It would not cost any extra money for a mail order coral farm to close their system. They dont have to quarantine everything. They just have to stop introducing new corals and propagate the ones they already have. And if they do feel the need to add more corals to their system, then they can time quarantine it once, keeping the system clean, so then 100s of customers dont need to. It is inefficient for every consumer to quarantine every captivation grown frag.
Once a couple of coral farms develop a reputation for parasite free status, then it is easy for even for your LFS, who imports wild corals from all over, to sell you parasite free corals. They just have to keep the certified parasite free corals in a separate system.
It would infact cost them alot of money to close their systems down and do like you talk.....
1. if they didn't close everything down only certain pieces could be "bug free" and like mentioned with AEFW that isn't a garaunteed for quite a while, your talking months not days. Now blow that out wide scale to an operation with say 15 coral tanks/ vats (I know some have MANY more especially wholesale level... but we will say medium retail guy for now...) to shut down that many pieces of coral you would infact lose sales during that time to make them pest free not including the money the dips, treatments and labor involved of doing this to say 500-1000 pieces.... and if you want them to do this to SPS they should be doing it to zoas and anything else too right.... my LFS has several thousand zoa frags alone.... it wouldn't cost them money to ensure pest free status???? (the guy that runs it has actually gone through and dipped everything several times before tho and runs a good shop but still it has costs involved).
2. Don't introduce new corals??? REALLY????? A company thats sole business is producing corals for us to enjoy and you don't want them to bring in new stuff because it might have a bug or two that you don't want to possibly deal with? No new coral = no new demand. I don't like looking at places sites and seeing the same old stuff I bought 10 yrs ago still being the only thing they have, and sure wouldn't buy it again just to keep them in business lol
3. Also these couple coral farms are called like... BALI, INDO, Aussi... they are country's surrounded by bodies of oceanic water, not tims back yard coral emporium, its kinda hard to keep bugs/ pests out of an entire oceanic system to ensure you don't get a pest..... can you imagine the cost (in $$ and ecologically) that would be incurred to wipe out all the pests in the oceans, I mean besides the $$$ your talking about now possibly starving creatures that feed on these bugs/ parasites.... nope no cost there LOL
IF a company did even do all these things and they did rid the sea of all the bugs so our tanks could be clean and pristine despite the costs w/o our own intervention not only would the $$$ go up on the frags we buy, but people would still find something to complain about..... like the salinity in the bag is different then mine, they sent it on a square plug instead of round, or I run pc's and my coral looks different then the picture... should they buy you t5's or led's also? lol
Even still, say they did do all this, it would not be 100% guaranteed that they would be pest free and really you should still dip everything on your own for your own tanks safety and cleanliness! If you do not want to take responsibility for your tank, then don't be surprised when you end up with things you don't want to have in it....
