Are corals becoming harder to obtain in Canada?

[smokinreefer]

I agree and disagree.

The hobby has evolved... marketing has evolved... costs have gone up...
yes, yesteryear was a good time for reefing! colonies could be had at reasonable prices. but perhaps more desirable and harder to get specimens weren't collected as much.

I think with the increase of online shops, and increase demand for not so common livestock, increase in marketing of corals, has all contributed to the higher costs of corals in general.

corals simply weren't generally sold on a per frag, per inch, per polyp basis.
the hobby, or should I rather say, the industry has changed.

[gmann]

plus stuff is expensive in general, stores arent going bring stuff in to have it sit there forever

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm finding it easier than ever to find the coral that I want. We don't have a LFS in town that carries saltwater anymore but the sheer number of online retailers with refined shipping methods and wysiwyg up to date web pages more than compensates. The popularity of localized social media sites has also made collaborating on group orders a lot easier. Clams on the other hand are more rare and seem to be 2-3x more expensive than they were 10 years ago. I think that has to do more with regulation than scarcity.

[kyl]

I haven't had problems with corals for the most part. Sourcing the fish I want though, that's been a challenge.

[Myka]

Weird. Around here things are buzzing along nicely! Bayside Corals has hundreds of colonies at any given time with coral orders arriving weekly.

I have seen a shift though - people are buying frags a lot more than colonies. People say they want to watch it grow, but won't admit that they just want to spend less. People definitely spend less than they used to.

[whatcaneyedo]

Spend less? I used to be able to buy a nice little colony for $50. Now thats what the frag costs and the colony is $150. The price of salt in this province has also doubled over the last decade while our many of our wages have stayed the same. No I think we're spending more than ever or just buying less.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by whatcaneyedo

Spend less? I used to be able to buy a nice little colony for $50. Now thats what the frag costs and the colony is $150. The price of salt in this province has also doubled over the last decade while our many of our wages have stayed the same. No I think we're spending more than ever or just buying less.

People used to buy like 3 or 4 colonies for say $250, now they buy 3 or 4 frags for say $80. People would rather spend $25 for a micro-sized frag than $150 for a colony. That's what I mean. Sure there are still some us who will pay $400 for a micro-sized frag, but that wasn't even an option 10 years ago. Lots of nano tanks too. You don't really see that here at Canreef, there's an odd bunch of us left here, and not the usual reefer here anymore. Watch the Facebook groups with all the newbies - they aren't the same as us who've been in the hobby for 10 or 20 or 30 years.