfortunate reality. Some fish are easier than others to bred. Clownfish vs yellow tangs for example. Luckily we have companies like ORA and BIOTA making progress in this relm and I commend them for doing what they do.

i cant think · Feb 26, 2022

This is purely my opinion however:
I find CB and WC are the same just one is trying to put a much higher price tag on the fish than the other. Yes CB is good but I’d recommend trying to support your LFS over a large already supported company. As said above, the mortality rates for wild fish are the exact same for Captive bred fish. Our CB fish will be as easy or as hard as we want them to be, depending on how willing you are to taking care of these fish. Our WC fish are the exact same, the more you watch them and put effort into making them thrive you will have an easy fish to keep but if you don’t care for it as well as you possibly can it will be a highly difficult fish.

i mean, look at CB mandarins, you may aswell train a WC mandarin to eat frozen. A CB mandarin will most likely turn back onto its wild diet of just pods and artemia (Brine Shrimp).

Tamberav · Feb 26, 2022

If the 3 ORA fish I ordered recently. Only one survived. I assume it is just from the stress of shipping as they looked okay and should be hardy fish.

I don’t understand the Mandarin comparison. If you can train a wild one to eat prepared foods regularly there is no reason a captive one would also not eat prepared foods regularly.

I will say the captive ones come in a lot healthier at the LFS because the wild ones are often half starved and pinched bellies from collection to however long it takes them to get to the LFS. Sometimes this leads to organ damage so even if they eat, they die. The best bet is to always pick the healthiest looking specimen.

Brian_68 · Feb 26, 2022

My LFS has a whole section of ORA fish and I have bought many times with success including this past week and would not hesitate to buy again.

i cant think · Feb 26, 2022

Tamberav said:
If the 3 ORA fish I ordered recently. Only one survived. I assume it is just from the stress of shipping as they looked okay and should be hardy fish.

I don’t understand the Mandarin comparison. If you can train a wild one to eat prepared foods regularly there is no reason a captive one would also not eat prepared foods regularly.

I will say the captive ones come in a lot healthier at the LFS because the wild ones are often half starved and pinched bellies from collection to however long it takes them to get to the LFS. Sometimes this leads to organ damage so even if they eat, they die. The best bet is to always pick the healthiest looking specimen.

I have found that it’s more likely to find a CB mandarin that turns down frozen than WC, I admit it’s rather confusing - I was tired but woke up after watching some TV.

I have also found younger mandarins to be more prone to stress compared to a WC mandarin. If I saw one though I’d probably try grab a CB spotted mandarin since I haven’t seen WC ones around in a while (Actually, I’ve not seen any of those guys around, WC or CB).

Tamberav · Feb 26, 2022

i cant think said:
I have found that it’s more likely to find a CB mandarin that turns down frozen than WC, I admit it’s rather confusing - I was tired but woke up after watching some TV.

I have also found younger mandarins to be more prone to stress compared to a WC mandarin. If I saw one though I’d probably try grab a CB spotted mandarin since I haven’t seen WC ones around in a while (Actually, I’ve not seen any of those guys around, WC or CB).

I haven’t noticed any problems feeding them. They like ova and tiny crushed pellets. Mysis and such is probably too big. There was a video awhile back of the captives eating at ORA and swarming the food.

Their mouths are super tiny.

My experience is opposite of yours. They do not seemed stressed and move around normally and such. Idk.

Tamberav · Feb 26, 2022

It’s too bad there isn’t anymore nutramar. There is something similar sold here but the name escapes me…

Tamberav · Feb 26, 2022

This! https://www.aquaculturenurseryfarms.com/amp/liquid-coral-food-and-fish-food/coral-feast-ova/

Chrisv. · Feb 26, 2022

I'm going to say something controversial: if a captive bred fish dies in the supply chain, I am less concerned. It wasn't harvested from a wild reef. While it is sad that they die, there is no environmental consequence and therefore idk... Of course I want all fish to do well, but I am more concerned about the health and wellbeing of the wild reefs than any individual fish. So I support captive bred fish specifically because if/when they die, there is no more consequence than if a goldfish or a guppy dies.

i cant think · Feb 27, 2022

Chrisv. said:
I'm going to say something controversial: if a captive bred fish dies in the supply chain, I am less concerned. It wasn't harvested from a wild reef. While it is sad that they die, there is no environmental consequence and therefore idk... Of course I want all fish to do well, but I am more concerned about the health and wellbeing of the wild reefs than any individual fish. So I support captive bred fish specifically because if/when they die, there is no more consequence than if a goldfish or a guppy dies.

Even if they’re deformed? Look at CB royal grammas, they look deformed compared to a WC RG. I like CB yes however if they keep breeding deformed fish then the less likely I’ll buy CB. I mean look at Yellow Tangs for example, they come in unhealthy with HLLE. They grow and many of them gain just a white face instead of that solid yellow, if I had a YT with just a white Face ID rather swap it for a WC indonesian YT.