The coral aquaculture industry and selling product

[Saltlick]

What if it were some hobbyist who happened upon this thread and made the same observation? And, you might want to take some care referring to any of us as "potheads" in such a manner and implying those who smoke can't think. You'd probably be surprised who does (and perhaps, who doesn't).

That's exactly what happened. I stumbled onto this thread because i am always thinking about aquaculture, and that makes three threads today that start normally and end up the same may. It seems to always be about someone not understanding what he typed. I just keep finding them. And when pot is legal we will all have the last laugh. Of course we will forget what was so funny.

Outside of the scuffle, it is kind of sad that this business, which every one of us at one time or another thought we could retire on,
is taking it so hard right now. But has anybody noticed any "sales" going on lately that would indicate anyone is sitting on too much
stock? Personally I was shocked to see my favorite coral, the Wellsophylia, is easily triple the price they once were for spectacular specimens. Garden variety are double from ten years ago. That could be just inflation, but it sure doesn't seem like anyone is letting
the price slide.

 

[sdcfish]

You have a good point Saltlick.....wellso is a very good example. Now it is traded as a Trachyphyllia radiata and no longer recognized as a "Wellsophyllia", this coral can catch a very premium price depending on any rare color, but the common green/metallic ones still are affordable, same as 5 years ago or more.

I would say 4-5 years ago, exporters in Indonesia realized on the internet what these corals in Bright Red, or "Bleeding Apples" (green and red), fetched a premium price. They wanted to play in the game too. I remember saying "techology has finally caught up with us" when I got my first seperate price list from my normal Jakarta supplier that had photos and inflated prices of 25 or more corals that were now 5-10 times what I had previously paid.

Then the super colored corals became in very high demand with so many successful hobbyists no longer needing just the basic corals, and only select pieces were desired. The end of the giant coral reef aquarium growth spike.

The industry has just changed so much over the last 5 years alone, with so many frag farmers across the country and abroad, it's amazing how many cultured corals are on the market, trading in exciting, name catching id's.

Bottom line is there has never been a better time to get into the hobby, because there is so much fun to be had being an aquarist. High prices for super select pieces? Yes, but you can always be savy and find those cherry frags for a fraction of the price and "Grow Your Own". That's what I always said

Eric

 

[Saltlick]

It's not like this same statement can't be found on a hundred threads in this forum and multiply
that by how many forums there are, but that to me is the single best thing about where things
have progressed in the 7-8 years I have been on the sidelines with no wet tanks. An environmentally
sensitive aquarist can now develop a spectacular reef tank and not take a single specimen out of the
ocean. If you are crafty, you can even remove the single "but" out of the equation and create your own
live rock from shells off the beach, cement and sand. Point a powerhead at a nice piece of coralline
algae on a rock and pretty soon it is growing on everything. I NEVER thought it would get to this point,
but I was only really getting into propagation when I got out of the hobby for so long. And this is another
reason I get a little upset about people who just HAVE to HAVE that rare item. You get that type in every
collection fetish, and maybe there aren't too many of them out there, I hope. But I thought the reef pressure
would be quadrupled by now, and it could be that it just continues to go down and down and down. I think
even people who used to make their subsistence on wild collection now realize it takes a whole lot less fuel,
time and trouble to collect ONCE and propagate a thousand times.

 

[PeterIMA]

Some comments about coral farming in the export countries. Right now, most of the coral farms in Indonesia are owned or managed by exporters with little of the benefit going to local communities. The East Asian Seas and Terrestrial Initiatives (EASTI) and myself (though my former association with the IMA) have advocated community-based coral farming in the export countries. We have supported the fishers association that cultures corals at a coral farm on Serangan Island (near Denpasar airport on the Island of Bai, Indonesia). It took about 5 years for the Department of Forestry to issue a CITES export permit. The downside to this is it is difficult for a coral farm (either in the USA or the exporting countries) to keep up with the fickle demands of hobbyists for new varieties. Some continuing harvest from the wild to stock the coral farm in the exporting country is necessary. Unfortunately, many coral farms in Indonesia are just fronts for wild harvested corals (that are still legal). The Indonesian government is advocating eliminating wild harvest in favor of coral farming. But, if they don't have a means to verify that the corals are cultured on the farm, it leaves the way open for illegal wild harvest.

Peter Rubec

 

[sdcfish]

Peter,

How does the Illegal Coral Trade work? I don't understand how wild harvested corals could be passed off as cultured when they have distinctive characteristics. Maybe you mean that they are trading illegally within the country? I don't think wild caught corals are entering the US as cultured.......just not sure what you meant.

I am pretty sure the demand for wild caught corals has diminished greatly over the last 5 years and cites numbers should verify that. The demand for commonly found corals that we used to sell plenty of have just slowed down a lot. I think this is a great tribute to farmed corals, successful hobbyists, frag swaps, clubs, etc......it's a good thing

Thanks

Eric

 

[Fish_dave]

It is not such a good thing for the exporting countries or for the reefs in those countries. Coastal villages need to make a small amount of money for their living expenses and school fees, it is not much but they need something. They rely totally on what resource they have to sell. When they can not sell small fish, corals, farmed corals, etc. the next option for them is to start selling their trees. I am in the Solomons now and it is terrible to see all of the logs and timber going out right now. Cut down the trees and the runoff kills reef, not just little bits here and there but huge tracts of reef. There is a new hotel development in town that wanted a new dock / warf and got approval to build it, of course they are very enviromentally aware using palm wood in construction, and giving lip service to their solar water heating and power generation but by building the little warf killed acres of reef filled with montipora digitata. The aquarium trade could never use as much digita as was killed in one small project. It is the same with the trees, if village people can make what they need by selling products collected from their reef they protect their trees, they do not want to sell them but when forced to make a choice between sending their children to school or saving their tree they choose the future of their children knowing that cutting down the trees is a bad thing. Taking the farming away from village growers is a bad thing for the reefs, aquarium collecting is one of the best things that can be done for the health of the reefs in rural village areas.

Dave