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Pod Your Reef

An open letter to the aquarium industry


Humblefish

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(Apologies if this insults or offends anyone. I just think I need to get some things off my chest.)

 

I've been doing this for 40 years now: Hobbyist, maintenance, and retail. And since getting back into the business side of things (over a year now), I've encountered things that to me seem almost unbelievable. The first is equipment/products... First, I will say that this hobby has come quite a long way thanks to technology. But what's lacking is QUALITY. In the past year, here is a list of problems I've had: 10 LED fixtures I bought for my business which had to be RMA, bottles of live bacteria that were actually just dead bacteria, bags of dead pods, contaminated DI resin, fish medications with little to no active ingredients, ammonia in salt, etc. etc. I'm not going to name any specific companies, because I'm not seeking revenge. I'm just bringing to everyone's attention the overall lack of Quality Control in our industry. This hobby is challenging enough at times. It becomes even more difficult when you can't rely upon the equipment & products you need to succeed, both as a hobbyist and as a business.

 

The above complaints could almost be overlooked, because these are just things - not living, breathing animals. (Except for the pods and bacteria. 🤐) But when equipment fails, sometimes livestock is lost. Which brings me to my next gripe: All the sick, dying fish in the supply chain. Just 10 years ago ich was everyone's biggest concern. Now we have velvet, brook, uronema, flukes, bacterial infections, internal parasites/worms and many other virulent diseases to deal with. This concerns me the most for many reasons. First and foremost, I love fish and have kept some specimens in captivity for 10-15 years. When I lose one, it hurts the same as losing a beloved pet cat or dog. However, when I remove my emotions from the equation I realize our days of importing fish may be numbered if this continues. This is something that is in the back of the mind of many hobbyists and those of us in the industry alike. When the day comes where regulating the aquarium industry is front and center, it would be nice to have a leg to stand on so as to muster a defense. I get that livestock wholesalers and LFS need to make money. But sometimes I think they are so focused on short-term profits that they are sacrificing their long-term livelihood.

 

I will try to end this rant on a positive note. It is great to see just how far we've come with successfully keeping corals. Back in the 80s, pretty much all corals were collected in the wild and we had no idea how to care for them. Nowadays, most corals are aquacultured, and we have detailed information regarding every coral's specific needs & requirements. So, there is hope for the fish. Maybe as captive breeding increases to include more species, fish diseases will be less and less of a problem. One can only hope.

 

Anyway, that is all. Feel free to discuss below if you feel so inclined.

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This guy is extra salty

Very well said and more

i have noticed the same especially with coral sales is it me or has everything doubled in price over the past year? Not to mention you get randoms being sticklers about “they can get the same thing but cheaper, somewhere else”  lol 😂

 

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I can’t really speak to the quality issues you have dealt with, but I think the end of your second paragraph about short term profits for many stores is spot on and has been a major contributor to the reasons there has been a big decline in local stores (combined with the consumerist mentality of sticking to brands they know from advertising). LFSs tend to have a bad rap for giving poor advice to newcomers, dropping fish directly into the displays (I understand space constraints for full quarantine systems, but straight from wild caught to sales tanks has a lot of risk and high loss rates), dead fish in display tanks, and selling fish that are clearly sick. Not all are like this and I am fortunate to have a bunch of good stores within an hour or so drive, but those behaviors are what leads to people looking to online resources, big box stores, or walking away from the hobby.

 

19 hours ago, This guy is extra salty said:

Very well said and more

i have noticed the same especially with coral sales is it me or has everything doubled in price over the past year? Not to mention you get randoms being sticklers about “they can get the same thing but cheaper, somewhere else”  lol 😂

 

You note that prices have doubled over the past year then point out that people get upset about artificially high prices. I think you justified the “randoms” point or placed yourself into the same group as the randoms. 😛

 

 

The online chop shops are taking advantage of the people that are seeing the high prices for named and brightly colored corals thinking they can turn a quick profit by growing out and selling instead of what it used to predominantly be, which was fragging and trading/sharing. This buying frenzy drives up prices, along with a lot of the major coral collection areas closing, which rapidly drives prices up while simultaniously driving the size of frags down ($800 is a steal for a single head torch the size of my thumbnail that would have been $30-45 per head a couple of years ago). We need to work on a way to keep the collection areas open by supporting sustainable collection for mariculture facilities. We also need to start working on hobbiests breeding marine fishes like a lot of the fresh water clubs have been doing since the 40’s and 50’s. There has been a lot of sustainability and focus on maintaining endangered and extinct species in home aquaria with several re-introduced species in areas that have been remediated.

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I wish we could go back to the days where LFS earned customer loyalty by just being honest with the customer. Everything has good and bad to it, so don't happy talk everything when it's just going to come back to bite you. I had a customer who really wanted a male Lyretail Anthias from Fiji because those turn purple. I ordered that from the wholesaler, but I'm pretty sure what I got was Indian Ocean Lyretails (orange/red) instead. But instead of trying to BS him by saying "Well, it might turn purple someday" - I admitted it would probably always be the orange/red variant. Even though it wasn't exactly what he wanted, he told me I had always been "solid" so he was going to buy it + 2 females. Made me feel really good that he knew what he was getting without any misunderstandings.

 

I'm so sick of these online vendors who are nothing but a "middleman" for the various wholesalers. No store, no tanks with livestock in them, no skin in the game. They're little more than an insurance company offering a 2 week guarantee. No LFS can compete with a competitor like that, with that little overhead. And for the record, I don't own a LFS. 😉

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I purchase a lot of coral and salt...food....ect at the LFS but admittedly not a ton of fish. 

 

The reason is simply because as you pointed out....the industry is full of very sick fish and the LFS here moves them so fast you don't know what you are bringing home. I have much better luck with LA and DD and they have a 2 week guarantee. 

 

Sucks about the hardware problems. The price and the quality I get some some products certainly doesn't match. 

4 hours ago, Beer said:

We also need to start working on hobbiests breeding marine fishes like a lot of the fresh water clubs have been doing since the 40’s and 50’s. There has been a lot of sustainability and focus on maintaining endangered and extinct species in home aquaria with several re-introduced species in areas that have been remediated.

It doesn't seem very easy to obtain breeding stock for many fish...not to mention costly. Probably why we don't see more of this.

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I know this isn't exactly the main topic, but...

 

This industry needs to be lobbying for legislative changes to the Endangered Species Act (ESA).  This act makes it illegal to possess, threatened species.  That's right, it doesn't matter if fish was captive bred, and the corals were aquacultured inland, it would be illegal to possess, sell, or trade them.

 

You can pretty much envision a time in the near future where all coral will be classified as threatened and "protected".  With regulations as they stand, this would mean the end of reef keeping.

 

Now I'm not advocating not to protect our wild reefs.  But I am suggesting that we exclude captive specimens from these protections.  This industry could survive with very minimal licensed collecting of wild specimens, to be used specifically for brood stock in aquaculture.

 

And in the event of an extinction, it might even be possible to reintroduce certain captive specimens back into the wild, to repopulate an area.  Now we wouldn't want to reintroduce things like specialty clownfish, but you get the idea.

 

I've voiced this concern to PIJAC (Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council) before.  However, they seem set on fighting what species are listed and not on changing the law to exclude captive fish and coral.

 

Maybe it's time that we start advocating to PIJAC, to use their influence to help change the law.  Here's a thread which discusses some of these concerns: 

 

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IMO, taking wild fish off a reef and shipping them to pet stores is cruel. I can maybe understand doing this with schooling varities that are near over population levels on wild reefs or nuisance invaders like lion fish, but the fast majority of fish in pet stores aren't on this list and the marine fish trade is poorly regulated.

 

Captive breed fish for me only. Every coral I've put in my tank has been a frag. I also only use a few pieces of LR as possible preferring instead to use artificial, or lava rock which I've found to provide more porosity per pound than live rock.

 

Coral reefs have enough problems other than contributing to a trade where most of the live stock end up dead when the aquarist loses interest or their kid over feeds nemo.

 

IMO, if you want to keep cool looking fish set up an African chiclid tank. They breed like a virus, come in just as many varities as fresh, and are easier to keep.

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Nothing happens without a profit motive. 

 

Not saying these aren't all good and valid points (which they are), but especially addressing your second point about diseased fish or captive fish and LFS making profits - it's a customer issue as well. You said it yourself, no LFS can compete with a middleman with virtually no overhead. Those middlemen exist because at the end of the day, the vast majority of people are price driven. 
 

You see it all the time - on one hand, we applaud the efforts of aquaculture and breeding, but then balk at the price of the end product. How many times do we hear it? "Oh, it's that much? I can get the same thing from X for 50% less." Even if a LFS wanted to deliver a superior product, most people will settle for the cheaper alternative when they essentially do the same thing. Maybe the customer will eventually learn and move onto the better product, but by then, there's a good chance the LFS has gone out of business.

 

I guess my ultimate point is that we as consumers ultimately drive the direction with our wallets. If we won't collectively demand better service/QC/products and really commit to it via wallets, then there's no impetus for the sellers to change.  

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2 hours ago, blasterman said:

IMO, taking wild fish off a reef and shipping them to pet stores is cruel. I can maybe understand doing this with schooling varities that are near over population levels on wild reefs or nuisance invaders like lion fish, but the fast majority of fish in pet stores aren't on this list and the marine fish trade is poorly regulated.

I struggle with this as well sometimes. So, I made a deal with myself a long time ago: I would continue to imprison these fish for my own selfish pleasure. However, I would see to it that they always had a good environment to live in, and wouldn't have to worry about food, disease or aggression from other fish whilst in my care. That’s how I justify (to myself) being in this hobby.

 

1 hour ago, pokerdobe said:

Nothing happens without a profit motive. 

 

Not saying these aren't all good and valid points (which they are), but especially addressing your second point about diseased fish or captive fish and LFS making profits - it's a customer issue as well. You said it yourself, no LFS can compete with a middleman with virtually no overhead. Those middlemen exist because at the end of the day, the vast majority of people are price driven.

You're 100% correct. A LFS owner I know once put it best: "This hobby will survive even if every LFS in the world goes out of business. However, the overall popularity of the hobby will diminish because there will be no showplaces left to draw newbies in. Keeping saltwater tanks will strictly be a fringe sorta thing."

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StinkyBunny

As far as I can see the industry will never change, profit is why it will never change. PIJAC has EXTREMELY deep pockets and they're going to protect their interests as well as they can. The only way it will change is if there's some new blood at the top or a lot of pressure is put on it to change.

 

If everyone is having these issues with their supply chain, then you need to find new suppliers. There were several wholesalers that I would NEVER, EVER use when we had our retail shop. I'm not going to name them, not even via PM due to the legal consequences.

 

Piss poor quality is why I started back to transshipping fish, corals and inverts. I got tired of buying garbage out of Bali and certain collectors in The Philippines who STILL use cyanide to catch fish. If you think it doesn't still happen, you've got blinders on. I buy very little out of Indonesia fish wise due to that very issue. I have a collector in Manado that I use for lots of little fish and inverts, his stuff is clean and he knows his collectors use nets. My customers deserve better and they're going to get it from me. My business model is to treat my customers the way I would want to be treated. I could turn and burn cheap fish out of Bali, but I'd have some seriously pissed off customers. Take for example Powder Blue tangs. They're not cheap, $50-$80 retail. There's a $7 difference in my cost between Sri Lanka and Bali and if I buy right out of Sri Lanka that price drops to $4. The Sri Lankan PBTs live, they're not juiced. If you find a cheap PBT and I damn well guarantee you if came from Bali. Some people don't care about anything but gimme the money, I want the money, but I want your money for years to come.

 

On to coral costs and the state of disarray. Most know that Indo, Fiji and now Tonga have closed for coral collection. That's the biggest reason for the stupid prices right now, there's damn little left in the supply chain. Right now the only places for corals are Australia for hard corals and Vietnam for soft corals and that's it. Tonga opens and closes depending on the direction of the wind. Fiji has been rumored to be opening back up in May, don't hold your breath folks. I'll believe it when I get the call to come pick up my shipment at the airport, till then I'm looking at Fiji with a hairy eyeball. Australia? Dunno, their stuff is expensive, the shipping is expensive, but you get great colorful stock there. I don't think it's going to stay open long term. Indonesia closes about once every 10 years because some greedy bastard in the food chain wants more gravy and they can stop it till they get their money, it's as simple as that. I've been in and out of the import game for the better part of 30 years. I started doing freshwater more in the last 6 months due to Indo and Fiji closing and the reliability issues with Tonga. My sales were off 45% and that was not acceptable. Now my freshwater sales have eclipsed coral sales. I'll still sell corals, but not on the scale I was 3 years ago at its pinnacle.

 

Next on the agenda, maricultured and aquacultured corals. I'd love to see more maricultured corals but even with the number of farms in Indo, they just can't keep up with the demand. If anyone thinks that their specs of corals are all/mostly captive propagated, you got a screw loose. There are still 2 chop shops close to me that churn out thousands of frags every week from wild stock. I see them when the Australia container arrives and I see their stuff for sale on sites around the web. We've come a long way baby, but baby, we got a long way to go.

 

Until captive bred marine fish can compete with wild caught fish the importation of wild fish will continue unabated, again money leads the way.

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1 hour ago, StinkyBunny said:

PIJAC has EXTREMELY deep pockets and they're going to protect their interests as well as they can.

You'd think that ORA would be pushing for exemptions for captive livestock.  Plus, it wouldn't necessarily take away from wild collected specimens.  Just seems a little short sighted to me. :unsure:

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On 3/13/2019 at 10:15 PM, Humblefish said:

I wish we could go back to the days where LFS earned customer loyalty by just being honest with the customer.....

I don’t think it is fair to generalize and classify all LFSs as falling into the behaviors that have earned the general distrust of most experienced reef keepers. There are still a lot of store owners that care and put a lot into the hobby.

 

There is a difference between having a love for the hobby and wanting to make a living doing what you love and the reality of customer service.

 

 

I have mixed feelings about regulations that prevent the posession of species that may be in decline or are from fisheries that have been shut down (to the aquarium trade, but are still fair game for other, much larger and much more distructive, markets). On one hand, there will be issues with illegal trade and capture, but developing breeding programs that remove or reduce the pressure on wild populations is completely prevented and made illegal. The freshwater community has made great strides in developing groups that focus on limiting harm to wild populations and promote and reward breeding at home.

 

 

 

I really hate clown fish for various reasons, but they are currently like guppies in the 50’s and 60’s. People are figuring out how to successfully and continuously breed them over several generations and starting to learn how to breed for certain traits (though nowhere near mapped out as well as guppies where people can actually sit down with a pencil and draw out the patterns and colors that they want and breed them out within several generations). The guppy lead to sucessfully breeding and maintaining other live bearers. Those lessons learned were carried over to rearing larvae from egg laying fish. The same principals need to be worked out in the marine side of the hobby if we want this to be sustainable and to carry on in the future.

 

 

Sorry if this is taking away from the original intent of the thread.

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12 hours ago, Beer said:

I don’t think it is fair to generalize and classify all LFSs as falling into the behaviors that have earned the general distrust of most experienced reef keepers. There are still a lot of store owners that care and put a lot into the hobby.

 

There is a difference between having a love for the hobby and wanting to make a living doing what you love and the reality of customer service.

Most LFS owners I know are not making it financially. So, that kind of desperation causes you to give advice to make a quick sale but also alienates many customers over the long-term. Because once they find a forum such as this, they'll start getting advice from more experienced hobbyists and realize they've been had by the LFS.

 

But I also think people in general are to blame. Case in point: I was once in a LFS where a guy picked the owner's brain for 30 minutes about a light. He let him play with the light & everything. When he finally asked the guy if he wanted to buy one, the guy replied that he saw it for $20 cheaper on Amazon and left. 😧

 

Do we really want to live in a world where everything is either online shopping or big box stores?? Where small, local businesses no longer even exist? Over $20!?

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HarryPotter
On 3/13/2019 at 1:37 AM, This guy is extra salty said:

Very well said and more

i have noticed the same especially with coral sales is it me or has everything doubled in price over the past year? Not to mention you get randoms being sticklers about “they can get the same thing but cheaper, somewhere else”  lol 😂

 

 

Wrong, you are just being salty. 

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24 minutes ago, Humblefish said:

When he finally asked the guy if he wanted to buy one, the guy replied that he saw it for $20 cheaper on Amazon and left. 

I don’t really understand why LFS don’t exclusivity carry MAP items to prevent this problem. Why carry Chinese pumps and LEDs when the consumer can buy them for the same price you do online? 

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16 minutes ago, hotdrop said:

I don’t really understand why LFS don’t exclusivity carry MAP items to prevent this problem. Why carry Chinese pumps and LEDs when the consumer can buy them for the same price you do online? 

If you look around, MAP pricing gets violated by online vendors all the time. In particular there's one online giant that is too big to cut off apparently. 😧

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1 hour ago, Humblefish said:

Most LFS owners I know are not making it financially. So, that kind of desperation causes you to give advice to make a quick sale but also alienates many customers over the long-term. Because once they find a forum such as this, they'll start getting advice from more experienced hobbyists and realize they've been had by the LFS.

 

But I also think people in general are to blame. Case in point: I was once in a LFS where a guy picked the owner's brain for 30 minutes about a light. He let him play with the light & everything. When he finally asked the guy if he wanted to buy one, the guy replied that he saw it for $20 cheaper on Amazon and left. 😧

 

Do we really want to live in a world where everything is either online shopping or big box stores?? Where small, local businesses no longer even exist? Over $20!?

Cash today is better than cash tomorrow. Profits don't keep the lights on - month to month positive cash flow does. 

 

In general, people have gotten pretty cheap and the internet/Amazon has changed how the populace looks at service/pricing. What you described the LFS experiencing with that particular customer is exactly what Best Buy was going through some time ago.

 

The reality of today's world is that you always need to account for online pricing, hence the price match many of the stores offer today. Even shipping has changed - what was once accepted as an add-on cost is now expected to be bundled into the pricing of the item. Depending on the study (dotcom distribution, time trade, etc), 70-90% of consumers these days expect free shipping and is a major factor in their purchase decision. They'd rather have free shipping vs. fast shipping.

 

The only rule of business that remains constant is "adapt, innovate, or die."

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Im back into reefkeeping from 16yrs ago. I have to say alot has changed!! Alot of valid points here . My recent expierence at a lfs. Very small retail footprint.  Designer clowns . One of the things that threw me off was he showed me a angel with ich and he told it was just a cold! I was like wait this is not normal.  The owner went on and said the angel is use to it he had like 15 fish in the tank. I couldnt believe it.  ! I was you should at least do a rodo dip on the angel and quarantine your fish i got a blank stare!  The coral prices are stupid 16yrs ago a large torch was $40 now its $150 to $300!  Mushrooms were $5 for a colony of mushroomd   now  1 shroom is $39 wth!!  I understand the lfs has to make money to survive. Its so weird. I go to petco and my local petco the fish  are healthy !  And priced reasonanble. Yes i agree the consumer drives the prices. I do see the quality of the fish has gone down in my local lfs  .

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1 hour ago, Sosa said:

Im back into reefkeeping from 16yrs ago. I have to say alot has changed!! Alot of valid points here . My recent expierence at a lfs. Very small retail footprint.  Designer clowns . One of the things that threw me off was he showed me a angel with ich and he told it was just a cold! I was like wait this is not normal.  The owner went on and said the angel is use to it he had like 15 fish in the tank. I couldnt believe it.  ! I was you should at least do a rodo dip on the angel and quarantine your fish i got a blank stare!  The coral prices are stupid 16yrs ago a large torch was $40 now its $150 to $300!  Mushrooms were $5 for a colony of mushroomd   now  1 shroom is $39 wth!!  I understand the lfs has to make money to survive. Its so weird. I go to petco and my local petco the fish  are healthy !  And priced reasonanble. Yes i agree the consumer drives the prices. I do see the quality of the fish has gone down in my local lfs  .

Your local petco probably uses copper. Your LFS is probably totally clueless.

 

I have one next to me like that they guy somehow manages not to kill everything but he’s not running a very good clean or upfront oppression. I want to support local but I don’t want to pay 20-30% more to get a shittier experience and product. 

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With wild collection bans in several areas pushing up prices, maybe people will gravitate more towards aquacultured products.

 

15 hours ago, Beer said:

I have mixed feelings about regulations that prevent the posession of species that may be in decline

I get the arguments, but it's not like we're keeping an endagered rhino.  I'm talking about easily cultivated livestock (fish and corals) which will inevitably, someday have protected status.  And unless regulations change, they will become illegal to keep.

 

There are ways to reduce illegal collection, importation, and sale of wild species.  All in all, our hobby has a relatively small footprint; but it wouldn't hurt to make it even smaller.  Excluding captive specimens from the ESA would relieve a lot of the push back arguments for protecting more species.  Really I'm talking about eventually having a near zero impact on wild reefs (while keeping our industry robust).

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The other thing that doesn't help is the tactics that giants like Amazon will use. They will sell items at a loss, selling well below their cost, to drive others out of business. How are companies supposed to compete against a business that will sell items below the cost to manufacture? I've been shifting away from Amazon, except for items that I can't seem to find elsewhere.

 

I'll research pricing before heading to a store, but to utilize a small store to shop other products that you fully intend to buy online is a horrible practice. Most LFSs in my area will price match to the larger vendors, so I'll typically shop online to figure out what fits my needs, then go in, talk with the owner/staff, and have them order it. Paying a few percent more to have it then and support someone local, ensuring you have those resources and keeping your money in the community, is far better to me than spending with the big guys. Granted, there are some items that make more sense to buy online, and I do have some items that the LFS can't compete with (free shipping on a salt brand that they don't carry, but they would have to pay shipping on), but I try to use them when ever I can unless the difference is high enough that it feels like I am paying them just for existing.

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3 minutes ago, seabass said:

With wild collection bans in several areas pushing up prices, maybe people will gravitate more towards aquacultured products.

 

I get the arguments...

 

The reduction in the price difference between aquacultured and wild caught will help drive the shift. As much as I don't want to pay more for things, the shift does need to happen.

 

We do have a relatively small footprint compared to other industries and for the most part, the collection practices aren't as destructive, the actual impact from the aquarium trade does tend to get downplayed and under stated.

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21 minutes ago, hotdrop said:

Your local petco probably uses copper. Your LFS is probably totally clueless.

 

I have one next to me like that they guy somehow manages not to kill everything but he’s not running a very good clean or upfront oppression. I want to support local but I don’t want to pay 20-30% more to get a shittier experience and product. 

 

2 minutes ago, Beer said:

The other thing that doesn't help is the tactics that giants like Amazon will use. They will sell items at a loss, selling well below their cost, to drive others out of business. How are companies supposed to compete against a business that will sell items below the cost to manufacture? I've been shifting away from Amazon, except for items that I can't seem to find elsewhere.

 

You survive by recognizing that you'll never win a price race to the bottom with corporations that can temporarily sustain loss for a period of time. Stores need to shift their strategy from commodity based selling to service based selling. Anytime you compete as a commodity seller, you're at the mercy of whoever is willing to price lower than you. 

 

Take BRS for example - while giants in the aquarium trade - they don't compare to Amazon. Their value add is the educational and instructional material they put out: 52 weeks of Reefing, How To, Product reviews, etc. 

 

You won't win over anyone that's purely price driven - but you don't want those customers anyways. They will only ever maintain a transactional relationship. But a value add, differentiator might be enough to develop a good following. It can be as simple as hosting local frag swaps, local classes on how to frag, how to QT, how to dip, etc. 

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perhaps we need to band together and create a co-op...and start buying & selling between each other on a more organized and professional level.  😄 

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29 minutes ago, hotdrop said:

Your local petco probably uses copper. Your LFS is probably totally clueless.

Petcos aren't allowed to use copper (or other medications), without knowingly defying corporate. Some do use herbal remedies (e.g. Herbtana, Artemiss) which can do a decent job of disease control if you keep up with the daily dosing regimens. The problem is the fish carry a sublethal concentration of parasites, worms, etc. and are a ticking time bomb once removed from the herbal treated system.

 

Some LFS run subtherapeutic copper and this accomplishes the same thing: Keeps the fish looking good with relatively low numbers of parasites afflicting them. Same thing happens as above though: Fish is removed from subtherapeutic copper, dropped straight into a DT and a few days later all hell breaks loose. Unless you have a management tool (e.g. UV, diatom filter, ozone, oxydator) in place to continue indefinite management of parasite populations.

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