Reef Discussion

[Wrangy]

Okie dokie, so some of you may have seen me on the FB groups asking about aquaculture in Australia and a lot of people taking that as me slandering our divers and collectors as everyone is so quick to jump to conclusions on that lovely piece of social media lol but I thought I might turn my head to some slightly more level headed reefers and have a serious discussion with you guys.

Why is it that there isn't much in the way of serious aquaculture businesses in Aus? What's stopping us from having some of the stores like they do in the US? Places like WWC, Unique Corals, Battle Corals and Cherry Corals to name a few, places that have large scale retail aquaculture in place! I mean we have plenty of smaller "pop-up" stores that appear as quickly as they disappear in the period of 6 months and people selling zoa frags! But why is there nothing large scale or even any scale to do with the propagation of SPS corals and even LPS corals? I understand the difficulties of LPS as they're slow growing and a little harder to carve up and grow out but the rest like sps, zoa's, mushies and some softies are fairly straight forward.

I understand plenty of the difficulties in creating an aquaculture setup here in Aus, with some of the main ones being:
- Electricity costs being through the roof!
- Cost of wild collected corals being low
- Not a super large market, well rather small and people are cheap lol (I know I am haha)
- Shipping difficulties
- Overall equipment costs being high
- Aquaculture is a high risk business with small, simple mistakes being able to decimate an entire tank

But why does that mean that no one has really taken it on? I mean if you're offered a well priced, tank-hardened coral that you know what conditions it's come from and does well under would you not consider it? I know what happens in the US can be totally ridiculous (someone tried to sell a SINGLE FUCKING POLYP of an acro on one of the FB groups the other day for a substantial amount ) but why is there no sizeable retail work going into the hobby other than what you can get at an LFS?
I know there are a few amazing stores doing great things like @Oceanarium @Bataviacoralfarm @Fragalicious and some of the others but there seems to be a distinct lack of longevity in most of them.

I'm not really entirely sure what I'm trying to get at here but I would love to hear what people think on the matter and what would get people more involved with aquaculture and supporting such efforts? Hopefully my ramblings are vaguely understandable haha

 

[potatocouch]

Sorry, in layman terms, you meant people that do fragging and sell to public need to be more? @Wrangy

 

[Wrangy]

Sorry, in layman terms, you meant people that do fragging and sell to public need to be more? @Wrangy

Not chop-shops, but serious aquaculture. For example if I buy a piece of acropora and keep it in a system growing and healthy and frag pieces of the branches, glue them to frag plugs then leave them in the same system till they "mature" (grown and encrusted onto the plugs) then sell them off and continue doing this with the same piece/s of coral with very little new input of corals in the system. With the end goal of having pieces that have lived in captivity for years creating hundreds of frags that get shared around the country!

 

[macca_75]

A few that come to mind are Oceanarium & AcroAl - both are doing pretty well.

Given our physical distance to the *real world* market (being Europe/US) makes it hard for these guys to make a living.

Are you prepared to pay the higher price for aquacultured? (it's a serious question, not a slander). How much *premium* are you prepared to pay? Takes a fair bit of cash to setup and maintain a serious operation long term I would imagine.

 

[Sam Parker]

Not sure if I fit the level headed category....

But yes, I did see your posts on facebook and had a chuckle at some of the responses (and yet somehow managed to avoid getting involved and banned somehow like I usually do!)

I think there are a few reasons it isn't working in Aus just yet and you have listed them already.
1. Cost of wild collected vs. aquacultered
2. Peoples tightness (I fall in here too)
3. Peoples lack of understanding on the pros of aquacultured
4. Market. You said it above. To make it affordable enough for people to buy aquacultured, you need to sell the frags with minimal mark up. Minimal mark up requires you to sell large volumes. Our country just doesn't have enough hobbyists that pass the first three criteria to sell in enough volume.

 

[MagicJ]

I must go and have a look to see what has been happening on Facebook :p

I think you and Sam have already identified the main issues - I would actually narrow it down to the cost of wild collected vs. aquacultered and the market size, both of which have a major effect on demand in Australia.

I had a quick look at the Unique Corals site and they were selling SPS frags for between $40 and $100+ - I don't get to see much down in Hobart but I suspect those prices would be similar to that being asked for wild collected colonies in Australia. So, if the 'average' hobbyist in the world (yes, this is a huge generalisation ;)) is prepared to pay $40 - $100 for some SPS then, in the US, that gets them a frag and, in Australia, it gets them a full colony, albeit wild collected. The need for instant gratification also comes into play here. Unless the price of wild collected corals rises substantially in Australia, I can't see any major aquaculture enterprises being viable (unless they can export to the US/Europe).

 

[Coralfarmer]

Well now youve opened a can of worms.... I am co-owner of probably the largest aquaculture facillity in Aus we ship frags all over the world, the states, sweden, spain, italy, france etc

We have been selling a few in aus as well..... But because we have a collection lisence people in Aus just assume we are a chop shop, sure we do frag new stock, but we have heaps of second, third and fourth gen frags....regardless of this all our frags are completly based and "tank hardened" we are a recirculating system, our business is wild colonies as well as aquacultured frags, our frags are in demand all over the world with most people reporting outstanding growth and color in a range of parameters...

We do find the aus market difficult, tightassness and general slandering of our product.... Just because... I supose its similar to these forums where its more about popularity than what we actually do... We are not as popular as other suppliers even though we sell a superior product ( shrug ) i supose its the aus hobbiest that looses in the end cause we jus go overseas

 

[Sam Parker]

There you go Dom, some good has come from your thread! @Coralfarmer can you give us more info on your frags?

Sam

 

[Coralfarmer]

There you go Dom, some good has come from your thread! @Coralfarmer can you give us more info on your frags?

Sam

What would you like to know.... I have a thread on reef central tittled " the farm" heaps of info there

 

[Coralfarmer]

Another problem we find is alot of hobbiests try as hard as they can to bypass the lfs, trading amongst themselves and bying from facebook sites... As part of our ethos we support lfs's and as we dont sell direct to the public people arent interested, we have a real problem in this hobby as alot of lfs are just hanging in there robbing peter to pay paul, so by bypassing them we are just hurting ourselves afterall no lfs no hobby...These sort of posts come up from time to time and the answer is always the same... Unfortunatly when it comes to aquaculture in australia the hobbiest are their own worst enemy, crying for aquacultured frags then running away when its time to part with the dosh, they dont cost nothing to produce we have spend a half a million dollars on our facility if we dont sell for money we fold....

 

[MagicJ]

The Reef Central thread for anyone interested - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2500838&highlight=the+farm

 

[Coralfarmer]

The Reef Central thread for anyone interested - http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2500838&highlight=the farm

Thanks for that magicj i wasnt sure weather it was ok to post a link

 

[MagicJ]

Thanks for that magicj i wasnt sure weather it was ok to post a link

Pretty much anything is OK on The Reefuge - If there is good information to be shared then we want to share it, irrespective of where that information might be located :)

 

[NiCd]

My current tank has everything aquacultured and it has been damned hard to do. @Oceanarium has been a great help and has probably made up the bulk of it but I think it has been "growing" out for about 2 years now which is beyond the patients of all hobbyists, so I think a large problem is the size of the pieces available- Everybody wants that instant amazing tank.

Having said that I think there is a market here in Australia for aquacultured stuff and most of you have probably seen my posts for the gsp and turbos around the place which i post up every month or so and I clear out usually within 2 days of posting the ads- so despite me flogging off the same type of stock time after time for the last 5 years or so.

I know this is only small time and any commercial operation faces very different challenges but from a hobbyist's perspective of culturing I have found that whilst expensive items attract a lot of attention, they are near impossible to move.

I have done the red/pink/blue rics etc and unless you want to sell the pups off for $25 you can wait months and have to do 50 messages to try and get back half of what you paid for the original piece. The prices people pay in america just doesn't seem to happen here.

~$10 -$20 a frag seems to be the magic number people want to pay to move frags at a descent speed.

So If a LFS wants to stock this that means they would have to buy it for $3 have a few dollars postage costs to try and make $5 per sale. As the person culturing it I don't think anyone could make money selling it for this price and from the LFS point of view, Compare this to getting a single bit of acan for $20 and selling it for $80 for roughly the same effort and not too much difference in tank space. If I was a LFS I know what I would be doing.

So middle man trading wouldnt really work.

If you are dealing direct you have the issue of packing and shipping costs and dealing with all of the questions to maybe have a sale or putting in a shit tonne of work for what ends up being a single frag sale.

So I believe the only way it can work is you either automate your systems or have large minimum order quantities or preferably both which is where a lot seem to fall down as they don't have the money initially to invest is slick websites and checkouts. They also try to do so much variety to accommodate the minimum orders that they take on too much at one time and things fail and they burn out.

We tried setting something up on here a few years back to push hobbiest and there were alot of people that put in vast amounts of effort and planning but it never seemed to get off the ground, we also pushed the frag cells as a way to try and assist the postage and although we sold out very quickly it was a labour of love on our side and trying to get people to keep making them for nothing proved difficult to say the least.

Given the small market and nature of the Australian market I think an answer may be a co-op situation where groups of people who are geographically close together specialise in certain things and join together in an entity arrangement?

 

[Bobbo]

The simple blunt answer is Population. America has a population of ~319 million people. Australia has ~23.13 Million. now lets play makebelive that 1% of the population of both countries are Reefers. You've got essentially the Just under the population of Sydney into it over there to support the reefing economy.

Its the same as music festivals or anything, Just not enough people!

 

[Wrangy]

Well now youve opened a can of worms.... I am co-owner of probably the largest aquaculture facillity in Aus we ship frags all over the world, the states, sweden, spain, italy, france etc

We have been selling a few in aus as well..... But because we have a collection lisence people in Aus just assume we are a chop shop, sure we do frag new stock, but we have heaps of second, third and fourth gen frags....regardless of this all our frags are completly based and "tank hardened" we are a recirculating system, our business is wild colonies as well as aquacultured frags, our frags are in demand all over the world with most people reporting outstanding growth and color in a range of parameters...

We do find the aus market difficult, tightassness and general slandering of our product.... Just because... I supose its similar to these forums where its more about popularity than what we actually do... We are not as popular as other suppliers even though we sell a superior product ( shrug ) i supose its the aus hobbiest that looses in the end cause we jus go overseas

haha I know I have! You guys are one of the aquaculture setups that I admire and reference in my post (albeit unnamed sorry :( sustainable? yeah?). You also copped a HEAP of flak on masa though and I don't blame you for moving over to RC though, we're a lot nicer here ;) (ooops that's another can!)

I love The Farm and follow it pretty closely (despite infrequently posting lol) and I find your thread fascinating and your methods equally as awesome!! What you guys do does make me happy and you're one of the inspirations I've based this whole piece off! Even if you won't sell to us :P joking of course ;) (you have some serious porn in that farm! Like that yellow piece, oh my god!)

It would be good and I can't wait to see your frags in stores and I know Dave speaks highly of you as well! Tightarseness is a huge factor and Australian reefer's seem to be far less willing to spend big or on nice bits than anywhere else but I think that's due to the expensive nature of the hobby without having even filled a tank, let alone the electricity prices!

My current tank has everything aquacultured and it has been damned hard to do. @Oceanarium has been a great help and has probably made up the bulk of it but I think it has been "growing" out for about 2 years now which is beyond the patients of all hobbyists, so I think a large problem is the size of the pieces available- Everybody wants that instant amazing tank.

Having said that I think there is a market here in Australia for aquacultured stuff and most of you have probably seen my posts for the gsp and turbos around the place which i post up every month or so and I clear out usually within 2 days of posting the ads- so despite me flogging off the same type of stock time after time for the last 5 years or so.

I know this is only small time and any commercial operation faces very different challenges but from a hobbyist's perspective of culturing I have found that whilst expensive items attract a lot of attention, they are near impossible to move.

I have done the red/pink/blue rics etc and unless you want to sell the pups off for $25 you can wait months and have to do 50 messages to try and get back half of what you paid for the original piece. The prices people pay in america just doesn't seem to happen here.

~$10 -$20 a frag seems to be the magic number people want to pay to move frags at a descent speed.

So If a LFS wants to stock this that means they would have to buy it for $3 have a few dollars postage costs to try and make $5 per sale. As the person culturing it I don't think anyone could make money selling it for this price and from the LFS point of view, Compare this to getting a single bit of acan for $20 and selling it for $80 for roughly the same effort and not too much difference in tank space. If I was a LFS I know what I would be doing.

So middle man trading wouldnt really work.

If you are dealing direct you have the issue of packing and shipping costs and dealing with all of the questions to maybe have a sale or putting in a shit tonne of work for what ends up being a single frag sale.

So I believe the only way it can work is you either automate your systems or have large minimum order quantities or preferably both which is where a lot seem to fall down as they don't have the money initially to invest is slick websites and checkouts. They also try to do so much variety to accommodate the minimum orders that they take on too much at one time and things fail and they burn out.

We tried setting something up on here a few years back to push hobbiest and there were alot of people that put in vast amounts of effort and planning but it never seemed to get off the ground, we also pushed the frag cells as a way to try and assist the postage and although we sold out very quickly it was a labour of love on our side and trying to get people to keep making them for nothing proved difficult to say the least.

Given the small market and nature of the Australian market I think an answer may be a co-op situation where groups of people who are geographically close together specialise in certain things and join together in an entity arrangement?

I do agree with you! And your effort for sustainable coral frags is an impressive one! I don't really know of anyone else that has done it to such an extent. I know I certainly haven't lol

There does seem to be a very strong price restriction on things and people will hate spending more than that magical $10-30 mark, except when it's part of the craze! Like the rainbow $800 rics or the $200 polyps of zoa's! If it's in you are able to get away with whatever price really but if it's not well you need to try seriously hard!!

I think it's doable as well and we have some great examples of business who have and are doing it with great success! I do like the idea of the co-op situation but that gets messy quickly when profit comes into mind! The minimum order is a big thing too as if you're a one man/tank show then sending single frags just isn't worth it but if you do try a min. order then you will always lose out on business! It's a bit hard to win sometimes unless you can put some serious research into things and work out exact costs that ned to be covered and then for a profit to be turned!

 

[NiCd]

There will always be gaps in the market to fill the minimum order people. I charge over double the price for my turbos than oceanarium does but I will post you one snail if you want, but people stop ordering from me at the $80 mark generally because they can then go to oceanarium from that point on. But for me doing 10 $40 orders a week in my spare time is all gravy but for the amount of time a business would put into doing those orders not to even cover their power bill for the week, its just not viable.

 

[hurlza]

I really want to see a company serious about the aquaculture of fish. The US has ORA and a few others that breed plenty of fish. I know they have more demand, but thats why they have more than 1 large company. I personally would like to see one in aus, especially one that did more than just clowns. I wish to hopefully study fish breeding in the next couple years, and will also see if something like this is viable in aus

 

[Aspidites]

I really want to see a company serious about the aquaculture of fish. The US has ORA and a few others that breed plenty of fish. I know they have more demand, but thats why they have more than 1 large company. I personally would like to see one in aus, especially one that did more than just clowns. I wish to hopefully study fish breeding in the next couple years, and will also see if something like this is viable in aus

Geraldton TAFE ,in WA, had 6 or 7 species of fish breeding and selling thru to stores in WA (clowns, dottybacks, bangais etc) but unless you do the "fad morphs" of clowns the monetary rewards aren't there.

 

[Sam Parker]

What an awesome thread (both this one and the one on reefcentral that was linked).

Keep up the good work @Coralfarmer - I do hope to see some of your aqua cultured frags make their way to deer park soon :)

@Wrangy - Dom, you just keep pushing the good wagon bro, your conversation pieces are just what the hobby needs to keep interesting (as opposed to blurry ID photos of what people have taken from the local beach themselves or other frustrating facebook threads....)