Thoughts on current fish quality?

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi folks,

I've been seeing a LOT of fish disease problems in the forum that didn't seem so prevalent when I was last active on a marine aquarium forum (back in 2010). Specifically: Uronema and other problems on green chromis and anthias. These were never bulletproof fish, and "grade B Asian" imports were always "poor do-ers", but I just don't remember such severe issues.

I was on a Zoom call today with some public aquarium curators and somebody mentioned that a major LA importer said they were having terrible issues with importing fish due to COVID. I had suspected this might be an issue, and that seems to confirm it. The problems cited were:

1) Fish sizes going down (to get more fish per box)
2) The pack are getting tighter, like they used to be back in the 1970's (120+ damsels per double box)
3) Due to poor flight scheduling, the supply chain has gotten much longer
4) Prices are way up due to freight going from like $2 USD/kilo to $8

It's' the third point that might play into the issue with chromis and anthias - they just don't handle the longer supply chains well.

Anyone here in the industry, can you confirm this?

Thanks,

Jay

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Excellent discussion. I’ve wondered if the breakdown in global supply lines overall would also effect this hobby. I haven’t been in the position to buy much livestock so I don’t have any direct info to provide. I will be following this discussion though.

 

[Qasimja]

ive noticed a lot of the lfs the prices have gone up and mostly juvenile fish they have pretty good selections of corals thou so covid doesn't seem to be affecting coral distribution

 

[fcmatt]

I have noticed the lfs fish seem to be off compared to last year. But even with that said they are selling super fast. He us busier then ever.

 

[Oscar47f]

Because of the added expense in freight cost, and the fact that wild collectors aren’t working as much you’re gonna see an increase in just about every fish that is wild caught... this is unfortunate but it does cost more for the store to get so that cost is passed on to the consumer... things are harder to get, purple tangs are back up to 350$ for a medium/small specimen.... as far as diseases go we’re just more careful and we’re able to distinguish many more that before that’s why you see that, it’s always been a problem... I hope COVID subsides enough for prices to start coming back down a bit again! It’s the same with corals btw !

 

[bevo5]

I think it’s inevitable that you’re going to have more diseases and more issues the more money there is in getting more fish to market. More people collecting and packaging and moving fish equals less care.

 

[vetteguy53081]

longer transport times and late/missed deliveries have hurt the industry as well as rising and ridiculous prices for shipping.
It takes a pandemic and any disaster to induce excuses and rises in prices. Gas and jet fuel is at an all time low allowing profit margins to increase but it is overcome by greed and monopoly and we as well as retailers must suffer and pass the pain on to the consumer.

 

[ca1ore]

Disease issues in the ornamental fish supply chain were prevalent before COVID so no conspiracy theories necessary. More collectors, more wholesalers means more oppportunity for dodgy operators and potential problems. I don’t recall problems like flukes or uronema prior to about 10 years ago, but ich and velvet don’t seem demonstrably worse now. Availability of fish was very limited in April and May, but appears to be much better now. People don’t always realize that passenger flights move a lot of cargo, so the lack of them has pushed freight costs up (has very little to do with fuel cost). Whether cost returns to pre COVID levels remains to be seen. I have not bought many new fish this year, though those I have were disease free.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

interesting discussion. It makes sense that these issues would have an impact on fish health

 

[Steve Fast]

In a newsletter from Penny at AquaCorals, she said that the transit time to the importers has gone from 2 days to 4... meaning more stressed fish. So with the higher freight costs and increased mortality from the transit times, fish are just not in the best of shape and costs are high.

 

[joe0813]

My fiancé and I went to our lfs two weeks ago. She is stocking her tank, and bought 4 fish. All were juvies, one powder brown, one scopas and 3 baby lyretail anthias. None of them looked great at all, all were skinny. Of course she still wanted the fish and well I wasn't going to argue with her. Plus the LFS gave her a discount. she wants to try them then go for it. Got them home temp acclimated, made sure SG matched and dropped the fish in. Gave the fish a day then started feeding frozen Mysis, baby brine and Calanus for the anthias. three days in she lost one anthias, day 4 she lost the scopas, day 8 lost another anthias, day 10 lost the powder brown and tonight lost the last anthias. Not a single fish she got ate a single thing I put in the tank. I know ask to see if the fish is eating before buying. I walk around and look at coral while she picks out fish so I don't watch over them.

Two days ago we went to another LFS and we took a walk around. Same thing here, all fish were skinny and just not healthy looking. And this store usually has a pretty decent selection of fish. So looks like we are both done with fish for awhile or at least from LFS or online. Only places ill buy fish now are from Elliot at marine collectors or try out the new sponsor we just got here.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Wow - sorry to hear that, what a drag.

Currently, I preferentially get fish from Florida, Australia and East Africa....and captive raised whenever I can.

Jay

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

I have been in business of selling Quarantined Fish for last 3 years commercially all over USA and prior to that about additional 5 yrs locally.

I agree with few things stated above.
1. Prices are higher due to import ban and less flight schedules.
2. Sizes of fish or certain species are no where to be found.
3. Quality of fish i have to disagree.
I'll explain. As I mentioned I have been selling Quarantined fish for almost 8 years.
The wholesalers do not have much to do with disease. They all have a good husbandry practices that keeps major diseases away.
In several years I have never encountered ich or velvet or brook from wholesalers and I have access to 11 wholesalers and never had that issue.
I do see flukes and internal worms etc every now and then.

Uronema: yes it is worse in chromis and anthias.
This is such a problem that I have thrown everything at them. From formalin baths to metrozidole to food soaked in meds and nothing ever cleared uronema out of them.
I had to finally euthanize most of them or some I had to sacrifice in name of science by using higher doses of meds or trying untraditional methods but nothing ever worked.
Normally they infected my other fish. So I gave up and quit selling chromis and anthias.

Honestly that is the only problem I have ever faced from wholesalers.
In my experience problem starts at retail level.
If i was to put a number 90% wholesaler fish is clean while 10% maybe minor issues.
Equation flips when it comes to retail side. 75% chances of getting something major while 25% minor to no issue. Just my experience.

 

[Trueblue17]

these poor animals are paying the highest price now a days thats all i can say!

 

[Jobrimicombe]

There are less cubic meters available, which air cargo is measured in, due to heavily reduced flight schedules. Space is literally at a premium and until flight levels get close to returning to normal or deep recessions hit even harder then prices will rise or at the least stay high.

im a cargo flight planner for a leading UK passenger airline who despite massive schedule cuts still increased profits in the cargo sector of business so can confirm price increase.

 

[breefrost]

these poor animals are paying the highest price now a days thats all i can say!

Theyve always paid the highest price, but now its even worse. Wish it was easier to breed saltwater fish in captivity

 

[Jimmyneptune]

I have been in business of selling Quarantined Fish for last 3 years commercially all over USA and prior to that about additional 5 yrs locally.

I agree with few things stated above.
1. Prices are higher due to import ban and less flight schedules.
2. Sizes of fish or certain species are no where to be found.
3. Quality of fish i have to disagree.
I'll explain. As I mentioned I have been selling Quarantined fish for almost 8 years.
The wholesalers do not have much to do with disease. They all have a good husbandry practices that keeps major diseases away.
In several years I have never encountered ich or velvet or brook from wholesalers and I have access to 11 wholesalers and never had that issue.
I do see flukes and internal worms etc every now and then.

Uronema: yes it is worse in chromis and anthias.
This is such a problem that I have thrown everything at them. From formalin baths to metrozidole to food soaked in meds and nothing ever cleared uronema out of them.
I had to finally euthanize most of them or some I had to sacrifice in name of science by using higher doses of meds or trying untraditional methods but nothing ever worked.
Normally they infected my other fish. So I gave up and quit selling chromis and anthias.

Honestly that is the only problem I have ever faced from wholesalers.
In my experience problem starts at retail level.
If i was to put a number 90% wholesaler fish is clean while 10% maybe minor issues.
Equation flips when it comes to retail side. 75% chances of getting something major while 25% minor to no issue. Just my experience.

Why the problem on the retail side? What’s happening at the retail level to the fish?

 

[TwelveL16]

I have access to a wholesaler and It’s fair to say I see flukes on more fish than I don’t.

 

[Jimmyneptune]

Because of the added expense in freight cost, and the fact that wild collectors aren’t working as much you’re gonna see an increase in just about every fish that is wild caught... this is unfortunate but it does cost more for the store to get so that cost is passed on to the consumer... things are harder to get, purple tangs are back up to 350$ for a medium/small specimen.... as far as diseases go we’re just more careful and we’re able to distinguish many more that before that’s why you see that, it’s always been a problem... I hope COVID subsides enough for prices to start coming back down a bit again! It’s the same with corals btw !

Prices are all over the board.
I bought a purple tang small, I was looking for small, for $100 last week from a LFS a large was $150 or $160. While another was selling a purple tangs for $600, they claimed they were tank raised. A third LFS was selling them at $75 to get his inventory sold.
prices are all over the board. The guy selling Purple tangs for $75 won’t ship fish because of Covid.

 

[Mayhem]

Yes. Quality has definitely gone down this year. And on top of all the problems mentioned above, my lfs guy said his wholesaler heard rumours that a lot of collectors who are tight on resources and financially pressured have turned to cyanide for easy capture... :mad:

I mean seriously?!? We’re going backwards now.