What's going on with seahorses?

[Anonymous]

Availability has been nil, and that's including ORA, for the last 3 months or more. Is something going on with CITES, and does that affect the farm-raised? Thanks for any info...

Peace,

Chip

 

[Dude]

I dont know what going on with ORA seahorses, but have u looked at seahorses from oceanrider out in Hawaii? i believe their site is www.oceanrider.com

 

[Anonymous]

Ocean Rider does not sell wholesale. Too bad, but I understand their position. I could sell boatloads of those...great quality horses there...

Peace,

Chip

 

[Anonymous]

Ocean Rider does not sell wholesale. Too bad, but I understand their position. I could sell boatloads of those...great quality horses there...

Peace,

Chip

When did they stop selling wholesale? I've bought wholesale from them before.

 

[Fish World1]

Ocean Rider does not sell wholesale. Too bad, but I understand their position. I could sell boatloads of those...great quality horses there...

Peace,

Chip

When did they stop selling wholesale? I've bought wholesale from them before.

They stoped about a year ago.

 

[naesco]

Availability has been nil, and that's including ORA, for the last 3 months or more. Is something going on with CITES, and does that affect the farm-raised? Thanks for any info...

Peace,

Chip

I hope that you are not implying that you are looking for wild seahorses.
Ethics have some boundaries doesn't it?

 

[Anonymous]

I hope that you are not implying that you are looking for wild seahorses.
Ethics have some boundaries doesn't it?

Yup, they sure do, Naesco.

If a customer wants an orange seahorse, where do I get it?

Can you tell me where, Naesco?

Every wild seahorse that's come thru my shop was weaned on frozen foods before it left. If you'd like pics of them thriving in my customers' tanks, then I can provide that. My customers got what they wanted, and that keeps me in business.

If you're going to lecture me about that, then cram it. I don't really want to hear it.

Peace,

Chip

 

[naesco]

So this week we have cyanide caught fish, uncertainty in live rock, alleged smuggled clarions and poor Chip can't find any wild seahorses for his customers.

Maybe someone is listening to our prayers or maybe some authorities are reading messages in this forum.

In any event, Chip, good service and good prices don't help you when there is no product to sell.
Get used to it!

 

[Anonymous]

Chip, there were some changes made with the CITES on the seahorses. There were a few threads about it a while back I'm sure you could find with a search.

 

[JennM]

Availability has been nil, and that's including ORA, for the last 3 months or more. Is something going on with CITES, and does that affect the farm-raised? Thanks for any info...

Peace,

Chip

I hope that you are not implying that you are looking for wild seahorses.
Ethics have some boundaries doesn't it?

I hope that you are not implying that you are looking for wild (*insert any species name here*). Ethics have some boundaries, doesn't it?

Wayne please tell me how seahorses would differ from any other fish that can feasibly be kept in captivity?

They do not outgrow their tanks, they reproduce quite readily in captivity and make an excellent candidate for hobbyist-reared specimens for resale, and provided with the right environment they can grow, and procreate and thrive for years. IMO this makes them more suitable than many of your so-called USL species.

Having said that, they aren't a suitable beginner fish and they are best kept in a species tank... and I could rattle off several other types of fish that are readily available that I could make the same statement about.

I've got great video footage of the breeding pair that I had - we had offspring every 14 days. I had limited success and a lot of failure at rearing fry, but the pair was healthy and thrived and I suspect my male died of old age - I had him about 2 years but he was probably several years old when I got him.

Both the male and female ate PE Mysis shrimp, and I treated them to live ghost shrimp periodically.

While I believe that they need to be protected to an extent, because they are now considered "vulnerable" by the WWF, the curio trade and TCM take far more seahorses than the MO trade every year, and horses harvested for TCM and curios have no hope of reproducing, like they could and do for hobbyists.

I haven't brought in a wild seahorse for over a year, but the CB ones from ORA are great when you can get them - they usually have H. kuda and H. procerus. I don't stock seahorses, but if somebody is preparing a species tank, I'll bring them in for the customer when he/she is ready for them. I see nothing wrong with this, as most people take a lot more time and do a lot more research before buying seahorses, than they would before buying say, a Mandarin Dragonet...

***The following is the personal opinion of JennM***
As for Ocean Rider, I personally had a really crappy experience with them as a hobbyist, received very poor customer service, and I personally would never spend another cent with them, either as a retailer or as a hobbyist.

It's too bad because yes I think their horses in general were of excellent quality when they first began marketing them, but as time went by and demand increased, I am of the opinion that service and quality suffered to keep up with the demand. I've heard nothing but complaints about them from my customers who have purchased from them, not just the horses themselves but the other products/live foods and etc. that they offer. It's too bad because I think they had/have an excellent thing going if issues could be resolved and customer service became a priority again.

***Again, this is strictly my personal opinon, based on my single purchase experience, and the experiences shared with me by others***

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

jenn, do you honestly think naesco knows ANYTHING about seahorses, other than what he may need to get from google, or the net, before he posts a rant about them ?

:lol: :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

I really want to know what the hell the deal is so many of you who seem to have issues with people finding / learning things on the internet...

Really, I do! - Please enlighten me as to why this medium, this tool, is so much worse than reading a book or killing things in the name of "experience"..?

Edit:
Vitz, that isn't directed at you, this irritation has been growing for quite a while and I sincerely want to know where its coming from..

 

[JennM]

Relax, Grateful...

You will see a lot of ire directed toward Wayne (Naesco) because he is not a member of the industry, yet he feels that he's a one-man saviour of the trade, and he (mis)uses information he gleans from other people's work and does not have either the firsthand experience to qualify him to comment, nor any background in marine husbandry, biology or any similar field. He's a real estate attorney. I believe his son works at a LFS, but that does not qualify, IMO.

This is not a personal attack, but it is simply a fact. Naesco has no firsthand industry experience. Most of us in the trade who participate here, summarily dismiss much of what he says, but it does not discourage him, he parries away.

I've learned a lot on the 'net... and I'm not alone... so I don't think there's animosity per se about the 'net.

I think the issue is with folks who surf the net and think it makes them experts on any subject.

JMHO, for what it's worth.

Jenn

 

[Anonymous]

I really want to know what the hell the deal is so many of you who seem to have issues with people finding / learning things on the internet...

Really, I do! - Please enlighten me as to why this medium, this tool, is so much worse than reading a book or killing things in the name of "experience"..?

Edit:
Vitz, that isn't directed at you, this irritation has been growing for quite a while and I sincerely want to know where its coming from..

i have no problem w/that (learning research off the net)

i do have a big problem when that's all the knowledge a person who berates others constantly out of ignorance has :wink:


i'd suggest a search for the usl threads in this forum-you'll get an idea of what i'm talking about re: my comment

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I can understand boasters being annoying, that holds internet or not.

And yeah, I'm probably a little more sensitive to it than most here as its more or less MY livelihood. (Well, keeping the infernal machines running anyway..) Its just been grating on me lately seeing so many negative connotations being thrown out there.

I understand some of the frustrations with the net causing changes to the MO trade too and after some deeper thought/consideration on it I'm a lot more aware of it and sympathetic to it.

I guess maybe it just grates on me the same as a dedicated LFS would get grated hearing about all the "stupid LFS workers"...

Sorry to start spinning yet another thread around here... - I'm actually curious in learning more in this one.. :wink:

Jenn, I can see where Ocean Rider would probably have poor customer service. - I've tried contacting them with pre-sales questions and gotten spun around and nowhere fast. I just decided they apparently weren't too interested in taking my $$.

So CITES is having an impact on CB/farmed stuff?? (I'll go search/read, please ignore me if it's already been hashed out in the other thread(s)..)

Norm

 

[JennM]

Well my husband is an IT professional so I hardly hate computers, they pay the mortgage and the car notes...

And yes, I just love it when people slam LFS with one breath, then they sing the praises of the mail order house they have never seen with the same breath - but they've never SEEN the mail order house so it could be just as deplorable as the LFS... or worse, the mail order house may not even be a facility, but a "call center"...

But I digress...

I think the negativity here is directed at certain individuals, for the most part, and perhaps you've misconstrued to some extent.

Many of the retailers here don't like etail, but that's the nature of the beast.

Jenn

 

[mark78]

"I just love it when people slam LFS with one breath, then they sing the praises of the mail order house they have never seen with the same breath - but they've never SEEN the mail order house so it could be just as deplorable as the LFS... or worse, the mail order house may not even be a facility, but a "call center"... "

LFS's have gotten this rep for a reason, the real good ones are far and few, much more shady characters in the pet industry then good business owners. Heck the biggest more 'elite' LFS around here recently stocked a customers 30g with a regal, naso, a clown and 2 damsels.

When the price difference is so great, and you don't get service thats any worse from online, price is king. I'm not saying anyone here runs a bad shop, but that it is the bad shops who are responsible for this image many people have when refering to any LFS. Its a stereotype for lack of a better term, it certainly doesn't apply to all, but it is originated from something thats true.

 

[dizzy]

I really want to know what the hell the deal is so many of you who seem to have issues with people finding / learning things on the internet...
Really, I do! - Please enlighten me as to why this medium, this tool, is so much worse than reading a book or killing things in the name of "experience"..?

Norm I think you have it all wrong. I don't think anyone minds people learning things on the internet. One of the problems I see with the internet is that people often learn things wrong. I like the parrot analogy Jenn penned for us in another thread. People repeating stuff other people wrote, without really having the experience to back it up. A lot of misinformation gets spread in this manner. At least the author of a book stakes his/her reputation on the factual content of that book. (Non-fiction writters excluded) On the net you can say anything you like and move on.
If often becomes necessary to dig through piles of bullshit in order to find peanuts of truth.

 

[clarionreef]

Listing Seahorses w/ CITES was the carreer achievement of one Amanda Vincent of the Packard Foundation fueled Project Seahorse.

The open, declared, daytime shipping of seahorses by the aquarium trade now stops effectively curtailing a solid 1 % of the trade in this overly anthropomorphised fish. That leaves the other 99% of the industry that will now simply ship dried, ground seahorse powder by surface from Asian sources to Asian distributors. [airline shipping neccessitates proper documentation, surface and especially the undeclared surface transport is rather lax.]

But at least the open trade in a few live ones to people who love them has been stopped. Hail victory. I cannot think of a better example to illustrate the penny wise, pound foolish 'tokenism' that has overtaken the ocean oriented environmental movement.
Now, with no stake in their survival in the wild the aquarium trade is cut out of the loop. This miniscule achievement has been parlayed into something good for the future of seahorse which it is not. The far greater industry that grinds them into kilos of powder never cared much for the animal anyway. Nor did they pretend to.

Pre-packaged, ready made, black and white... environmentalism that comes in a box of cracker-jacks is sure easy for young people, naive people and simple minds to latch onto...like saving the whales on a Toyotas bumbersticker...but its a bit more involved then that.
My beef is that this token stuff diverts and shifts energy away from the real environmental frontlines...and fills the limited quota of goodwill and charity that people have to take the issues more seriously.

We are like the corporate loggers whos lumberjack stops to save the little bird... and then gets back to his chainsaw.
Yeah, it was a nice gesture....and gesture it remained.

And thats why the big, well feeding Brazilians seahorses can no longer come in to the trade, regardless of sustainability or not.
Its also why foreign seahorse breeders cannot ship their own cultivated stock to market now. CITES is too cumbersome and expensive for many countries.
A breeder in Mexico is going to stop breeding them now because the legal route has been denied. They will no longer create more seahorses and will switch to something else.
Yes, the Asian seahorses, especially in the Philippines had depletion issues, as do blue tangs there...a far more ecologically significant species. But there was no project Blue Tang...and no easy to latch onto uniqueness [ ahh, they're so cute!] that pandered to peoples need to show how much they cared.
If anyone dares say they really care about seahorses, please fill us in on how the battle to stop the seahorse powder trade in medicines and aphrodesiacs is going.
It'' be good to have regular updates.
Steve

 

[dizzy]

If anyone dares say they really care about seahorses, please fill us in on how the battle to stop the seahorse powder trade in medicines and aphrodesiacs is going.
Steve

I don't know about Chinese medicine in general, but I dare say we have some better aphrodisiacs available these days. Anything that comes with a warning about the possiblity of an errection lasting more than 4-hours has got to be pretty powerful stuff. Perhaps tens of thousands of seahorses will be saved. :wink: