Data: Wrong; Sustainability: Don't care; Robert Wintner: Aquarium trade should stop!

[Myka]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

Are you implicating that the typical small business owner has not even the slightest notion regarding their own finances? That is a ridiculous and heavy handed assessment of the situation! Where's your evidence? Cite your sources?

Many of them yes. The old school thought is to make money off the dry goods and the livestock just draw people in. Many aquarium stores expect and take a loss on livestock. Box stores and mom and pop "pet stores" tend to be in this category.

Evidence and sources? I don't think they will let me show you their price lists, losses, and finances.

No, they do not land at the same price. No, they are not identical looking animals.
There is a noticeable and obvious difference in quality between these samples. This is even more obvious in the most ubiquitous captive-bred marine fish of them all, the clownfish. Next time you're looking at a CB clownfish that isn't a $300+ Grade A Picasso or whatever, look at its gills and the profile of its head. More often than not, they'll be flared and notched, in that order.

I'm all for captive rearing and all and there are definitely a few farms out there that push out high quality stock (Sustainable Aquatics in Jefferson City, TN is one of them), but the vast majority (I'm looking at you, ORA) don't seem to care about letting out only top quality fish if they're not worth triple digits. This is something that should not be supported any more than one would support a puppy mill. Yes, I'm going there. Ethics all-in.

ORA is often chided for very poor culling practices. Many of the defects that are commonly seen in Clownfish are not genetic, rather poor culturing conditions. Even something as simple as misbarring is controlled with diet and water quality.

Good quality rearing techniques provide specimens of wild caught quality. Take Sustainable Aquatics for example. Compare a SA Clownfish to an ORA Clownfish...there is no comparison. The SA Clownfish is many times nicer than an ORA Clownfish. I have both wild caught and captive bred Orchid Dottybacks, and if I didn't tell you which one was which you would never know. Sure, there are terrible examples of captive bred fish out there, but there are also excellent examples.

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Myka

Many of them yes. The old school thought is to make money off the dry goods and the livestock just draw people in. Many aquarium stores expect and take a loss on livestock. Box stores and mom and pop "pet stores" tend to be in this category.

What? As an employee of dry goods wholesaler/manufacturer, I would most assuredly appreciate it if you pointed me towards these dry goods-do gooders. Barring that, I must strongly disagree. With any store worth its salt (tee hee), the exact opposite is true. Most stores rely on their livestock to carry their bottom line. Why? Because they don't want to compete in the same arena with the "big boys", businesses that have a lot of capital invested into their online marketplace and dry goods inventory. It's just not worth it to grind out the 20-35% margin vs. 100-500%+ (frags) margin on livestock.

Want some evidence? Take a look at some of the more respected businesses Stateside:

http://www.worldwidecorals.com/

http://www.aquatouch.com/index.html

http://www.vividaquariums.com/

etc, etc... Compare their livestock sections to their dry goods sections. These guys are simply not interested in competing with the likes or Premium Aquatics or BRS. Well, guess what, there are a hundred times more of these sorts of businesses than there are Premiums or BRS's. In Canada, one need look no further than J&L Aquatics vs. the world to see that the trend is reiterative rather than unique. J&L, Premium, BRS, etc have all done an incredible job of securing their place within the industry and, in doing so, have carved out a designation for most of the other businesses to make their niche (livestock).

Originally Posted by Myka

Evidence and sources? I don't think they will let me show you their price lists, losses, and finances.

Then I suppose we come to a standstill. If possible, I am hesitant to make a call to authority, but in this case, it is warranted; I have a fairly wide bird's eye view of the industry and your impression is the exception rather than the rule.

Originally Posted by Myka

ORA is often chided for very poor culling practices. Many of the defects that are commonly seen in Clownfish are not genetic, rather poor culturing conditions. Even something as simple as misbarring is controlled with diet and water quality.

ORA is representative of the CB livestock sectional.

Originally Posted by Myka

Good quality rearing techniques provide specimens of wild caught quality. Take Sustainable Aquatics for example. Compare a SA Clownfish to an ORA Clownfish...there is no comparison. The SA Clownfish is many times nicer than an ORA Clownfish. I have both wild caught and captive bred Orchid Dottybacks, and if I didn't tell you which one was which you would never know. Sure, there are terrible examples of captive bred fish out there, but there are also excellent examples.

Again, your fish/experience is the exception, not the rule.

[gobytron]

To be honest, it's because I feel at this point, anything is going to be too little too late.

At the end of the day, I firmly believe we won't have much in the way of marine aquatic life sometime in the next 50 years.

Whether its global warming or acidification the signs are already apparent that this is a sick ecosystem...

Short of some technological miracle solution...we're probably the last reefers one way or the other...


Do you really think millions of people feed their families from this hobby?

That's a lot more than I would guess.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

I have a fairly wide bird's eye view of the industry and your impression is the exception rather than the rule.

For crap sake Albert, I clearly stated I was talking about mom and pop and box stores. Yeesh, you even quoted what I said. If you take a look at many of the LFS that support CanReef you will notice a large livestock section and a small dry goods section. It is obvious that these stores rely on livestock sales.

ORA is representative of the CB livestock sectional.

Yes, ORA is one representative. The largest one in North America, but that's like saying all meat markets are like Extra Foods/Superstore. You can't paint them all with the same brush.

Again, your fish/experience is the exception, not the rule.

If you are basing your entire captive bred opinion on ORA-raised fish you have a very limited view.


Anyway...I'm not here to argue with you about how an LFS makes money. We've both been involved in the aquarium industry for many years, and have obviously come to different conclusions which probably came from different experiences. Ciao.