interesting article

[KathyL]

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/nati ... inding.htm

200,000 fish from 10 farmers makes 10 million$

They would be selling the fish for $5 each....not including shipping.

[spawner]

Scary really. While it's good to see others getting involved, I wish they would put their efforts in other species. The mass production of Nemo will drive the price down, thus kill the R&D money Nemo generates, thus less money to drive the development of new species in the US commerical market.

[fishtal]

Thanks for posting the article Kathy! After reading, it I wonder if some parts might have been lost in translation...

[PaulG]

Kathy,

Please keep in mind that the $10,000,000.00 is in Taiwan $ so realesticly, its only about $300,000.00 US$

So more like $1.50 per fish.

Regards
PaulG

[FuEl]

Amphiprion mccullochi at $1.50? Hope no Mccs make it there if not price sure drop drastically.

[xroads]

I like the part where their "break though" gets their fish to spawn every 2 weeks.

They also have to raise that many in quality & get them here. If it is like most things that come from Taiwan they will probably be missing fins, one eye, etc.

[spawner]

Don't laugh. It always takes them a while to get up to speed, but before you know it, they will be producing 10,000,000 a year and selling them for 0.50 each. They don't think small in terms of aquaculture over there. Remember they make us look silly when it comes to food fish production.

[Luis A M]

This Ho seems so amateur,or many errors were raised in translation...0.4 mm larvae(=400 mics).
Don´t they spell Centreinstead of center outside USA?

[spawner]

Again, I think you guys should not look at this as a bunch of backwards hill billy aquaculturist. SE Asia is the center of all aquaculture production, production is huge over there, look at the FW ornamental industry, they have flattened FL market share, drove prices down, kill profits. The same thing is going to happen in the MO world.

It will take them some time to get up to speed but when they do, watch out. Your $6 nemo will be sold at a LAX wholesaler for 50% or less of that.

[hawgdawg]

Spawner,

what you are saying is not the future, but the present. Aquacultured Nemos from Asia are 1.50 a piece, the only thing they are still lacking is variety and a quality product, both of which will come with time. As with many other industries, cheap asian fish will probably eventually kill the domestic marine ornamental farming industry. Wasn't long ago that you could make a living selling ocellaris only, not anymore.

[spawner]

Are they 1.50 FOB or 1.50 landed. Its going to be interesting to see what this does to the industry as far as diversity of cultured fish. I'm expecting to see a drop off in new species development from US based farms.

[hawgdawg]

1.50 fob. Add shipping and customs, you still got a fish under 2.50. Capitalism at its best, better find ways to produce them cheaper or ask the government for help!

[spawner]

2.5 landed is doable. That puts you at 6-8 or so delivered to your local stop. You just have to have bigger better looking fish. We are still importing 500K wild clown fish a year. There is some slack for more fish production.

[KathyL]

So far so good. Let's not forget the huge number of people in China that could absorb the majority of this farm's product. In the article they say they have only 75 spawning pairs. They may still be working out the technologies that will enable them to raise the numbers they advertise in this article. I seriously think that there are not as many economies of scale as one could hope for. It seems the big guys have more problems with mysterious diseases and quality control than the little guy working from her nice clean basement.

sincerely,
little guy/gal

[Marcel]

I had a chat with De Jong Marinelife in the netherlands. De Jong is a big wholesaler for the european market. He also supplies zoo ´s with sharks, rays, etc.
They had a clown hatchery running for a few years. They closed the hatchery at the beginning of this month.
The reason why he closed, the hatcheries from Taiwan and Israel deliver any clown for 1,80 Euro to their doorstep in the netherlands.

A LFS here in Cape Town imported from Malaysia clarkii´s and frenatus. Bad quality, missbared, bad colouration and very tiny. I would say maybe 2 cm.
The retail price at the shop is in USD 5,60/each.
But I watched so many customers and had a chat with them. They don´t buy them, because of their colour and size. I think, producing quality fish will keep you guys alive.

[KathyL]

amen

[Kmiec123]

[hawgdawg]

Thats what I mean by government help! Will it happen? Do you know something we don't? huh

[Kmiec123]

I only know that people organizing to make these types of changes is something that could help the industry in my opinion. Should we start a committee?

[Clownfish75]

Carl, its a double edged sword.

If they 4X the cost of customs, would this increase the cost of any given fish by 4X?

would this be all fish or just tank raised.

If you were to double the price of every fish in america for the ornamental marine trade, would we loose more than 50% of the people keeping fish?

Christian

[Kmiec123]

Well you would need restrictions on collection for the determent of the reef and increased tariffs on imported tank raised or cultured fish.

[timinnl2]

Greetings from Amsterdam,

So that is where all the washed out clowns are coming from. They are very pale & sickly looking. The LFS still ask around 9.00 euro's retail for them. The states can compete with quality. In the states you have a pesty thing like paying your employees a living wage. The same goes for the H. kuda/H. comes out of vietnam. He only has a permit to export H. kuda's, but somehow there are H. comes in the shipment. Wink! Wink!

Kind Regards,

Tim

[team ctenophor]

Are their any updates? almost been a year.

I also think that it is worth pointing out, asia is way Way WAY ahead of the U.S. (not sure of europe or south africa) in technology designed to produce purer , bigger, healhier, better looking fish. with some fish they have practicaly illiminated the need to cull, and grow out rates of others are astounding. it would be unwise to underestimate them.

Let China sleep for when she awakes, she will shake the world" Napoleon Bonaparte

and as far as shipping costs go, how do the arctic shipping lanes that are forming as ice caps melt further factor in?

Tommy.