Hi all,
Been out of it for about 15 years after a big problem with flatworms :) I have a 400 gal display and 180 sump as main tanks. Honestly just figuring out if I want to get back in. LED lighting was getting popular when I left. Any suggestions on where to start my investigations? I was at a local store today and prices for fish seem to gone up an awful lot !
They sure have! BUT there seem to have been a lot of changes in capture practices? AND aquaculture, so I think, from the sound of it, there is better survivability. Also I’d way rather spend a lot more on an aqua-cultured fish that are better suited to survive in a captive environment than starve to death or wither away of cyanide poisoning. Not even considering the environmental impacts of wild caught livestock.
Coral on the other hand are annoying. The names… I can’t. If it looks nice to you, get it, $5 or $5000 if you can afford it, and ignore the asinine names. Obviously coral aquaculture from a hobbyist perspective has done an amazing thing for both the hobby and possibly the environment considering the state of global coral reef bleaching plus not tearing reefs apart pillaging the ocean. I do miss $10-15 colonies though. I had a beautiful brain coral before and looking for something similar now doesn’t even exist, no matter what the cost. I’ve only been back and looking for a few months though.
As far as research goes, I first reached out to some of my old contacts from when I had tanks, looking to see if anyone was still reefing, and current websites, which led me here. I lurked here for a couple weeks and started reading from the beginner up threads, I figured 15 years (me too!) was enough time to be out and enough changes probably happened, or I was old enough to have forgotten, lol, I needed a full refresher. Once familiar with the processes again I started looking at products. Unfortunately being from Canada, it wasn’t as efficient looking for gear on here, although I believe they are looking to update this soon. :D If you are looking for used I think FB marketplace is pretty active in Canada, I’ve also found a bit of stuff on esty and Craigslist including macro algae and frags.
In Canada there are actually a surprising amount of livestock vendors that ship, but you have to dive down pretty far in the search pages to find them. I think I’ve bookmarked a couple dozen or more. If you are in a city, I don’t see there being an issue ordering livestock.
I have found a few dry goods vendors to be quite reliable, with quick shipping and very good prices.
