Marshall Island Live Rock

[Sugar Magnolia]

I was just up at the reef store and they had a shipment of Alor rock in, very interesting shapes and lightweight. Very pricey though - $9.99/lb.

 

[Anonymous]

GreshamH wrote:

That LFS is sorta right, you can't make much money on selling MI rock at near pennies to the landed cost The concept of "lost leader" comes into play here.

Actually, here's the reason premium aquatics sells it for less. I sent Jason at Premium Aquatics an email asking why and here is his response:

We do sell real Marshall Island rock, we buy it direct from the country. We
have know the guy that started up Marshall Island for many years. It's a
small country and not a lot of rock comes out of there. Premium Aquatics
imports in more then 50% of the rock that the entire USA gets. So we get a
very good price. We are one of the few that can buy direct.

Most likely the pet stores are buying Marshall from a wholesale, someone
similar to us that brings the rock in and then resells to them. Since they
buy smaller amounts they have to pay more. They probably buy 200-300lbs at a
time, where we'll buy 1000-1500lbs at a time every other week. We would buy
even more if they could keep up the supply, but there is only one flight out
of Marshall a week, so you can only get so much.

It is very expensive rock and they did just have a 25 cent price increase
which we haven't adjusted for yet, so our price might go up, but would only
be 25-50 cents at the most.

I'm sure Jason doesn't mind me quoting him here.

Louey

Being one of the other "few" (yup, us wholesalers buy directly from RD as well ), I still know the landed cost. They aren't making much money on the rock, plain and simple. Freight alone would be closer to their price point. The rock is used as a lure , it's working right, we're talking about them Plus, with the amount the sell, even a small mark up makes them money.

 

[Anonymous]

I finally got some Marshall Island LR from Premium Aquatics.

I bought alot of Tonga and Fiji LR here locally at my LFS, but I need 3 or 4 more large rocks to finish off my tank. I called PA and they said that they had 4 rocks that were 15 pounds and up. So I took all four. They weighed 75 pounds total.

The rocks were shipped in two seperate styrofoam containers with ice packs. The rocks were so well cured that they hardly smelled at all. They were actually cleaner that the stuff I bought here locally.

Here's some pics of the rock.

Louey

 

[Jolieve]

Very pretty rock and I am glad to hear it was so well cured!

Good luck with things!
J.