Debate: Will the Coronavirus outbreak affect the reefing community

[CD_Scapes]

 

4 hours ago, squamptonbc said:

My local store is basically down to just clownfish now, captive bred options they can get shipped from the US, but at this point pretty much out of luck if you want anything else. No idea when they will be able to get a shipment from oversea's, flights are pretty scarce still, my primary freshwater store has not had much luck getting freshwater shipments either.

 

A local facebook group is interesting, people trading this or that for snails or crabs which are pretty much impossible to find in stores currently.

This is pretty much how my LFS is too, although they did get a few gobies, angels, tangs and a wrassse yesterday. I just got super lucky and my LFS had a pair of pygmy waspfish that no one wanted so that is my stocking plan

[ef4life]

If you have not heard, macnas been cancelled for this year in Phoenix. Such a bummer as I was really looking forward to it, it would have been my first macna.

[Poison Dart Frog]

I went to 3 fish stores on Saturday and they seemed normally stocked. In fact, one had more fish than I've ever seen there. I knew corals would be stocked because they have a lot of grow out tanks and frag their own but I was kinda shocked that they had normal amounts of fish and inverts. I wanted a bangai cardinal and there were probably 20 to choose from at least. 

[squamptonbc]

On 5/21/2020 at 5:42 AM, Northwoodsreefer said:

 

This is pretty much how my LFS is too, although they did get a few gobies, angels, tangs and a wrassse yesterday. I just got super lucky and my LFS had a pair of pygmy waspfish that no one wanted so that is my stocking plan

 

For my area its just a lack of airline flights, hard to bring in fish when there are so few flights and the few options there are, well at the moment they are not reliable, and a trip that would normally see fish in transit for 24-36 hours can take 2-7 days right now, and its too risky for most of the stores to take on, they are all small independent business except for Petsmart but even they don't have any fish, my store completely drained their tanks too, guess they wont want to spend the time/money having an empty system run.

[kimberbee]

On 5/21/2020 at 1:09 PM, ef4life said:

If you have not heard, macnas been cancelled for this year in Phoenix. Such a bummer as I was really looking forward to it, it would have been my first macna.

We were planning on taking a week vacation and visiting my sister who lives close by too. That plan is totally scrapped. 😕

[squamptonbc]

Most recent update from my local store.

 

Livestock Update

 

Just a quick heads up for those of you interested!

 

We are *starting* to see glimpses of things opening up for importation of livestock.

 

Our first shipment is scheduled for June 4th (Indian Ocean) but we are not holding our breath that it will actually make that date (fingers crossed it will though 😉).

 

Reef Custodians and other Caribbean invertebrates/fish are still a no-go since we cannot get flights into YVR (there are literally 6 flights a day out of the states coming into YVR right now). Hopefully we can find a temporary work-around, sooner rather than later and are monitoring this on a weekly/daily basis.

 

We have been able to secure a steady supply of tank raised fish, and have just had another shipment come in today (with Berghia even!), but the selection is pretty limited.

 

As for outgoing livestock, we still don’t “trust” sending things overnight via courier, and airlines are very limited with flights constantly changing and being cancelled. We would rather err on the side of caution for the animals sake.

 

Finally, incoming freight prices have increased greatly. What does that mean? In short, prices have had to go up on many things. We have tried to absorb as much of this cost as possible, but have been forced to increase prices on most fish and invertebrates in anticipation of these shipments coming in. Presently, corals are not affected.

 

We would fully expect prices to eventually come down, but in this environment who knows when, so expect to see fluctuations/changes after virtually every shipment if necessary. As things evolve, we will keep you apprised of the situation and we look forward to eventually having things get back to “normal”!