Reef Discussion

hurlza

Member
Sep 22, 2014
96
48
I wonder how hard they are to spawn... :rolleyes cultured frags with their own inhabitants!


assuming hard, someone from james cook uni was breeding porcelain crabs and it was ridiculously hard apparently
 

ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
People are tight asses all over the world, I'm one, but that comes from not having a lot growing up and having to be creative when it comes to a hobby. I still haven't figured out the whole frag thing here. It'll be a COLD day in hell when I pony up $40 for a postage stamp spec of coral, NOT gonna happen. But that's what the market is here, $40-$2000 for 2-4cm of some odd ball coral that once got pissed on by the golden goose.
We're in the process of switching gears to start farming, it's not cheap, we're closing in on $500,000 ourselves. Some of that is the renewable energy sources we've invested in to help defray the costs of running lights and pumps. We're also looking into purchasing a greenhouse for growing.
 

Wrangy

Member
May 7, 2013
2,923
1,567
Research
Would be awesome if Aus could evolve in a similar way with big frag meets and events, hobbyists and local businesses could attend and sell/trade frags, equipment and talk about everything related. Sadly I don't think we'll see it. Just not enough hobbyists. Maybe in the eastern states it could happen.
It would definitely be very cool if we could even just have it on a larger and more popular scale, some more conference events would be amazing! I was sad that I missed the MACA up in Cairns that's just gone by! That would have been some special to go and see!

assuming hard, someone from james cook uni was breeding porcelain crabs and it was ridiculously hard apparently
Oh I would assume fairly difficult too but it would be pretty cool as everyone loves acro crabs! lol

People are tight asses all over the world, I'm one, but that comes from not having a lot growing up and having to be creative when it comes to a hobby. I still haven't figured out the whole frag thing here. It'll be a COLD day in hell when I pony up $40 for a postage stamp spec of coral, NOT gonna happen. But that's what the market is here, $40-$2000 for 2-4cm of some odd ball coral that once got pissed on by the golden goose.
We're in the process of switching gears to start farming, it's not cheap, we're closing in on $500,000 ourselves. Some of that is the renewable energy sources we've invested in to help defray the costs of running lights and pumps. We're also looking into purchasing a greenhouse for growing.
Thanks for your input Rob :) A lot of people have that mentality about frags especially with the quality of wild stock that we can get in! However asking the questions on the FB groups it does seem that there is a genuine interest in frags but how those people will go when it's time for them to actually put their money where there mouth is, is anyone's guess! lol
 
Sep 24, 2013
367
280
Palm Beach
My first 15 years of reefing were in Brazil, were the wild colonies were inexistent. Every tank was built from frags. We would travel to the US and group buy boxes full of frags, until Sept 11...

At that time, the US aquaculture market was amateurish and done by hobbyists. Most of them were located in locations far from the ocean, with high population and backed by local aquarium associations. They also had a huge demand for little supply and shipping costs were excessive, in the pre online shipping era.
In other words, there was an environment that demanded for frags.

These days, their frag market is crowded and the older fraggers evolved a bit towards boutique frags and colours that aren't usually found in the wild...

In other words, both Brazilian and US Aquaculture markets were built by necessity and demand, not even a bit because os sustainability.

IMO, Australia just doesn't have the dynamics needed to develop a strong aquaculture for the internal market, unfortunately.
Population is much smaller and the GBR hosts the best wild colonies in the world, so offer is much higher than demand. In addition, online shipping is cheap and the population is located near the ocean, thus shipping cost isn't an issue.

Sustainability can certainly drive a few aquaculture business, like we see today, but I doubt it will ever be enough to make a dent in harvesting wild colonies.
 

Oceanarium

Member
Nov 8, 2011
329
274
Perth
It surprises me too why there are not more people doing culture as a full time operation. Demand is there if you produce what the Aussie reefer wants.

To me the biggest hurdle in Australia is the poor logistics available to get the products to the customer. Even for wild caught most the on line fish shops don't last long and they don't have to have the big facility and costs to to grow the corals. These businesses can run from a small system and re stock weekly. But they do have the dis advantage of freight both in and out. When Qantas increased its freight dramatically over a period to its customers 2yrs -18 months back a whole bunch of OLFS disappeared.

The problem is the freight companies will give a big collector shipping large volumes of LR etc a massive discount on freight rates. I might send 15-20 small boxes a week for a total of < 100kg ... same as 5 boxes LR. A big collector sends out tonnes and tonnes. They get a freight rate so low they can ship 20kg LR from WA under $60 my rate to SYD / Melb is $360 for freight alone. The freight companies effectively stifle any smaller operation from having any chance of growing to a bigger one.

So far as the issues @Wrangy raised;
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!
Not any more we smashed our power bill with solar its so cheap to buy now we paid $600 per kw hour pay back at 24c/kw is 25 months then is is free. Wild collectors have to pay for power and fuel too.
- Cost of wild collected corals being low
Yes but some things are not common to find so wild collectors are limited in what they can supply on a week in week out basis a culture farm can move to these items and away from the stuff a wild collector has abundance of.
- Not a super large market, well rather small and people are cheap lol (I know I am haha)
Market is big all the same worth tens of millions room for some $$ to be made. I do agree people buy with price in mind if you try set up a business to get rich quick selling $600 + rics and $150 / polyp zoas then forget it, but not make a living. The bulk is in $20-30 bits to main stream aquarists. Not collectors of rarities or others wanting to get in on the act. - no get rich quick is ever easy always to good to be true only so many people will pay those types of dollars . You have to work for your money whatever business your in. If your not competitive on pricing you wont sell bulk enough to survive as a serious operation.
- Shipping difficulties
Yep as already stated, if wanting to set up a farm then sort this first and make your products to suit the freight arrangements. you don't last long sending boxes of dead stuff. We long ago moved from heavy low value items and sensitive to ship. Best to leave these to LFS.
Overall equipment costs being high
No more so than for wild collectors boats are expensive to run and maintain especially commercially with survey.
- Aquaculture is a high risk business with small, simple mistakes being able to decimate an entire tank
This is a big risk you have to be able to afford to make one disaster and you may need to start all over again. But you can mitigate risk, multiple power backups, power circuits, cooling, heating, alarms and alerts and most of all multiple systems.
 

Wrangy

Member
May 7, 2013
2,923
1,567
Research
It surprises me too why there are not more people doing culture as a full time operation. Demand is there if you produce what the Aussie reefer wants.

To me the biggest hurdle in Australia is the poor logistics available to get the products to the customer. Even for wild caught most the on line fish shops don't last long and they don't have to have the big facility and costs to to grow the corals. These businesses can run from a small system and re stock weekly. But they do have the dis advantage of freight both in and out. When Qantas increased its freight dramatically over a period to its customers 2yrs -18 months back a whole bunch of OLFS disappeared.

The problem is the freight companies will give a big collector shipping large volumes of LR etc a massive discount on freight rates. I might send 15-20 small boxes a week for a total of < 100kg ... same as 5 boxes LR. A big collector sends out tonnes and tonnes. They get a freight rate so low they can ship 20kg LR from WA under $60 my rate to SYD / Melb is $360 for freight alone. The freight companies effectively stifle any smaller operation from having any chance of growing to a bigger one.
I'm glad to hear that there is one of the big guns thinking along the same lines! There does seem to be an overall demand for it but it needs to be pushed and worked on getting what people are after.

There really is an issue with logistics in Australia, especially once you add in the difficulties that the guys and gals face with quarantine in WA and Tas. While not impossible it does make things harder. There was a bit of a quietening in the hobby with some of the online stores when Qantas freight jumped in price!
Logistics seems to be an odd one as there does seem to be a few different companies offering shipping and freight, do you know of anyone that's tried these types of businesses with any kind of success?


Not any more we smashed our power bill with solar its so cheap to buy now we paid $600 per kw hour pay back at 24c/kw is 25 months then is is free. Wild collectors have to pay for power and fuel too.
Yeah, I agree. Anyone thinking about creating any sort of serious aquaculture setup would definitely need to invest in solar simply because of the sheer amount of power required to run such a setup! Good to hear it's working so well for you!


Yes but some things are not common to find so wild collectors are limited in what they can supply on a week in week out basis a culture farm can move to these items and away from the stuff a wild collector has abundance of.
Market is big all the same worth tens of millions room for some $$ to be made. I do agree people buy with price in mind if you try set up a business to get rich quick selling $600 + rics and $150 / polyp zoas then forget it, but not make a living. The bulk is in $20-30 bits to main stream aquarists. Not collectors of rarities or others wanting to get in on the act. - no get rich quick is ever easy always to good to be true only so many people will pay those types of dollars . You have to work for your money whatever business your in. If your not competitive on pricing you wont sell bulk enough to survive as a serious operation.
This is definitely true, I think with any large scale type setup, you're going to need to have some kind of baseline stock of decent quality that you know people would be after. Things that people can put a name to and are easy to keep and manage so that you can inject the extra business with less regular nicer pieces that aren't seen very often. Things that LFS's don't see everyday.
It most certainly is not a get rich quick scheme is it! I think a lot of people jump in on the current craze, like ric's or zoa's, and think that they can make a quick dollar while everyone is hyped! Then when the craze dies down the amount of frag tanks and propagation setups that appear is a little bit funny as all these people have realised that it's not what they thought it would be!

Yep as already stated, if wanting to set up a farm then sort this first and make your products to suit the freight arrangements. you don't last long sending boxes of dead stuff. We long ago moved from heavy low value items and sensitive to ship. Best to leave these to LFS.
No more so than for wild collectors boats are expensive to run and maintain especially commercially with survey.
This is a big risk you have to be able to afford to make one disaster and you may need to start all over again. But you can mitigate risk, multiple power backups, power circuits, cooling, heating, alarms and alerts and most of all multiple systems.
It is another key element being able to recoup from a potential system-wide loss but as you said with today's technologies these sorts of mass disasters are preventable and can avoided with a little bit of planning ahead and looking after everything!

I just want to say a HUGE thank you for your input though and to such an in-depth level! It's really fantastic of you to tank the time and respond to all of that for everyone to see :) Being involved in the hobby is always another key aspect of being successful ;) Can't wait to see you open again for the year Pete!
 

ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
I think another issue there is the cost factor. I'd imagine that specimens that come from other areas would fetch quite a bit more than your native species and would be good candidates for culture. Here in the US, all you have to say is Aussie and people will pay the tune of $100 per polyp of Aussie gold torch. You can hardly give away maricultured or wild Indo stuff and I don't understand it. I can sell Aussie all day long for a spec of coral, but a beautiful maricultured colony of the same damn thing, 3-4 polyps will sit here and those 3-4 polyps are 1/4 of what they'd pay for 1 of Australian.

As for the equipment needed, I ran a sheet last night, couldn't sleep. I have over $100,000 just in equipment, tanks, pumps and dosing. I also have an ex Soviet generator that could power a 3rd world country just in case. Back when I bought it I paid $1500. For the same thing today you're looking at $5000-$10,000. Stuff adds up quick and without the capital to keep forging ahead you're dead in the water so to say. Is the power grid there that unreliable? I keep hearing everyone there saying that they lost power for x amount of time? If you have a power cut issue, that's a BIG concern that must be addressed.
 
Jan 18, 2015
36
36
Geraldton
Great read I like what everyone has put down its awesome to see that you are all passionate about this hobby . I haven't got much to add Batavia Coral Farm is still relatively new to this business and is still trying to find my feet so to to speak haha
Cheers
Jerram
 

Wrangy

Member
May 7, 2013
2,923
1,567
Research
I think another issue there is the cost factor. I'd imagine that specimens that come from other areas would fetch quite a bit more than your native species and would be good candidates for culture. Here in the US, all you have to say is Aussie and people will pay the tune of $100 per polyp of Aussie gold torch. You can hardly give away maricultured or wild Indo stuff and I don't understand it. I can sell Aussie all day long for a spec of coral, but a beautiful maricultured colony of the same damn thing, 3-4 polyps will sit here and those 3-4 polyps are 1/4 of what they'd pay for 1 of Australian.
I wouldn't know, we don't get any coral imports. Not allowed too, sometimes the collectors do a sneaky and go a little a little further than they should but aside from that there isn't any foreign corals here aside from r. florida but everyone keeps them on the down low!
It is funny that people are so picky especially when you still get similar/the same level of quality just from a different location!

As for the equipment needed, I ran a sheet last night, couldn't sleep. I have over $100,000 just in equipment, tanks, pumps and dosing. I also have an ex Soviet generator that could power a 3rd world country just in case. Back when I bought it I paid $1500. For the same thing today you're looking at $5000-$10,000. Stuff adds up quick and without the capital to keep forging ahead you're dead in the water so to say. Is the power grid there that unreliable? I keep hearing everyone there saying that they lost power for x amount of time? If you have a power cut issue, that's a BIG concern that must be addressed.
Holy shit, it's a fair old whack of equipment needed but then again it's what it takes and it's not a cheap venture to get into! We do have blackouts on the occasion and the power can be fairly inconsistent so backups are completely necessary when drawing off the mains! Solar would reduce this further but you still wouldn't want to run a system without them!

Great read I like what everyone has put down its awesome to see that you are all passionate about this hobby . I haven't got much to add Batavia Coral Farm is still relatively new to this business and is still trying to find my feet so to to speak haha
Cheers
Jerram
Thanks for joining in Jerram! :) At least on the bright side of your setup you don't have to worry about pumps, heaters, chillers and lighting! lol I love seeing your pics on facebook! The racks look absolutely fantastic!
It's actually really good to see a huge mariculture effort going on as I don't think anyone else is doing it(?), I would love to get some of the corals you have going! They look fantastic :) I might hit you up once you're happy shipping out to Vic ;)
 

ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
Before the windmill was put in our power was off and on all the damn time. Once I go on solar it'll all be over but that shouting, but it comes at a price. $3100 per panel, I forget what they produce, but we're doing 4 banks of 4 panels.

As for the coral imports, here you can get anything and I do mean anything you want fish or coral wise.
 

Oceanarium

Member
Nov 8, 2011
329
274
Perth
There are several mariculture ventures in development, some are through indigenous funding up in the north west. Several others around the abrolhos including this one abrolhoscoral

I imagine the future looks quite bright with an increase in sustainable coral supplies.

We had to go to a rural property to attain a planning approval for aquaculture as most city councils don't allow aquaculture as an approved use in industrial and residential areas. Power supply reliability is pretty good considering but when big events happen it can take quite a while to get restored, so we do need to be self sufficient. We have had several major events in the past 6 years.

A bush fire burnt out several km of power poles so we went days without power.

Then there was a massive storm hit Perth, including us and being in a rural area meant priority was to restore power to Perth suburbs it was two days before we had power restored.

Our worst event was a direct hit by lighting on the farm it took out all our meter boxes and power infrastructure including frying our auto mains gen set switching gear, lights pumps etc. I kept every thing alive the first night by refueling a small gen set running the sump pumps every 1.5 hours. It took about a week to have power restored.

Another storm hit us and 10 fires started within 2km of the farm, I went out with a load of salt water that was supposed to be my water change for the day to put out the closest :p. Spent most the day fighting fires till the power went out and had to attend the farm. We were isolated by FESA not letting anyone into the fire zone so was denied any assistance for some time.

Before the windmill was put in our power was off and on all the damn time. Once I go on solar it'll all be over but that shouting.
Unless your going with battery back up once the power goes the solar shuts down too?

I did look at a small off grid system to run the sump pumps as an idea to increase reliability. Run off solar / battery with the reliability of mains as back up and worst case both those failing we still have auto mains gen set. But nothing is fool proof its expensive to set up and still then have to rely 100% on the inverter/s not failing.

You cant always have what you want when its for profit too, unlike setting up a hobby tank as an expensive folly. We always really need to consider cost vs reward. I have a list of equipment a mile long I would 'like' but instead suffer with what i 'have' :rolleyes in order to keep costs down.
 

Sam Parker

Moderator
May 6, 2013
4,802
2,397
Geelong
There are several mariculture ventures in development, some are through indigenous funding up in the north west. Several others around the abrolhos including this one abrolhoscoral

I imagine the future looks quite bright with an increase in sustainable coral supplies.

We had to go to a rural property to attain a planning approval for aquaculture as most city councils don't allow aquaculture as an approved use in industrial and residential areas. Power supply reliability is pretty good considering but when big events happen it can take quite a while to get restored, so we do need to be self sufficient. We have had several major events in the past 6 years.

A bush fire burnt out several km of power poles so we went days without power.

Then there was a massive storm hit Perth, including us and being in a rural area meant priority was to restore power to Perth suburbs it was two days before we had power restored.

Our worst event was a direct hit by lighting on the farm it took out all our meter boxes and power infrastructure including frying our auto mains gen set switching gear, lights pumps etc. I kept every thing alive the first night by refueling a small gen set running the sump pumps every 1.5 hours. It took about a week to have power restored.

Another storm hit us and 10 fires started within 2km of the farm, I went out with a load of salt water that was supposed to be my water change for the day to put out the closest :p. Spent most the day fighting fires till the power went out and had to attend the farm. We were isolated by FESA not letting anyone into the fire zone so was denied any assistance for some time.


Unless your going with battery back up once the power goes the solar shuts down too?

I did look at a small off grid system to run the sump pumps as an idea to increase reliability. Run off solar / battery with the reliability of mains as back up and worst case both those failing we still have auto mains gen set. But nothing is fool proof its expensive to set up and still then have to rely 100% on the inverter/s not failing.

You cant always have what you want when its for profit too, unlike setting up a hobby tank as an expensive folly. We always really need to consider cost vs reward. I have a list of equipment a mile long I would 'like' but instead suffer with what i 'have' :rolleyes in order to keep costs down.

What a story! Awesome! Glad to hear you've pulled through all those incidents, surely nothing can beat you now.

With Solar - the new Tesla power wall will make a mighty impressive battery backup for large setups (or tech hungry home aquarists!)
 

ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
There are several mariculture ventures in development, some are through indigenous funding up in the north west. Several others around the abrolhos including this one abrolhoscoral

I imagine the future looks quite bright with an increase in sustainable coral supplies.

We had to go to a rural property to attain a planning approval for aquaculture as most city councils don't allow aquaculture as an approved use in industrial and residential areas. Power supply reliability is pretty good considering but when big events happen it can take quite a while to get restored, so we do need to be self sufficient. We have had several major events in the past 6 years.

A bush fire burnt out several km of power poles so we went days without power.

Then there was a massive storm hit Perth, including us and being in a rural area meant priority was to restore power to Perth suburbs it was two days before we had power restored.

Our worst event was a direct hit by lighting on the farm it took out all our meter boxes and power infrastructure including frying our auto mains gen set switching gear, lights pumps etc. I kept every thing alive the first night by refueling a small gen set running the sump pumps every 1.5 hours. It took about a week to have power restored.

Another storm hit us and 10 fires started within 2km of the farm, I went out with a load of salt water that was supposed to be my water change for the day to put out the closest :p. Spent most the day fighting fires till the power went out and had to attend the farm. We were isolated by FESA not letting anyone into the fire zone so was denied any assistance for some time.


Unless your going with battery back up once the power goes the solar shuts down too?

I did look at a small off grid system to run the sump pumps as an idea to increase reliability. Run off solar / battery with the reliability of mains as back up and worst case both those failing we still have auto mains gen set. But nothing is fool proof its expensive to set up and still then have to rely 100% on the inverter/s not failing.

You cant always have what you want when its for profit too, unlike setting up a hobby tank as an expensive folly. We always really need to consider cost vs reward. I have a list of equipment a mile long I would 'like' but instead suffer with what i 'have' :rolleyes in order to keep costs down.
I would love to buy maricultured Australian corals, but they're damn hard to come by here. I want to be more than a "chop shop" here in the states. There are only a few that are captive propagating and anyone that tells you otherwise is full of shit.

EVERYONE that is in business for themselves has that list mate. I am in a unique position to make most of what I need and I usually do as long as it doesn't involve electricity. I have friends who do fiberglass work and they make runs for me. I trade work for work. he doesn't weld, I do.

As for power, when the sun goes down and on the very few days that the wind isn't strong enough to turn the mill I have the generator if I need it when the grid's down. Even with the generator, I make my own biodiesel and run that. Look around for military surplus generators, with the wars winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, there's bound to be some enterprising person selling one. The nice thing about them is they're portable and if a cyclone's bearing down on you, you can tow it away out of harm's way.

I'm no econutter and I don't want to come off that way, but we're stewards of the Earth and we need to pass it on a little bit better than we got it. Right, wrong or indifferent what we do as a hobby is destructive, like it or not it is. We need to mitigate that as best we can.

Now y'all need to start growing me some damn corals!! :D
 

Coralfarmer

Member
Jul 20, 2015
48
27
I would love to buy maricultured Australian corals, but they're damn hard to come by here. I want to be more than a "chop shop" here in the states. There are only a few that are captive propagating and anyone that tells you otherwise is full of shit.

EVERYONE that is in business for themselves has that list mate. I am in a unique position to make most of what I need and I usually do as long as it doesn't involve electricity. I have friends who do fiberglass work and they make runs for me. I trade work for work. he doesn't weld, I do.

As for power, when the sun goes down and on the very few days that the wind isn't strong enough to turn the mill I have the generator if I need it when the grid's down. Even with the generator, I make my own biodiesel and run that. Look around for military surplus generators, with the wars winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, there's bound to be some enterprising person selling one. The nice thing about them is they're portable and if a cyclone's bearing down on you, you can tow it away out of harm's way.

I'm no econutter and I don't want to come off that way, but we're stewards of the Earth and we need to pass it on a little bit better than we got it. Right, wrong or indifferent what we do as a hobby is destructive, like it or not it is. We need to mitigate that as best we can.

Now y'all need to start growing me some damn corals!! :D

Ah yes the eco chestnut...lol
I have been talking about this for a looong time now and Pete can also attest to this but threads on our ecological impact or our responsability to the reefs get very little attention, this is an hypocracy i have never been to shy to point out.... Lol again...

The average reefer in aus doesnt give a rats ass about conservation, only when they become confident in themselves as reefers do they "start" to care.

The instant gratification is rife, people have no patients to grow out frags and watch them change, and enjoy the transitions they go through, they just want nice colorful colonies and if one browns out lets get rid of it....

Then there are the major collectors who really really do not want the trade in frags to gather much momentum.... There is alot against the coral farmer in aus and thats mainly due to such easy access to wild colonies, i think you would find the states in a similar position if it had the barrier reef on its east coast ....., rant over peace out :)
 

dimitri

Member
Aug 15, 2015
287
76
Not sure this has been posted on the forum before, but surely this kind of production on a larger scale could result in more corals at a better price for everyone in a more sustainable fashion & help the reefs around the world and locals make some $


I know when I was in the West Indies in 2007 they had set aside large sections of reef that had been decimated by overfishing for zero fishing & within a couple of years they where getting good numbers of fish back into xx square kilometers, you just need good regulation from government, a couple of smart (not so greedy) companies and incentive for the locals, money in this case.

Surely the rate of growth in that video would be enough to quench the demand of the hobbyists when done on a commercial scale.
 

ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
That is being done in Bali and in other areas of Indonesia as well as by Walt Smith in Fiji. I buy quite a bit of maricultured stock and the rest is wild.

I'd LOVE to be able to order boxes of maricultured Australian corals. Being able to get a box with 40-60 pieces in it is very appealing to me as well as my customers instead of 20-30 pieces.

Here's a link to Walt Smith's Fiji stock.
http://www.waltsmith.com/PhotoGallery.htm