International travel for fish food? If it means LRS then Yes!

[andrewkw]

Long story which I'm not going to get into here but a couple of years ago I moved to middle of no where Northern Ontario. When I moved I brought my reefs with me, I also brought 3 or 4 packs of LRS foods. Of course that wasn't going to last forever, and I generally do make it back home to the Toronto area and always try and get some frozen food at that time. There is also one reef store about 3.5 hours from me that is supposed to be an LRS vendor but has never had it in stock when I've been there and yes I have tried to special order. If I'm desperate I'll just get mysis there but last time they didn't even have that.

Canada's shipping network sucks for remote places, additionally not many reef stores have dry ice. Finally I realized I can get LRS shipped to Michigan which I can actually see from the front of my house but the border is about an hour and a half away. Not many places sell LRS online. I believe this is Larry's business model as it's sold in LFS. I'd like nothing more to get it from an LFS, when you don't have one you have to find another way.

Fortunately Premium Aquatics do sell LRS online as well as various other frozen foods. I even re-imported some pe mysis back into Canada today Everything was packaged great, dry ice lasted long enough and everything was still frozen solid when it got into my deep freeze. I encourage anyone who doesn't have an lfs to order their frozen food from them.

My fish couldn't be happier, but I also love the corals reactions to LRS. Didn't get a great shot of the pocillipora extending super long sweepers but these grandis closed up as soon as a few crumbs landed on them. LRS is great for almost any fish, but what can often be overlooked is almost any medium mouthed or larger coral is going to love it just as much.

 

[sfin52]

thanks for the write up . you Canadians have it rough when it comes to reefing.

 

[ReefFrenzy]

Thank you for the awesome write up and sharing the photos! I am really glad Premium Aquatics was able to assist you. They have supported LRS since 2012 when they began stocking it for the INDMAS club members to buy locally. In 2017 they assumed all online order fulfillment for hobbyists not served by a LFS, like yourself. FYI wee just shipped 9 boxes to our distributor in Canada last week with most of it pre-sold so the stores should be stocked up. If you want to PM me the name of the one nearest you I can try to see if they re-stocked as well.

Thanks again for the support and making the effort to seek out our products. Your fish and corals appreciate it I am sure!

 

[madweazl]

I thought LRS shipped if there wasn't a retailer within a certain range?

 

[ReefFrenzy]

Nearly 2 years ago we created an online ordering portal for all of our retail store owners to log into to place their orders. We didn’t have the resources to process residential orders so we began letting PA handle that since that is their specialty.

 

[Breadman03]

I may have to take advantage of PA shipping. The shipping is less than the gas to get to my LFS, not to mention I can only get there once every few months.

 

[andrewkw]

thanks for the write up . you Canadians have it rough when it comes to reefing.

Just a product of living in the country. I can't order pizza too. From my old house there were a good 10+ reef stores within an hour with lots of great live stock and frozen food.

Thank you for the awesome write up and sharing the photos! I am really glad Premium Aquatics was able to assist you. They have supported LRS since 2012 when they began stocking it for the INDMAS club members to buy locally. In 2017 they assumed all online order fulfillment for hobbyists not served by a LFS, like yourself. FYI wee just shipped 9 boxes to our distributor in Canada last week with most of it pre-sold so the stores should be stocked up. If you want to PM me the name of the one nearest you I can try to see if they re-stocked as well.

Thanks again for the support and making the effort to seek out our products. Your fish and corals appreciate it I am sure!

Thank you for making such a great product. I've been using PE mysis for more then 10 years and your product is the first I find superior since it has so many more things including pe in it. Of course I do feed that on its own still as well. I should point out that when I lived in the Toronto area I did not have too much difficulty getting LRS locally, although I do recall there was some initial resistance to the price with the exchange. I always brought up the point that if you are going to spend a few hundred dollars or more on fish you should feed them with the best possible foods so you can have the healthiest fish possible. Same goes for rainbow coloured lps that practically turn inside out when LRS hits them.

If a fish can comfortably fit in my tank and get along with my current livestock and not eat coral I know it will almost certainly eventually eat LRS. My fish collection isn't what it once was, but I never had issues with things like copperband butterfly, masked swallowtail angels, achilles tang, and quite a few other fish. While not insanely expensive I did get a fish I've wanted for a long time earlier this year, a yellow scopas tang and he too loves the food.

 

[ReefFrenzy]

I really appreciate the feedback. I DO understand that with the exchange rate and shipping our foods are likely the most expensive fish foods in all of Canada. But as you noticed there are many benefits where spending a few bucks more is totally worth it. In our dealer network we hear from stores who are feeding LRS to new arrivals which helps reduce livestock losses when a new shipment of rare fish would previously refuse to eat. Many of the national service companies that pre-portion LRS for their customers report that our food is so clean that their frequency of water changes has decreased and the use of GFO and carbon has been reduced. So they are saving time and money, even though the food is a little more than some single ingredient foods. As the dozen captive breeding studies demonstrate on our LRSFOODS.com website there truly is a difference when you start with quality ingredients and tedious processing. Thanks again for making the post, we really appreciate it!

 

[squampton]

I don't live in rural Canada but right smack dab in the middle of a major city (Vancouver) and still cannot get LRS easily, I did try to put a group order together and order from a place in Ontario who ships, but I couldn't generate any interest and for my needs 3-4 packages a year, paying the shipping for 3-4 packages is simply not feasible. The shipping price quoted including the dry ice and box charge for under 10 packages was $80.....

Not sure why the local saltwater store stopped selling it.

Good good though, just difficult to get...lol

Doesn't help that for whatever reason reefing is not super popular, Vancouver region only has 1 reef store.....

 

[andrewkw]

It's really interesting that there isn't a bigger reef scene in Vancouver. You're closer to everything so in theory livestock could be slightly cheaper, plus its such a rich city and already on the ocean you'd think more people would be into it. I am equally surprised J&L no longer sell LRS foods as they get a lot of rare and fragile fish. Of course their online ordering system has not improved since I got my naked clown which is my avatar in 2006. I actually ordered some sexy shrimp and fish from them earlier in the year and initially I was going to add frozen food to it but they didn't have what I wanted.

Now obviously I started this thread and love LRS food, but you certainly don't need it, PE Mysis and many other foods are also high quality, but again from my perspective if you want me to buy an expensive fish, or even a cheaper common finicky fish like a copperband butterfly you better be able to offer me something that I know it's going to eat.

 

[squampton]

It's really interesting that there isn't a bigger reef scene in Vancouver. You're closer to everything so in theory livestock could be slightly cheaper, plus its such a rich city and already on the ocean you'd think more people would be into it. I am equally surprised J&L no longer sell LRS foods as they get a lot of rare and fragile fish. Of course their online ordering system has not improved since I got my naked clown which is my avatar in 2006. I actually ordered some sexy shrimp and fish from them earlier in the year and initially I was going to add frozen food to it but they didn't have what I wanted.

Now obviously I started this thread and love LRS food, but you certainly don't need it, PE Mysis and many other foods are also high quality, but again from my perspective if you want me to buy an expensive fish, or even a cheaper common finicky fish like a copperband butterfly you better be able to offer me something that I know it's going to eat.

From what I gathered from talking to J & L about the food is they had to buy all of the varieties of LRS with each order, but only reef frenzy was selling well, so they would end up with a surplus of the rest that did not sell well.

I think part of the problem now in Vancouver with fish keeping, is less people living in single family homes, more in condos and townhouses with stratas who may not permit aquariums and of course cost of living keeps going up and up, leaving people with less disposable income.

 

[ReefFrenzy]

From what I gathered from talking to J & L about the food is they had to buy all of the varieties of LRS with each order, but only reef frenzy was selling well, so they would end up with a surplus of the rest that did not sell well.

Our distributor in Canada orders the appropriate quantities of each blend to fill orders accordingly based on sales over the past couple of years. Retail stores in Canada can order 100 packs of Reef Frenzy and zero packs of the others if they wish. We don't require stores to order all the products. From our sales and production tracking all the blends seem to sell well across most markets. Reef Frenzy@ is very popular but Fish Frenzy® is right up there with it in total sales since it has blackworms and fish eggs in the blend.

 

[squampton]

Our distributor in Canada orders the appropriate quantities of each blend to fill orders accordingly based on sales over the past couple of years. Retail stores in Canada can order 100 packs of Reef Frenzy and zero packs of the others if they wish. We don't require stores to order all the products. From our sales and production tracking all the blends seem to sell well across most markets. Reef Frenzy@ is very popular but Fish Frenzy® is right up there with it in total sales since it has blackworms and fish eggs in the blend.

That is just what the store told me, but I have no idea if that is true or not, just seems it either didn't sell well, or something because the only store we are aware of that sold it in BC stopped selling it.

I have no doubt your product is popular where available, it's just difficult to buy at the consumer level in British Columbia since no retailers that I am aware of sell it out this way, J & L did, but at some point they stopped carrying LRS. It's a top notch product, just difficult to obtain.

 

[Kyl]

Our only option (Vancouver) is to order it from vendors back east, or get a guy who owns a LFS in Seattle but lives on the island to try and bring a few packs over the border and meet at the ferry terminal as he's passing through. I know you tried on the FB group, but aside from me there was zero interest locally. ER points the finger at the LFS, LFS says they only want to buy reef frenzy but can't. I've given up on sourcing it at this point and have gone back to mysis cubes and selcon since running out.