Coral from US

[fastfish]

Hi all,

is there any way that we can bring corals from the US?

[Rikko]

Seeing as how most stores are dealing with the same handful of collector/exporters in collector countries like Indonesia, Philippines, Bali, etc, I would expect that anything that is available in the States should be available here, too. The only thing I don't see a lot of is aquacultured Florida live rock.

You might find some interesting info on reefs.org in the 'Industry Behind The Hobby' forum.

[Ryan]

You may find more hard to find species there depending on how far south you go. With the winter season it is harder to ship fish.

[Quinn]

Available to us, yes, likely to get to us, no. Americans are more numerous and apparently more wealthy than us and hence snap up some of the more desirable items - hence the decade-long waiting times for things like purple monsters and other SPS that have reached iconic status. I keep meaning to get my name on those lists - by the time my frag is ready, I'll likely be retired and ready to devote to them the attention they need.

[sumpfinfishe]

fatfish,
No you cannot import coral or even live rock for that matter into Canada with permits-which are very expensive. Even just a single frag could land you a hefty fine and vehicle impoundment. You can read lot's of threads on this topic by doing a search-Cites. I have been told that fish however are duty free, but then again with exchange and live travel issue's is one concern, and two you have to prove with documentation as to place of origin from where the fish is from which most retailers don't keep that paperwork or will just not hand over a copy for a $50 fish.

In this hobby there's always someone who has something different, in the US however they seem to get a wider variety of corals as most of our shipments are cherry picked over in LA. I was recently down south for a reef meeting and when I visited a LFS I was shocked to see some of the high prices, as one would think that with more variety comes cheaper prices-this is not the case. As with both US and Canada if you want something really rare you have to expect to pay top dollar!

[G1GY]

Some people are getting live rock shipped here from the US without having to get any permits. (Maybe the seller has them, I'm not sure.)

See this thread.

http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewto...er=asc&start=0

[Rikko]

AFAIK CITES permits are only required by the exporting country. That means that the permit was required to move it from, say, Fiji to LA. Now that it's landed Stateside I would have thought they need to apply for their own CITES permit to move it across the border into Canada.. Perhaps not, or perhaps they're conveniently ignorant of some existing law. Or maybe NAFTA makes some odd provisions about this and the many retailers that refuse to ship to Canada are either unaware of this or don't think the Canadian market is worth the added hassle.

[Delphinus]

You need a CITES permit from the country of origin. Canadian customs doesn't care whether the coral happens to be coming from Fiji or L.A. (coming from L.A. simply means it came from Fiji VIA L.A. -- the permits still need to be in place). As far as I understand it, CITES issued in the U.S. can only apply to species endemic to that country's territories.

The fact of the matter is that importation of CITES items without CITES documentation is a serious criminal offense. I can't endorse that people go out and try this, without exhaustively looking into the process for themselves. Most people who do, realize that getting your favourite retailer to do the hard work for you is really a much better solution for everyone. My $0.02 - Support your local CANADIAN retailers.