Biota Yellow Tang review

[bnord]

I have no affiliation with @Biota_Marine, but with the recent stop of exports by Hawaii, and the large volume of people that have or would like a Yellow Tang in their aquarium, I figured I would share an experience of the Biota Yellow Tang I just received. Initially I attempted to find some reviews of their livestock, however the only thing I could find was posts from multiple years ago and marketing or trade show type articles.

You can purchase these specimens either directly from Biota, your LFS, multiple online sellers, or in my case, I purchased from @AlgaeBarn. Prior to purchasing, I reached out directly to Biota inquiring about what little information I found about the quality of these specimens other than their early releases from a few years ago which a number of them had erosion issues. To my surprise, they responded extremely fast and assured me that those issues have since passed as their processes have evolved.

I placed my order, it was delivered via Fedex directly from the Biota facility in Fort Lauderdale. The styrofoam container is of high quality, the fish was double bagged and included two heat packs as it was sent to me here in the frozen tundra of North Dakota. The fish was quite active prior to acclimating which was a good sign as usual and after floating the bag, opening and adding/replacing liquid from the bag, the fish was released within about an hour into my QT system. The fish was shipped in a roughly 1.020 salinity water so the acclimation process took a little longer than I normally like.

The fish is roughly the size of a 50cent piece, maybe a little smaller, and is still fairly translucent with its yellow colors starting to show. The fish is actively exploring the tank along with a small Tomini and Royal Gramma that are also starting their stay in QT. First feeding with Rods frozen and the fish actively fed after only being placed in QT a few hrs prior.

I bought one august fro AB and indeed it was small translucent but healthy and eating like a pig from the get go
Was eventually added to the display tank and promptly took off after a much larger tang who only defended itself to the point that the yellow was removed and now the ruler of a 40 cube until it out grows it
it recovered from its battle scars amazingly well and expect to have it at least as long as it takes for the Hawaiian authorities to come to their senses

now how about a captive bred Potters...

 

[Cole presley]

LA isn't going anywhere. Kevin has built a awesome business model. and now that Petco owns them, they have lots of funding (since they just had an IPO.) too bad they no longer offer refunds, but still has the best customer service in the hobby.

Live Aquaria is both overpriced and has terrible customer service. They are also no longer owned by petco!

 

[flying4fish]

I'm aware. I'm just saying the range of yellow tangs extends beyond Hawaii. While Hawaii is a huge producer of aquarium fish there are many other places that will still export them. The ban has been in effect for a couple years now I believe. This court ruling was just to solidify the ban which will cause a jump in price obviously, but I don't think you'll never see wild caught yellow tangs in stores again.

The range of Yellow Tang does extend beyond Hawaii, but only as very rare occurrence. Hawaii is the only place that there is a commercial volume of Zebrasoma flavescens. Here (I live here), a good collector could catch 500 in a day. In the few other areas they have been reported you might see a few a year.

 

[mwilk19]

I got my Biota captive bred Yellow Tang the same way as the OP, through Algaebarn. I've had him a little over two years. He's fat and happy.

 

[OrionN]

I got my Biota captive bred Yellow Tang the same way as the OP, through Algaebarn. I've had him a little over two years. He's fat and happy.

Are there any deformities? small pelvic fins?

 

[NanoReefLife]

This is different. Essentially puts into effect the law that has been passed years ago but has been under legal dispute. The new ruling as of last week has banned any collection in Hawaii pending completion of an environmental impact study. Also a little different than the previously passed ruling to stop issuing new permits after the current ones expire. This is a brutal ruling for only a select few people that will have almost no impact on the environment.

There are only 40 commercial aquarium collection licenses in Hawaii and somehow the state decides that the action of those 40 specific people are responsible for destroying the Hawaiian ecosystem. They still have more than 3,000 commercial fishing licenses that are active, who I would imagine kill more reef fish in a year than those 40 could hope to collect in a lifetime. I'm sure they also have a few hundred locals in the water every day spearing as many fish as they can without the requirement of any license. God forbid those 40 licensed collectors take a few live fish to make a living.
I also believe most yellow tangs were not collected in this region anyway though so I don't anticipate much of a change in supply or price. Hopefully won't be much of an issue for us.

There are not 40 people out in Hawaii harvesting yellow tangs... we would never have the supply levels we have seen if that were the case.

“41 license holders reported aquarium catch in 2020,” you cannot qualify a license holder as one lone individual. Coors has one professional business license in Golden, Colorado, and look at how much beer they produce annually. I’m certain several of these license holders are fairly substantial operations.

 

[FFKiwi]

where else ARE there yellow tangs other than Hawaii? i thought that was predominately the only place, no?

 

[sg88]

This is different. Essentially puts into effect the law that has been passed years ago but has been under legal dispute. The new ruling as of last week has banned any collection in Hawaii pending completion of an environmental impact study. Also a little different than the previously passed ruling to stop issuing new permits after the current ones expire. This is a brutal ruling for only a select few people that will have almost no impact on the environment.

There are only 40 commercial aquarium collection licenses in Hawaii and somehow the state decides that the action of those 40 specific people are responsible for destroying the Hawaiian ecosystem. They still have more than 3,000 commercial fishing licenses that are active, who I would imagine kill more reef fish in a year than those 40 could hope to collect in a lifetime. I'm sure they also have a few hundred locals in the water every day spearing as many fish as they can without the requirement of any license. God forbid those 40 licensed collectors take a few live fish to make a living.
I also believe most yellow tangs were not collected in this region anyway though so I don't anticipate much of a change in supply or price. Hopefully won't be much of an issue for us.

To be clear, locals don’t spear as many fish as they can, they spear as many fish as they need. Fishing and hunting in Hawaii is done for sustenance.
If you saw our cost of living you’d understand why.
And there is evidence that the West Hawaii fisheries which are teeming with Kole and Yellow Tangs are generally unaffected by aquarium collectors. But that evidence is not solid enough to stand up to court challenges. The law now being enforced does conceptually allow restoration of the commercial aquarium trade but requires an acceptable environmental impact study. I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one. It is a fairly popular view that sending live fish off island is not a good thing no matter the science.
It will be interesting to see if a tourist trade starts up...come to Hawaii, dive with experienced divers, collect your own yellow tang for your personal use. It is a win-win, you get your Tang, we get to rent the dive boat, the guides, the holding tanks until you finish your vacation not to mention all the other revenue from your visit!

 

[Panky]

Live Aquaria is both overpriced and has terrible customer service. They are also no longer owned by petco!

Truth

 

[headdr]

Or biota marine ramps up production and Hawaii looses all revenue from fish harvesting to Florida. Capitalism at its finest.

 

[danoo]

I have 3 Biota Yellow Tangs from May 2019 in my 350 gallon tank. They all have pretty distinct HLLE scars around the face but are otherwise fat, happy and healthy fish. The scars were there from when I got them and haven't really gotten better even with an extremely healthy diet over the past 1.5 years. The look doesn't really bother me and otherwise they have very good coloration, though I would say distinctly less intense than wild caught.

However, I only stock my tank with captive bred fish and absolutely applaud Biota for all the hard work they put in to make these fish available for all of us hobbyists. My tank absolutely took off after putting these guys in there, as they are incredible at eating algae and pooping out coral food.

I guess it pays to be an early adopter though as I got them through LA and paid $80 each after a 20% off coupon.

 

[Kingston]

Maybe we should start learning to breed yellow tangs like we do for corals and sell to fellow hobbyist.

 

[JHUMike]

I have no affiliation with @Biota_Marine, but with the recent stop of exports by Hawaii, and the large volume of people that have or would like a Yellow Tang in their aquarium, I figured I would share an experience of the Biota Yellow Tang I just received. Initially I attempted to find some reviews of their livestock, however the only thing I could find was posts from multiple years ago and marketing or trade show type articles.

You can purchase these specimens either directly from Biota, your LFS, multiple online sellers, or in my case, I purchased from @AlgaeBarn. Prior to purchasing, I reached out directly to Biota inquiring about what little information I found about the quality of these specimens other than their early releases from a few years ago which a number of them had erosion issues. To my surprise, they responded extremely fast and assured me that those issues have since passed as their processes have evolved.

I placed my order, it was delivered via Fedex directly from the Biota facility in Fort Lauderdale. The styrofoam container is of high quality, the fish was double bagged and included two heat packs as it was sent to me here in the frozen tundra of North Dakota. The fish was quite active prior to acclimating which was a good sign as usual and after floating the bag, opening and adding/replacing liquid from the bag, the fish was released within about an hour into my QT system. The fish was shipped in a roughly 1.020 salinity water so the acclimation process took a little longer than I normally like.

The fish is roughly the size of a 50cent piece, maybe a little smaller, and is still fairly translucent with its yellow colors starting to show. The fish is actively exploring the tank along with a small Tomini and Royal Gramma that are also starting their stay in QT. First feeding with Rods frozen and the fish actively fed after only being placed in QT a few hrs prior.

I've had a captive bred yellow tang in my tank for about three and 1/2 years. It's done very well. I did pay a premium due to the fact it was captive bred being almost double the cost of the captured ones in 2017.

 

[bh750]

I get the whole supply demand capitalism angle. But not buying The reason Biola gave for the sudden large price increase. First its bad optics. Sure take advantage of the increase in demand but raising prices from 120 to 200 right after this ban looks really bad. Raise it slowly, over time. Instead it looks as though you're trying to price gouge, regardless of the reason. Second, I'm not quite as sure on this point, but communicating with LSFs to set price points might be a little unethical? Not sure since it might be part of a reseller agreement.

Either way such a large jump in price at this time gives me as a consumer a negative feeling.

 

[Biota_Marine]

I get the whole supply demand capitalism angle. But not buying The reason Biola gave for the sudden large price increase. First its bad optics. Sure take advantage of the increase in demand but raising prices from 120 to 200 right after this ban looks really bad. Raise it slowly, over time. Instead it looks as though you're trying to price gouge, regardless of the reason. Second, I'm not quite as sure on this point, but communicating with LSFs to set price points might be a little unethical? Not sure since it might be part of a reseller agreement.

Either way such a large jump in price at this time gives me as a consumer a negative feeling.

Hey bh750,

I understand the sentiment about this. For reference most hard goods in the industry have MAP pricing that LFS have to abide by, but it's a bit different with livestock because of shipping rates, DOAs, ect. So many times vendors we sell to look to our site or Live Aquaria to gauge the pricing on the fish and price them accordingly with their own mark-ups and margins based on their location, care, and systems. We did not increase the pricing to our wholesale customers but we received complaints from our vendors that suggested they weren't able to make the margins they needed on this fish so we raised it accordingly to give them that flexibility. There isn't any collusion or setting of pricing for our vendors.

The other reasoning is now there is over 15,000+ tangs in demand every single month because of this ban. I wish we were doing that quantity but it wasn't necessary because although we were having success and our demand was significant, sadly we compete with wild-caught pricing with every species even though our fish are healthier, younger, hardier, more acclimated to aquarium life, and more sustainable. Months and years of research, live feed production, grow-out, staffing, ect. costs a ton of money when you compare it to a diver casting a net into a school of fish and pulling out dozens in minutes. It might be beneficial to ask why a wild-caught one is now listed at $400+ when none of that effort and research went into the product. Why are wholesalers jacking up the pricing of the remaining wild-caught yellow tangs when none of that money is going to be going into the research and increased production of the species but rather a higher margin on a relatively cheap and easy process?

We're working to make sure the yellow tang continues to be a staple in our industry rather than a rarity. So I do appreciate the feedback and I again I understand the sentiment here. I just think it's a bit misdirected as we're actively improving our products and availability.

 

[danoo]

Nobody complains when the price of a particular captive bred species is forced lower to compete with cheaper wild caught alternatives, but when the opposite situation happens people get upset. Heads, consumer wins, tails, provider loses.

If you dislike Biota's price increase for whatever reason, you should be happy because they've now made room for a new competitor to come in and undercut them. Capitalism has some problems but this situation is not one of them.

 

[ApoIsland]

“41 license holders reported aquarium catch in 2020,” you cannot qualify a license holder as one lone individual.

Are you sure about this? When I go fish the White River I can't have the whole family under one license. It's one person per license.

If you are correct and they do treat it like a commercial fishing vessel and issue one license per business maybe they should change it to one person per license similar to recreational requirements in most states. That would surely reduce the catch rate to sustainable levels. Although most articles I read suggest they have been doing it at a sustainable level all along anyway.

 

[shred5]

Hey bh750,

I understand the sentiment about this. For reference most hard goods in the industry have MAP pricing that LFS have to abide by, but it's a bit different with livestock because of shipping rates, DOAs, ect. So many times vendors we sell to look to our site or Live Aquaria to gauge the pricing on the fish and price them accordingly with their own mark-ups and margins based on their location, care, and systems. We did not increase the pricing to our wholesale customers but we received complaints from our vendors that suggested they weren't able to make the margins they needed on this fish so we raised it accordingly to give them that flexibility. There isn't any collusion or setting of pricing for our vendors.

The other reasoning is now there is over 15,000+ tangs in demand every single month because of this ban. I wish we were doing that quantity but it wasn't necessary because although we were having success and our demand was significant, sadly we compete with wild-caught pricing with every species even though our fish are healthier, younger, hardier, more acclimated to aquarium life, and more sustainable. Months and years of research, live feed production, grow-out, staffing, ect. costs a ton of money when you compare it to a diver casting a net into a school of fish and pulling out dozens in minutes. It might be beneficial to ask why a wild-caught one is now listed at $400+ when none of that effort and research went into the product. Why are wholesalers jacking up the pricing of the remaining wild-caught yellow tangs when none of that money is going to be going into the research and increased production of the species but rather a higher margin on a relatively cheap and easy process?

We're working to make sure the yellow tang continues to be a staple in our industry rather than a rarity. So I do appreciate the feedback and I again I understand the sentiment here. I just think it's a bit misdirected as we're actively improving our products and availability.

About how many yellow tangs can be produced right now?

 

[ApoIsland]

It will be interesting to see if a tourist trade starts up...come to Hawaii, dive with experienced divers, collect your own yellow tang for your personal use. It is a win-win, you get your Tang, we get to rent the dive boat, the guides, the holding tanks until you finish your vacation not to mention all the other revenue from your visit!

I love this idea. Wish I could do this everywhere I go. Would be so cool look at my tank and say... this was from the HI trip...this was from the Philippines and Indo trip...etc etc. Usually I only come back with a bad sunburn.

 

[Biota_Marine]

About how many yellow tangs can be produced right now?

That's a very good question but sadly I don't think I'm allowed to disclose that information. But if it's any consolation, they have distinct spawning seasons and they just finished their low point of the year. We are at our most limited production/availability this and next month but anticipate high numbers in late March/Early April. Obviously, not at that 15k number I mentioned above but a significant chunk of that.