At Ocean Aquatics, we know you have several choices in purchasing both your dry goods and livestock online and with your local fish store. This coupled with our "honest" opinion, puts us ahead of our competition. Over the years our model has progressed. At the beginning when this started, the "kids" that began this journey with me were all too altruistic, and I had money to invest (spend :)) to make this journey a reality. I believed that the market was looking for captive raised species, and to that end we have hatched and raised 7 different species of clownfish. Unfortunately, as a commercial operation, the pressures of market rates expenses with reasonable margin would have led to us charging almost $32 for a captive clown; these are commonly seen under $20 at full retail. It didn't take long to figure out that long term this would not succeed! After further research I discovered Anthony Calfo's book on Coral Propogation and attended my first MACNA conference. This rejeuvenated me to the hobby and gave me some delightful insights into the possibility of profitably with respect to Coral Farming. So in 600 square feet of commercial space we introduced some 1500 gallonw of saltwater. This facility was expanded in April of 2005 to 2000 square feet. As the journey evolved I have been Lucky enough to staff the store with hobbyists, who were and still are my customer. These people have helped me evolved and build our store to become the premier "Coral Store" in all of Canada. I don't say it enough, but without them this venture would not have been successful.
I truly believe that one day most of the species that we import will be restricted further due to over-harvesting, climate changes and destruction of the world's reefs. For those that stand at the forefront of propogation, profitability for pioneering work will be less; the satisfaction from accomplishing some form of sustainability of wild species in captivity will far outweigh the opportunity cost of that profit. Our culture as hobbyists and business ownders is cornered in propogation, and our systems are designed so that corals can be propogated and not just sold at exaggerated retail prices to uneducated consumers.
Expect more and ask lots of questions! Wendell A. Nunes, Janet Richard and the OA Staff
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