REEF you have a great feel for the market

take a stab... how many reef tanks in NZ, and how many fish only

steve - info from you be good too????

I am sure our hobby has a feel for how many... I will take a stab and say about 300 fish only tanks and about 150 reef tanks.....

under 100 reef tanks

under 50 fish only tanks.

This excludes shop tanks.

so where do all the little nemo fish go? how many fish do you guys have out there ?

I suspect to an early grave.....

Just 7 in my tank, gota love the low bio load. Esp since I haven't been able to do a water change for weeks.

Yep. they die, 50% or more within 6 months

wow ... nice recurring revenue model though......

I would say for many, copperbands etc, its more like 95% within one year.....

Yep, that is why I don’t advocate cheap equipment and livestock.

can see your point, but feel education and guidence more important then the price of the fish or the price of your skimmer.... that said i feel there is an incredible ammount of junk sold simply because its in a price range that the LFS can move to the newbie punter, and still make a decent margin....

an expensive fish will be killed just as easy by incorrect use of expensive equipment as will the same fish sold for less......

time and time again the experts on reefcentral say nothing beats patience sp? and the advice of other experienced hobbists.....

the fact that the advice is often available for free, but the newbie is not directed to it is one of the issues......

WHY - BECAUSE THERE IS NO SINGLE VOICE OF US HOBBIESTS THAT THE NEWBIE CAN COME ALONG TO AND LEARN FROM!!!!!

how did i learn about this stuff... like many of us, read books, stumbled across you reef, then meet steve etc etc, local shops ... why do i hav the views i do, not because i am anti capitalist and hate anyone trying to make a profit.... rather i truely feel that much of the advice i was given over the last 2-3 years was from people who had a financial interest in the advise they where imparting on me... in fact i have rarely been given any advice that involved an item or style or process not "ON SALE" right now.....

fair call reef you have steered me away from a few things that i would have happily purchased and would probably have killed...... that has NEVER happened to me in a shop.... if 50-90% of fish die this quickly... how many of you out there have ever had a shop refuse to sell you something?

if the answer is never. I would ask yourself to think very carefully about the nature of the advice these retail shops dispense......

Educated newbies will purchase good kit from LFS, make ssmart choices and be LONG TERM repeat buyers.... this will be good for LFS, good for hobby and bloody marvelous for the fish!

OK enough selfless promotion of NZMAS

Woudn't have a clue how many tanks. I have one reef (1500L) and look after two other tanks, one reef (2000L) and one fish only (800L). About 50 fish in total and maybe about 80 hard corals plus various other inverts.

When I started reefing (sometime prior to '94), I was basically just 'man alone' in Wellington and haven't really paid a lot of attention to how things have developed here since then.

Steve

Any chance of one of you importers posting the letter, or a quick summary? At the moment we are all a bit in the dark, would be nice to know what the time scale and likely impact etc is so I can stock up!