Are corals becoming harder to obtain in Canada?

[Animal-Chin]

Just been thinking about this. When I first started reefing I remember being able to go to the LFS and buy acan collonies, Blastos, all sorts of LPS coral pretty much all the time. Lately though the LFS in my area anyway have seemed to stop stocking a lot of coral. The smaller stores seem to have almost stopped bringing in new coral and the biger store still does but the selection seem really limited (other than the frag tank that's from local trade ins).

Makes me wonder if something is going on? Are there new restrictions? The Canadian dollar make it not worth it? Have people stopped buying coral so the stores stop stocking it?

[Bugger]

THere is not a huge market for corals its pretty much just a hand full of people keeping tanks. 2007 to 2013 where good years since then its fallen off.

[DKoKoMan]

Just a thought... but maybe with the many online coral dealers the LFS just shy away from stocking as much.

[spit.fire]

Originally Posted by DKoKoMan

Just a thought... but maybe with the many online coral dealers the LFS just shy away from stocking as much.

That mixed with people are too cheap mixed the stores can't compete with hobbies so they just stop stocking nice stuff (mostly in B.C. from what I can tell)

I hear people say they rather buy from hobbyists on a regular basis which takes away from retail sales causing retail locations to just stop bringing in nice stuff.

[smokinreefer]

I agree and disagree.

The hobby has evolved... marketing has evolved... costs have gone up...
yes, yesteryear was a good time for reefing! colonies could be had at reasonable prices. but perhaps more desirable and harder to get specimens weren't collected as much.

I think with the increase of online shops, and increase demand for not so common livestock, increase in marketing of corals, has all contributed to the higher costs of corals in general.

corals simply weren't generally sold on a per frag, per inch, per polyp basis.
the hobby, or should I rather say, the industry has changed.

[gmann]

plus stuff is expensive in general, stores arent going bring stuff in to have it sit there forever