List Of Coral Wholesalers In The Us - Page 2

fishome25 · #26 05/27/2004, 11:09 AM

I don't know. I have a hard enouph time making money if I loose 1 out of 10. I would have stopped if lost any more than 3 out of 10.

Julio · #27 05/27/2004, 10:44 PM

the reason why i am trying to get this info is because this is what i was told not because i am making this up.

o2manyfish · #28 05/27/2004, 11:38 PM

Julio,

I don't know if this helps at all, but tonight I watched Solomon and Fiji arrive. Probably over 1000 pcs, and only 3 pcs cames in Bad.

Dave B

Julio · #29 05/28/2004, 08:04 AM

thanks Dave, that does help. did the shipment come directly from Fiji?

o2manyfish · #30 05/28/2004, 01:25 PM

Julio,

Direct from Fiji and direct from the Solomon Islands.

Dave B

Julio · #31 05/28/2004, 06:28 PM

What company if you don't mind me asking? I know that there are now better holding facilities at the collecting stations.

GreshamH · #32 05/28/2004, 07:47 PM

How does info from someone who gets a few shipments a month show anything?

The real evidence is from those who do it day in, day out. I see 40 - 50 boxes a week, 10 to 20 of which are inverts. Even at that, I still don't see the 100's that the LA wholesalers see almost every day.

The real death is from collector to exporter. The value of the coral at that point is extremelly minimal for both the exporter and the collector. Many, many exporters get whats called freight kick backs, meaning, for every x amount of kilos, they get money back. They make money on freight and goods. If the goods die and they loose a customer so be it, theres 10 more behind him, Theres only so many export quotas floating around. The exporters know they can sell ALL their quotas, regardless of buyers abroad. Heck, if they loose all their abroad customers, they still can move their quotas locally.

PRC · #33 06/01/2004, 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by GreshamH
How does info from someone who gets a few shipments a month show anything?

Given a statistically significant sample size, should the survival rate be any different for someone who receives a few shipments every month than for someone who receives shipments every day?

Julio · #34 06/01/2004, 07:54 PM

i guess he is basing it on the ammount of animals that come in. Is liek college one who takes a year of college and has high grades the first semester but as courses get tougher your GPA start to decline a little.

laxing22 · #35 06/02/2004, 08:43 AM

I think the problem occurs more well adding all the stops and deaths up. There was a show on the Discovery channel (I think) that was showing collectors just tossing stuff into vats on boats. Not to mention those lost in collecting underwater alone. Now they sit on a hot boat in a small bucket all day, then bagged and shipped to a holding facility to fly to the other side of the world (that takes a bit of time) in super small bags with no light. Then they are held up at airports here - then to a wholesaler, then to a LFS (maybe). No matter how good the LFS - all have lost fish / inverts at some time. Then to the hobbyists tank (many of who can not keep many things to their full life expectancy). I would imagine the death rate from the ocean to living in a hobbyist tank for over a year is astronomical.

fishome25 · #36 06/02/2004, 09:52 AM

Thats what I was saying, only a percentage of organisms are lost at the import stage.

GreshamH · #37 06/02/2004, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by PRC
Given a statistically significant sample size, should the survival rate be any different for someone who receives a few shipments every month than for someone who receives shipments every day?

Not really, unless both samples were from the same exporter, collector, airline and if the samples were from the exact same batches and shipped/packed at the exact time. Way to many factors to just say, one sample of 10 fish said 2 died and another sample said 3 died. Were they the same species, packed at the same time, packed with the same water, held in the same system with the same roommates, shipped on the same flight, receieved and acclimated at the same time and were of the same health?

The last few years, S.I. exports of MO have gone way down in quality. I have not only seen this for myself, many many other wholesalers have said the same thing (and have cited nearly the same reasons). To see a few good shipments, and say S.I. ships great quality because of those few shipments is not very accurate. A few good batches that made it thru, does not equate to greatness, I wish it did.

PRC · #38 06/02/2004, 08:03 PM

Ah, statistics. Definitely a complex issue.
I was looking at o2manyfish's numbers (3 bad out of 1000). If you could repeat that kind of survival rate across a few samples from various suppliers it would seem to be some fairly strong data. Way, way better than I'd have expected.
I definitely agree that the data by species would be very important. Lumping Damsels and Moorish Idols together would probably not be very useful in the long run.
I guess it all really depends on what you're trying to do with the data.

GreshamH · #39 06/02/2004, 10:12 PM

Quote:

I guess it all really depends on what you're trying to do with the data

Ain't that the truth. If your looking for exact, precise numbers, your not going to get them from this trade unfortunatly.

Lumping fish from different suppliers/countries or fish and corals isn't too usefull either.

Julio · #40 06/03/2004, 08:27 AM

i wasn't going to do other countries other than the US it would be way too much work to do the more than that.

sweetdreamfiji · #41 06/03/2004, 06:31 PM

I have visited a number of exporters in Micronesia, Fiji, Tonga and Kiribati (all South Pacific islands). There are many variations in every shop, but all try to reduce their mortalitity because they get paid by the piece. New entries to the business often lose a high percentage of stock and then go out of business. Large exporters like Walt Smith have low mortalitity. Coral often takes longer to degrade so all the pieces collected in Fiji were shipped, while fish that were off went out quickly. Even the collectors were motivated to increase survival because they were paid by the surviving animals after a few days. Everyone cares how much they are paid. I went out collecting with several different organizations (including Walt Smith International), the good collectors have nothing to hide. No fish were killed during collection that I ever saw (except for fish caught for food on the side). You might contact Ed Lovell (an independant biologist who has evaluated the industry in Fiji) for his take. He has visited all the facilities in Fiji and the report he wrote is 2000 (approximately) found that the industry in Fiji was sustainable, including live rock collection. Biologists like Ed would be a good source, use Goggle and search lovell and Fiji.

Mike Sweet

Julio · #42 06/03/2004, 08:42 PM

I have no doubt that there has been tremendous changes in the last few years to cut back on the mortality of collected wild stock, which i am really glad about, but i would like to know what is the mortality rate today, i am sure as time goes by the collection of corals will slow down now with farms being established and all the frags that are traded among the hobbyist.

GratefulDiver · #43 06/07/2004, 03:57 PM

You might find some additional contacts here:
http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=50453

(A long, winding thread, but maybe some info relevant for you..)

PRC · #44 06/07/2004, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Julio
i guess he is basing it on the ammount of animals that come in. Is liek college one who takes a year of college and has high grades the first semester but as courses get tougher your GPA start to decline a little.

Actually, that's why I mentioned "Given a statistically significant sample size".
I think this would be very interesting information if it were collected, analyzed and presented properly. I imagine it will take some pretty hard core number crunching and a very strong background in statisitics to present the complexities of this issue in a meaningful way.
Have you given any thought to how you might address the potentially very significant issue of different survival rates between species?
Best of luck to you, and be sure to keep us posted on your progress.

Julio · #45 06/07/2004, 07:58 PM

I have given thought to the different species, i plan on breaking it down by species.
thanks for participating, if you have any leads or info on the subject please let me know.

DitchPlains2 · #46 03/24/2005, 01:37 PM

Wouldnt it be more advantageous to contact dive sites in Fiji and Solomons, and then contact customs in these countries to figure out shipping methods, and whats being shipped daily. I bleive fiji has some strange laws on ownership especially with the native fijians, and I dont mean the French imports..lol I believe from a previous surfing trip, the individual islands are own by certain tribal leaders, and their familes. I remeber only being allowed to surf where we were staying cause the camp was owned n operated by a certain group of natives, but thenxt island over was the same way. Not sure if this is a local scam, but good luck with the idea. Just my two cents. If you have the chance got to Tavarua....incredible place. went once in my life was amazing.