Quote:
Originally Posted by TimT
As someone who's been in the industry for a long time there are a few things that need to be said in this thread.
There are good shipments and bad shipments and the fish/corals coming out of them should not be reflective on a store. If a fish shipment gets cold in transit the fish will typically breakdown with ick. This is normal.
There are stores that have separate quarantine systems for newly arrived fish. Their fish are more money. It all boils down to speak with your money but don't expect to get a Mercedes for a Hyundai price. No slight on Hyundai. Ever go to the big American fish stores with the marine biologists on staff, how nice and clean etc. Look at their prices and consider they're in USD which is almost 38% exchange and their costs of supply are cheaper.
18 years ago I was importing Certified Cyanide Free fish. The stores wouldn't buy them because their customers wouldn't pay the higher prices. Even though there was lots of talk about people being willing to pay for Certified Cyanide Free fish.
There's a saying "When you point a finger there are four more fingers pointing back at you". How many people have UV sterilizers on their systems? How many people have Chillers on their systems? How many people have back up generators for their systems? How many people have safety redundancy on their tanks heaters. It saddens me when I hear these stories of people losing their tanks due to easily preventable causes with a little money spent.
This site is not for bashing stores as all stores have their own issues... it's for helping people have the most fun in the hobby.
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Well said Tim. Consumers rarely understand this. Consumers want the cheapest livestock around, and then whine and complain when the cheapest livestock is also in the poorest condition. Or even when a good business gets screwed on a poor shipment because it got too hot or too cold or was packaged poorly. People forget that most of these shipments are coming from third world countries, they are shipped in cheap, thin sytrofoam boxes that are often broken upon arrival, they are in transit usually for 24-48 hours, and they are shipped without heat packs because the country they leave is 30C! If you stop and think about it for a minute or two, it's not surprising that animals may arrive stressed!
Vote with your dollar people!
