#68 – Prices After Covid

PRICES ARE TOO DAM HIGH!

3 years ago
Transcript
Speaker A:

Confidence can be hard to come by. Hi, my name is robs. I was a subpar fish guy passed up in the same promotion of my aquarium club. Year after year, my life was going nowhere. That is, until I bought some emotional support shrimp from Joe Shrimp shack.com. Now everything is different. I fixed myself up and started looking at people in the eye. Before I knew it, I gained international esteem as Guy fiery impersonator. I even started to hang out with Guys crew. But don't worry, everyone, he's fine. I poke some air holes in the trunk for him. And if you need some emotional support shrimp, go to Joe Shrimpshack.com and use promo code Aquarium Guys at checkout for 15% off everything in the store, including emotional support shrimp, Joe Shrimpshack.com. Embrace your frosted blonde tips. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob golson. So when did the Marine make come back?

Speaker B:

December 2. fuckers.

Speaker A:

On that note, I'm taking your host, Rob Sulson.

Speaker B:

Hey, I'm Jim colby, and Mcgrib sandwiches are back December 2 at your local meeting.

Speaker C:

And I met him on the chart, and they are absolute garbage.

Speaker A:

I'm Diet jew, and I can even understand that. The barbecue sauce is wonderful.

Speaker B:

Oh, my God.

Speaker C:

You eat one just to say that you've eaten one, and then you never want to eat one for another year. Which is why they come out yearly.

Speaker A:

Exactly. They're seasonal, because our colons can only take so much. Pure gladness mass YouTube pussies don't know.

Speaker B:

How to eat a Mcgrib when I go up there, they go, hey, we have Mcgrib back. They go, well, the second one is like, half price.

Speaker A:

I go, yeah, that's because it's called profiling. They look at you and they're like, yeah, we know you're a Mcgrib, man.

Speaker C:

They could say the same about you, Rob.

Speaker A:

No, they look at me and know that I'm getting triples.

Speaker B:

Triple?

Speaker A:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

Mr. Rob sent me up to McDonald's one day. He was working on something here at the house, and I said, I'm going to go to McDonald's, get a sandwich. You want anything? He goes, I want aiii go, what the hell's a triple?

Speaker C:

What the hell's a triple?

Speaker B:

And he says to me he looks at me, goes and I'll all honesty, looks at me straight, and you go, they know what a triple is. And I got up there and said, hey, I need a triple. She goes, okay.

Speaker A:

See?

Speaker B:

And I'm like, what the hell is a triple?

Speaker A:

They know, man.

Speaker B:

And then they come out come out of the front door with a wheelbarrow, and this thing is so freaking huge. And this poor little lady's got this sandwich on a wheelbarrow, and they push it out and stuff, and you go, here's your triple. And they get a wheelbarrow. Yeah. And I gave it to Rob, and.

Speaker A:

He went, I mean, you know how to tell a story. Well, God back on point here. So today's episode was supposed to be David boozer from the Ftffa, but we have plenty of old Mike problems. So we're going to get a new Mic, and he's going to be put in rotation. We're probably going to get him in January. But do shout out to the Florida Tropical Fish and Farm Association. Am I getting that right? No. Florida tropical fish. Yeah, I got it. Right. Florida Tropical Fish and Farm Association.

Speaker B:

Wow.

Speaker A:

I did that with all but without looking.

Speaker B:

I'm impressed, because normally you can't remember a person's last name, much less this.

Speaker A:

Is the time I bought a triple with you. Any of the coronary.

Speaker B:

Anyways, I'm giving a coronary.

Speaker A:

So this week, we actually got caught up on questions because we did quite a few of our podcasts I want to talk about. What do you want to talk about, Jimmy?

Speaker B:

Tell them about a new merch.

Speaker A:

Go to the aquarium. Actually, it's in the show notes. It's the first link in the show notes. If you have not seen our new merch line, we have some sweet shit.

Speaker B:

Sweet stuff.

Speaker A:

Sweet shit.

Speaker B:

Oh, man. You look at it, you get a cavity. That sweet.

Speaker A:

Right? So let's go over this, right? Because this is a long time in the making. So I've talked with our friend Chris biggs, which is a youtuber, right? And he's talking with a lot of different people. And I also consulted another marketing firm, and they keep saying that to make money on this podcast, we need to sell merch.

Speaker B:

Jimmy, you told me I had to sell a kidney.

Speaker A:

You lie into me, I'd say you're genitals, but no one wants that. And shrink with the Mick rib. Kind of like testosterone.

Speaker B:

God. Note to self, person to kill.

Speaker A:

New techniques.

Speaker C:

Jim, I got ideas.

Speaker B:

Yeah, my wife watches all these serial murder killer things, and I'm sure she could help us out, too.

Speaker A:

Murder porn. No, wait.

Speaker B:

Back on the merch. The merchandise.

Speaker A:

So the first one we have, certified Aquarium Guy. Let me tell you what's that about.

Speaker C:

I'm buying that one.

Speaker A:

That is hot. Because we partnered up with teespring to do these. We switched our provider for merch. And this is actually public not only to you guys, but to the teespring store. And that's the one that people outside of the aquarium guys community are jumping on. Like that is the hot lit merch is the aquarium certified Aquarium Guy. And Certified Aquarium gal. Yes. We did it for you, ladies.

Speaker B:

Wow. We're jumping right on that.

Speaker A:

Jump right on that. And then we have the fun ones, right? Just for the people that understand the meme.

Speaker B:

My favorite my favorite as well, is.

Speaker A:

The one where it has the word endlers, and then it scratches it out and says, feeder guppies are deck. When you're wearing a T shirt, you need to lay some truth on some people.

Speaker B:

That's right. It's like the Ten commandments. I mean, right there.

Speaker A:

Think of it, Adam. You have basically your own T shirt line, and then Jimmy has his own with time to punch a throat.

Speaker B:

That's correct. Because it is time to punch a throat.

Speaker A:

We couldn't make a T shirt about your ex wife. That's the next best thing.

Speaker B:

Not a T shirt big enough. There's many things I have to say about that.

Speaker A:

They only have six X, but six.

Speaker B:

X, rob, my ex wife is as big as your thigh. That's about how big she is, right?

Speaker A:

I don't know where you're going with that.

Speaker B:

So back to Adams and Lord Guppies. You can get yourself a phone case. You get yourself a T shirt, you can get yourself leggings. What else can you get, rob's?

Speaker A:

I mean, even a fanny pack, just so you can look like Jimmy never make rib.

Speaker B:

How gay would that be? That would be so sweet. You know what? Looking at that, I like how you.

Speaker A:

Say gay because you're used to using it in, like, the 1940s approach, where it meant happy. Absolutely.

Speaker B:

What else could it mean, you homophobic dick, apparently. So just looking at at that fanny pack, I'm thinking I could get two microbes sandwiches in there. You can at least. And you know what?

Speaker A:

Certifiably holds? Two Mcgribs.

Speaker B:

It's probably barbecue sauce proof because it looks really good and plasticky.

Speaker C:

And those two Mcgribs that you can put in the fanny pack are still four less than what Rob can fit in his mouth at one time.

Speaker B:

Wow.

Speaker A:

We're on fire tonight.

Speaker B:

You got ugly.

Speaker A:

We decided we're going to do podcasts and just shit on each other. The last one.

Speaker B:

Merry Christmas.

Speaker A:

If everyone we have is go fluke yourself T shirts.

Speaker C:

That one's one of my favorites. I'm getting that one, too, right?

Speaker A:

That one made it look like it's like some sort of, like, spray paint on the wall, like it's intentional. And then, of course, we have our design by Miss Jenny weyburn from still.

Speaker B:

Very popular.

Speaker A:

Still very popular. She's on the turtle episode with us, and she designed a Angry Beta pissed off by a snail. And then, of course, our favorite, the dojo loach or penis fish.

Speaker B:

That is correct.

Speaker A:

Merch as well. So check that out.

Speaker B:

Perfect. Is Jenny done with all her counseling now after she spent the podcast with YouTube bozos?

Speaker A:

I don't know. I haven't heard from her since.

Speaker B:

Exactly.

Speaker A:

I'm kind of nervous. I was gone for one error away.

Speaker B:

I'll gone for one podcast, and you guys just annihilate this poor woman.

Speaker A:

Well, you notice we bring pretty ladies in when you're gone.

Speaker B:

I know. Usually Adam is the eye candy of the bunch.

Speaker A:

It's the barbecue stains. Now, what we have is a competition. So go in the store, buy some merch, and there's three promo codes you can use. They all give you 5% off. Promo code? Robbzz that's rob's. That's the best one to use.

Speaker B:

Can I use all three of them and get 15% off.

Speaker A:

You can do the promo code, Jimmy, or you can do promo code Adam. Whoever gets the most should eat and make a rib.

Speaker B:

You know what? If you don't like to make ribs, I'll eat your Mick rib. If you win, I'll do that for you because I'm a friend.

Speaker A:

Just prove us who you love more, jimmy, robs, or Adam by the promo code. All right, so as far as questions this week, I'm going to go to our Facebook community, which is certainly growing. So we have a video on there, and this is a warning to all of you people that are getting into aquariums. This gentleman, Henry is his name, posted a video of a silver, rasbora or minnow looking creature that just suddenly appeared in his tank. He says that he suspects it came out of his filter, but he's got a very densely planted tank. What we assume happened is he put some new plants in on it were fish eggs, and now he has some unknown species that has yet to be identified. So we went through and I talked to a lot of people in our community, and we're all pretty certain that it's a fat head minnow. It's quite fun. Most American places use it as a bait, but know that if you're buying plants and you're not getting tissue cultures, you don't know what's on it. It could be a pest, or it could be an actual fish egg that will hatch in your tank.

Speaker B:

Or maybe one of his friends punked him. His punk still.

Speaker A:

No, he watched it grow from that.

Speaker B:

You left that out, right? That was some important information.

Speaker A:

It just appeared and grew, and he fed it, and he was like, oh, that might be a cherry barb. No, definitely not a cherry barb.

Speaker C:

Is this on a maximum filter?

Speaker A:

I'm looking at the video and it looks like there's a couple sponge filters. I don't see any other filter heads. I just see sponge filters.

Speaker C:

Well, I'm my epistle grandma Pages, the epistogram of breeders, were saying how much they love their matin filters and that the fries swim in the matin filters when they're small, when they're right away, and they are eating whatever in sephora, micro, bugs, whatever in the matin filters, they were really pumping them up. So that's going to be the new thing, is everybody's going to be putting matin filters in their tanks.

Speaker B:

I love matin filters. Love them. Love, love, love them.

Speaker A:

They're pretty great. So for those that don't know what a matin filter is, it's a traditional. I believe it starts like a German style filter from the 60s. Essentially what you do is you put a wall of sponge and then you trickle water, generally with bubbles over the top. So it literally pulls it through the entire mat of a filter from one side of the tank to the other. I use them in stumps. A lot of people use them for shrimp farm tanks. If you're trying to breed out, it works really well. It's a great filter. It's not as commonly used as it should be. It's a little bit more difficult than a sponge filter, but has a lot of great results.

Speaker B:

Yeah. And the thing is huge, so it has a huge amount of what do you want to call, filtering, I guess is the word I'm looking for.

Speaker A:

So next part of the news we have the Minnesota Aquarium Society has a meeting that's going to be free to the public. So certainly check that out. They're doing the amazing diversity of live bearers. Certainly go to the Minnesota Aquarium Society to find out more information. This is the free meeting to the public. Don't miss out. Certainly worthwhile that.

Speaker B:

Coming up shortly, like December 3.

Speaker A:

I am trying to see yeah, no, it's this Thursday. I think you must pre register. If it's this Thursday, then people are already going to miss it.

Speaker B:

It's December 3, people.

Speaker A:

It is. They're going to miss it. Well, when you're hearing this, know that you could have gone to the Minnesota Society and there still should be a free open recording of this amazing topic.

Speaker B:

And here's today's winning lottery numbers.

Speaker A:

Yes. Which are gone.

Speaker B:

Which are gone by the time you hear this.

Speaker A:

How could we, Jimmy? Last couple of bits of the news in the Aquarium Guys podcast community. Jimmy and I were sitting down talking with one of your relatives, and they were asking about our advertisements, making fun of six inch Cholawood. And he's like, what in the world is cholo wood? And he pulls up. He just googles Cholo wood on his ipad. And lo and behold, all of our many advertisements of six inch hard cholo wood from Joe Shrimp shack.com have finally paid off. And it's the number one Google result.

Speaker B:

Number one out of a billion.

Speaker A:

We did it.

Speaker B:

Yes.

Speaker A:

All our hard work and efforts, applaud yourselves because you're the guys that have been buying this amazing cholo wood for a buck 50 from them.

Speaker B:

Let's talk about how we're making joe's Guy mad.

Speaker A:

Yeah. So Don Cholo, we did that little advertisement about Don Cholo, and it's actually pretty accurate. He is an 81 year old man that lives and I think it's Nevada, Arizona, I can't remember off the top of my head.

Speaker B:

Let's talk about what cho would is first. What is it?

Speaker A:

You didn't even know.

Speaker B:

I didn't know. I was flabbergasting it.

Speaker A:

You were eating the Mick rib when you could have been learning about chola wood.

Speaker B:

Listen, priorities, dude. Priorities. So my brother in law is here from Arizona, and we're talking about Cholerwood. He goes, what are you guys talking about? So he's the one that googled it. He's the one that found Joe shrimp shack immediately. And we all high five each other and giggle like little girls. And he goes, oh, it's that damn cactus that's everywhere. And I did not realize that Cholawood is a cactus full of big spines. And then Robbie had explained to me that this gentleman who Joe has hired to go out and collect the Cholawood is 81 years old, and he goes out, and because of you guys and ordering Cholawood, you're keeping this guy so busy he's ready to kill Joe.

Speaker A:

No, he appreciates that he's unemployed, retired, and all he does is cut six inch pieces of trollawood for your desire.

Speaker B:

I don't know how he gets his minds off that's. What I want to know next.

Speaker A:

So it was a little bit of a celebration.

Speaker C:

We should ask him.

Speaker B:

We should get him on.

Speaker A:

So the last pieces of outside news, right, would be the new species of jellyfish.

Speaker B:

To me, that's right.

Speaker A:

It's written as Noah. Hold on here. I had it open. Now it went away.

Speaker B:

Like your heart. It was open, now it went away.

Speaker A:

Just gone forever.

Speaker B:

I'm going to send it to Sarah mclaughlin song.

Speaker A:

Here it is, noah scientists Discover New species. And I hate this title of gelatinous animal. That is not what you call a jellyfish. You need to be more descriptive. CNN it's a jellyfish. Than near the waters of Puerto rico. Because if you're describing a gelatinous glob, it should have been the mc rib. Right? A new Mcgrib in Puerto rico.

Speaker B:

It should say new species of rob.

Speaker A:

Rob. There you go. See, there's a lot of definitions. So it is a jellyfish. For those that are listening, officially new species.

Speaker B:

It actually looks like a freaking horseshoe crab a little bit.

Speaker A:

Well, it's a cross between a horseshoe crab and sperm. Like the sperm cell.

Speaker B:

Can we say sperm on this podcast?

Speaker A:

It's our podcast.

Speaker B:

Okay.

Speaker A:

It's all right. We're not on the FCC airwaves yet.

Speaker B:

You know who the sperm expert is on this podcast? Adam there.

Speaker A:

All right. Speaking of that, Adam, last bit of news for those that aren't in the northern areas, such as Canada or Alaska or even some places in northern Minnesota, they want to put out a public service announcement to not let moose lick your car. Jimmy, maybe you can help out with as to why.

Speaker B:

Because moose will fall in love with your car and pretty soon you'll have a moose mating on top of your car.

Speaker A:

Well, specifically because winter advice.

Speaker B:

Think about how that would be if you're in your car and moose started humping your windshield. I mean, that would be distracted.

Speaker A:

If you got a camry, it would be kind of sexy. But no. In Minnesota, Canada, Alaska, all these northern climates, we use salt on the highways because salt has a melting temperature of negative 15 degrees fahrenheit. That is an incredible melting temperature or freezing temperature. So when you put ice on a frozen highway, generally it melts the ice and snow, but it also gets all over your cars. And that's why we have rusty cars up here, but if you let moose lick your car, you can only imagine how they're going to see a car on the highway. Be dumb, get killed or kill you because they're a huge giant animal.

Speaker B:

That is correct. Do not let moose lick your car.

Speaker A:

There's a public service announcement for the podcast.

Speaker B:

And what else happened at adam's house?

Speaker C:

I got a puppy.

Speaker A:

Adam got a puppy.

Speaker B:

And what kind of puppy did you get?

Speaker C:

German shepherd puppy.

Speaker B:

Does it speak German?

Speaker C:

Sure, we'll go with that.

Speaker A:

I'm just imagining Adam going.

Speaker B:

He can't.

Speaker A:

Teach my puppy, can't teach a dog new tricks. It's like speak, except that one thing be racist. You're a German shepherd. that'd be weird.

Speaker B:

Don't be saying hi, hitler. No, do not let the dog say that.

Speaker A:

Nine. Why are you reading your poop?

Speaker B:

Quit looking yourself in the living room in front of the children.

Speaker A:

There's a whole bit that Chad daniels does. He's a pretty good comedian, actually, from our area in Minnesota. He's a county central comedian and he does a whole bit on that his grandma being racist and having a German shepherd.

Speaker B:

What did you name your puppy, Adam?

Speaker A:

Her name is kiva.

Speaker C:

And I didn't even name her. My wife did. But then I got back at her and the dog only listens to me.

Speaker B:

I thought you named your next kid and called it Charlie or something.

Speaker C:

No, that's the dog's name is kiva.

Speaker B:

Kiva. And what's that from?

Speaker C:

I honestly don't know. My wife found it. She was all excited. She was just bouncing up and down because we were getting a puppy, finally.

Speaker A:

Wait, isn't that those like, the chicken that you buy frozen with butter on the inside?

Speaker B:

Kiva.

Speaker C:

That's a kiev.

Speaker A:

Okay?

Speaker C:

How do you not know a food item, Rob?

Speaker A:

We all have all people who know.

Speaker B:

Food items there, Mr. McGregor.

Speaker A:

We all need to eat before this podcast.

Speaker B:

So how many bottles of wine did your wife drink before she named the dog? I'm just curious.

Speaker C:

Well, I think she drank like, six before she let me get the dog and then name it. And then the whole thing behind it was I had to share the dog with her and the rest of the family and then the dog only listens to me. She mopes when I'm not around.

Speaker B:

The dog does or your wife?

Speaker C:

Well, the dog, because the wife, I don't think cares after four kids that you're around.

Speaker B:

No, you're very mine. You're basically just kind of trouble when you're around.

Speaker A:

Well, let's get on the aquarium topic, shall we?

Speaker B:

Oh, I'd like to talk about adam's life.

Speaker A:

As any content expert should have, we try to have backup plans when guests can't make it due to technical reasons or just being mean. David was technical. David, we're going to have you on shout out to you, but being the.

Speaker B:

Professionals that we are, we got nothing.

Speaker A:

Well, no, you guys have something see, all I've been hearing about every time I see you or talk to you, Jimmy, and even like reference to Adam, like, you know, that old man, meme, like these prices are too damn high. So I think we need to talk about the market right now and how things have finally stabilized after like ten months of COVID My blood pressure just.

Speaker B:

Went up 30 points.

Speaker A:

I felt a disturbance in the force and I thought you just had like a bowel movement from your mic rib.

Speaker B:

No, actually Mick ribs do the opposite.

Speaker A:

They plug you up.

Speaker B:

Who knew if you eat four or five of them they will happy Mick rib. Sometimes they get excited. I eat the napkins too. Small things.

Speaker A:

Well, Jimmy, let's talk about prices. Before or after? How would you like to cut this?

Speaker B:

With a shit wagon 17 inch machete knife right across the throat, I tell you.

Speaker A:

Well, let's start with how you affect.

Speaker B:

How I affect the earth.

Speaker A:

Well, what do you do? Because again, you import fish for different pet stores.

Speaker B:

What do I do?

Speaker A:

Right. So what is your use for buying all these fish?

Speaker B:

A lot of times I put them on pizza, sell them as anchovies and make a heck of a profit.

Speaker A:

Sounds like a party.

Speaker B:

Yeah, well, as many of you know that I do, wholesale fish have for a number of years. And the old saying was it's never the price of the fish, it's the price of getting the fish here. And it is so true to this day and even more true now with this whole COVID thing, because with the airlines now they are so selective what they're going to carry because there's a lot less airplanes up in the air. And so it used to be kind of a buyer's market where you could just go with an airline that had the cheapest rates and you have 100 pound rate for say $79 or whatever. And now airlines are not carrying fish as we speak. Delta Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest, they are not carrying fish. So that leaves us with who? Ups and fedex.

Speaker A:

No.

Speaker B:

And so just for instance, I got in a two box shipment, very small shipment in for one of my stores from cedars Farms, the Alaska Box, which is a huge box. It's a two inch foam box. They use it when they ship up to Alaska and to the northern regions like us. Usually cost me between eighty dollars to one hundred dollars and then each additional piece is so exorbitant amount of money. I got a large box they charged me $80 for, and the second box they charged me $100 for. And it was, the box was the size of a twelve pack of pop.

Speaker A:

So to go over this, the difference, let's talk about Alaska Box and normal box. And this is from importers general wholesalers seagrass Farms, all of them. They use traditional style boxes and it's like having a slightly larger beer cooler. That's a normal box that comes in with styrofoam. They put it in and it's temperature regulated because it's traversing the country in normal weather. So let's pretend it's like spring or summer, right? So you're going from 110 degrees in Florida and you're coming up to a nice cool 75 degrees in Minnesota. Much less at being in a plane or whatever else that would be from an altitude that's not temperature regulated. So it needs to have some sort of ballast to keep the fish normal. And that's just, on any given day, little insulation. Then for those of us in Canada, Alaska or deep into Minnesota, we have the Alaska box. And that's where you just go all out and do what? Three and a half inches of foam all the way around the thing, all.

Speaker B:

The way around top, bottom, sides. And the box is preformed just like a cooler. So you actually can take it out of the cardboard and it's actually cooler. Cost on that is $10 for the box.

Speaker A:

So pretty high for now. Again, this is all for wholesale. So this is what either middlemen that supply to certain areas like you, Jimmy, you supply to different fish stores throughout Minnesota. Because again, Minnesota is a very difficult process of getting fish all the way up this far north. So again, you supply numerous fish stores in the area. So either like a wholesaler like you or directly to larger stores. And these guys have to order in bulk.

Speaker B:

Yeah. And it used to be that I would go to the airport, our local airport, which is about an hour away, and I would get two or three shipments a week. Now I'm getting one shipment a month. So I went from probably getting twelve shipments a week to one or two a month because it's just not even feasible to try to make money at this point. And right now it's so frustrating because demand is up, the prices are up, and you have to give the price along to somebody. I mean, you need help paying for all this stuff. And so my prices have gone up and then the bitching starts because it used to be 299 wise at 499 now. And it's not the cost of the fish people, it's the cost of getting it here.

Speaker A:

And sometimes it is the cost of the fish which will go over as well.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker A:

But most of the time the shipping is what gets you.

Speaker B:

Right? And right now what we're seeing too is that because of the other wholesalers, like the fine folks over at seagars Farms or dolphin International or Aquinotics, these guys are all getting double dinged also because they're shipping stuff in huge quantities, but they are getting hit really hard too. So they have to take their price up. So now the price of the fish is up. Plus the price of my shipping is up also.

Speaker A:

So let's roll back, like, two years ago, right? Just for the sake of our brains. So two years ago was I think it's two years ago or it was three years ago? I think it's two. Trump did not impose all the tariffs on pretty much everything that touches the United States soil, imported in so that there wasn't tariffs on any of it for any country. And then we have 25% flat tariffs. And then again, negotiating change in each country per country and importing anything really did start to tax on all products and, you know, accessories, fish, none of it was out of the range of tariffs. So there's bump one. Right. Then we have a continual cycle of importing things that are being more monitored as different threats from North Korea, especially because most of international fish imports come from either Central Asia or Indonesia, that type of various Singapore, stuff like that. Having all of the naval investigations of North Korea happening after that time, bumped everything up as well. So it was harder and harder to get certain quantities of fish, but overall prices stayed the same. So let's talk about betas, right? Let's use an example. Betas will ignore some of the locally farmed stuff. Betas, you can get high end quality betas. We're talking about Pacott, Half Moon, koi betas, all different types of really high end betas. You could get for what type of prices in, say, 1000 quantity, depending on.

Speaker B:

Which ones you're looking at. If you're looking at like, a hellboy placate or a different type of placate.

Speaker A:

Think high end crazy stuff.

Speaker B:

Oh, my Lord. What are those crazy ones that we saw down in Minneapolis?

Speaker A:

The jumbos? I don't think those count. We got to keep it at least default.

Speaker C:

What about those alien betas?

Speaker A:

Yeah, alien betas were certainly on the list there as well.

Speaker B:

Yeah. Unbelievable.

Speaker A:

What were the prices, say, like, two years ago on that? Because we we kind of went heavy on betas for a while.

Speaker B:

Oh, you could you could pick them up like a nice hellboy placant. If you buy 100 lot, you can get them for $3 a piece. And now you're talking 1214, $16. And what really sucks about the whole thing is that this money is not going back to the people who are breeding them. It's all being absorbed by the shipping tariffs, tariffs, everything else. And so that's what's really sad is that the only people getting rich off this are the people who are transporting this.

Speaker A:

So, again, two years ago, tariffs were implemented. Then again, it's a lot more reliant on florida's farmers. Right. And then we move forward to 2020 and COVID strikes in February. Right. They were told, we got insider information to farmers from different places. They were told, you're going to have to keep stock going, but essentially we have to actually destroy crop. There's not going to be orders. We're not going to be accepting this as a wholesaler. Level. And they essentially had to either hold or find a way to liquidate and pause farming altogether across Florida.

Speaker B:

Yes. And then that caught them in the butt, because all of a sudden with COVID everybody's home, they're bored. Oh, you know what? I'm going to work in my tank. I'm going to add an additional tank, and bam, demand goes up and everybody is stalled out.

Speaker A:

So it was a problem of no one predicting the market. They were essentially told, hey, everything's going to get shut down. And we're all assuming that aquarium products aren't going to skyrocket because we don't know what's going to happen. We're assuming there's no travel at this time. We're figuring out the worst. This pandemic is going to bring a virus. It's going to kill the country.

Speaker B:

Six weeks.

Speaker A:

Yeah. I mean, really, put yourself back to February. Fear was crazy. No one had any clue what to do there's, like, well, protect yourself. We're not going to be accepting any product. So again, they didn't produce the product in Florida.

Speaker B:

Right. And so then come mid summer and business is booming, and you can't get.

Speaker A:

Anything wiped out of stock.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

So we have the perfect storm of tariffs, shipping suppression, then moving directly into so now we're only working on our local stock and then telling the farmers, no, we're not going to be needing it. Moving ahead four months and then seeing a shortage across the board.

Speaker B:

And now we're trying to play catch up. And all the stock that's coming in is teeny tiny because the demand is there. And they're saying, you know what, we'll release them. And you're paying full price for an extra small fish.

Speaker A:

Well, that end when you hit the reset button on a trade thing. Right. So I'm going to pick on because I'm very knowledgeable about Magic the Gathering. That's what I did another podcast on. So when you have a supply and demand issue, people find other ways to do it. So wizards of the coast, they're a game company owned by hasbro. They started the trading card game, the pokemon craze that you guys hear dungeons and Dragons, all that, right?

Speaker B:

Frisbees.

Speaker A:

Frisbees. They have a product that they put on on a regular basis. Essentially, they have four blocks a year and then supplemental sets that equal roughly about four more sets. So they're almost every month pumping out a new product of cardboard crack to nerds. So COVID hits. And again, wizard of the coast believes in these local game stores, these places where neck peers travel to play games in a sociably acceptable area with other people. And again, that's the traditional model stores, just like a pet store, a fish store. Right. These stores sell cards, hold tournaments, and now no communications done. COVID hits these shops, some of which still don't even open as of right now. It was 8910 months later. Math is hard. And they've learned that, well, wow, we're still selling a ton of cardboard, way more than we ever would have predicted. Why is this? Everybody's at home with stimulus checks. They have nothing better to do. They either remodel their basement, put up a fish tank, or play card games. Right. So the market exploded. And their belief in this mom and pop shop, it all has to be in the local stores is now shattered because they see people exclusively ordering online. So these mom and pop shops are turning into online distribution hubs. So it's all changing now that the chain of how everything's being distributed is changing to the amazons of the world. That control. So now we see this reset right in the fish market replay this whole thing. COVID happens, the tariffs happen. They're told that we're not going to be taking any of these wholesalers. So you should really tone down your stock. And you have farmers that are essentially out of work. They're going to either try to sell it to you directly, they're going to get out of business, or they're going to try to go online.

Speaker B:

We had several farms that were just gone and we thought went out of business poof, three months. And all of a sudden we start getting sheets from them saying, hey, we have this available, but we're even in the last three months, you weren't even answering your phone. And anyway, they said, well, we were told to shut down. And so we shut down and went on vacation.

Speaker A:

I mean, when did when do the farmers go on vacation? Honestly, never. You were saying, Adam?

Speaker C:

I was going to say the same thing. They never get a vacation.

Speaker A:

Yeah, I mean, what was the milking farmer quote? You milk when prices are high, and you don't get a vacation when the prices are low. So if you have an opportunity not to have any work responsibility, you take the little light that you have and roll with it. So now, again, these things are popping up. And then in my Facebook account, again, we're just a podcast. I probably get two to three international people a day adding me on Facebook because all the wholesalers they were working with abandoned them during COVID because they're not going to be importing all these fish and they can't get shipping rates. So now they're trying to send directly to stores, and they see aquarium guys on the Facebook listing and add us, expecting that we're a store, and give me their lists. So it's literally hitting the reset button that we no longer have a ton of demand for these middle wholesalers. But here's the worst part. When you're ordering let's go back to that, like $3 alien beta, right? You have $3 for a beta. These guys are trying to sell it to you for, say, $4, because they understand that price went up in demand. They don't know how much because they're a little clueless out of it. But then they see the shipping rate, and you're paying up to twice the amount for import tariff for the middleman that you have to import to what's the gentleman the trans shipper there. Thank you. The tranship, we have to import to all the shipping that has to go and handling between it. And even if you're lucky enough to find an airline. What was the last time you went to an airline, Jimmy? How about that set you back when you went to Minneapolis?

Speaker B:

I went to Minneapolis to pick up two boxes. It was almost $300.

Speaker A:

And these are two small boxes?

Speaker B:

There are two bigger boxes. I'm used to paying about $120, and it was $300 and a trip to Minneapolis, which was a full day, 4 hours down, 4 hours back, meals. My wife shopping on the internet on her phone as we're driving down the road. So that cost me $100.

Speaker A:

So how much do you think of the two small boxes that you had? Let's be conservative here. What do you think was in there for cost? Your cost?

Speaker B:

My cost on it was probably about $400.

Speaker A:

$300?

Speaker B:

$800.

Speaker A:

Oh, that much.

Speaker B:

Well, I ordered a bunch of shrimp.

Speaker A:

Well, the shrimp can be packed a little bit better. So let's pretend it's fish. Probably four bills.

Speaker B:

Oh, yeah. Between four and $500. You know, it used to be we would consider 15% to 18% was about shipping. But now you're talking, you're paying the same price for shipping as you are for fish.

Speaker A:

So that's what it's coming out to. So let's say it's $400 for the fish, right? Because you got screwed up a couple maybe a couple of died in shipping. Then you have to pay for the 300 and some dollars in, we'll say 320 for all taxes and fees on the shipping to get it shipped down to an airport not close to you. Then you have to pay for the box fees, which the boxes are going to cost. Let's say it's Alaska boxes. $12 a piece because you're paying for the foam inside, cardboard outside. And then you have to pay for heat packs.

Speaker B:

Heat packs or cold packs. But then it gets better. Now we have additional charges. $18 service per bag. So, wait, $18 a bag.

Speaker A:

This smells like something here. Service per bag.

Speaker B:

Service per bag.

Speaker A:

Is this from the transhipper?

Speaker B:

This is from the transhipr.

Speaker A:

Okay. So this wasn't like this from seagrass, and they got shipped on the plane. This was something else.

Speaker B:

No, your shipment of shrimp. One bag of shrimp. Let's say I bought I think there's 300 no, 200 blue velvets.

Speaker A:

Sure.

Speaker B:

And so I have a per cost per shrimp. And so the whole bag I'm going to get up my calculator cost me $150. You can spend between $150 per bag of shrimp. Math is not easy for Rob.

Speaker A:

I'm going to do that. And then what is the heat packs?

Speaker B:

Heat packs are anywhere between one to $3, depending on who you're getting them from.

Speaker A:

I mean, come on. Last time we saw it was like 318 for a heat pack on the, on the listing that I saw, depending.

Speaker B:

On who you're buying them.

Speaker A:

So let's say there's 250 a piece. So there's like two heat packs per box.

Speaker B:

Oh, at least two to four.

Speaker A:

So we'll say three. Right.

Speaker B:

But what really makes me mad is when you've got six bags and you're paying $18 per bag. So six times 18 is almost $120.

Speaker A:

In just the handling fees.

Speaker B:

Just the handling fees and that's per box. Right. Who in the hell am I buying fish?

Speaker A:

100 and what?

Speaker B:

Oh, it's almost $120 was 18 times six.

Speaker A:

So, again, let's let's go through the these, these charges now that we finally tallied it. So we're, we're sitting at $320 again, for the shipping with the taxes. It's $12 for the foam cooler in the box on the outside. So that's times two. Right. Then we have $7.0.50 in heat packs per box. That's times two. And you're sitting at $359. And then you're talking $120 per box in handling fees from the transhipper. And now you're looking at that box cost you just to get here in your hands $600.

Speaker B:

Right. And let's hope it's alive.

Speaker A:

A little less than $600.

Speaker B:

Let's hope they're alive.

Speaker A:

Yeah, let's hope they're alive. Then you put on the top of it that this cost you $400 in product because it's going to be $400 for the fish. We'll be conservative. Let's say $420. So you're sitting blaze it $180 more than just the fish cost just to get it to you.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker A:

Now you're getting fish that was like the betas, for instance, was $3. Now is six. Right. And then it has to go sit on the shelf with all that tacked on cost.

Speaker B:

Right. And then I don't know if your time is worth anything, but pay yourself.

Speaker A:

Pay yourself $50. No, this is for the passion, Jimmy. We don't order fish to make money. Come on now.

Speaker B:

So pay yourself $15 an hour just to drive 8 hours and then throw another $25 on for gas and then throw another $20 for a meal.

Speaker A:

You're easily looking at $1,000 a day.

Speaker B:

Yeah. You know what? You're probably better off almost going to the casino and just throwing $1,000 down on black or something.

Speaker A:

And again, that's just for shipping. So with the fish at another 420.

Speaker B:

Under that yeah, it's ridiculous. So then you come back and you go, I have to adjust my prices because I need to try to make some money here or at least break even. And then your locals go on, well, you're just screwing us because of Coronavirus. No. You're being screwed because of everybody else.

Speaker A:

No, trust me. If you find that you have a store close to you that has any product worthwhile that maintains even some normalcy of fish price, know that they've eaten it through the teeth because they want your service. And that's the place that deserves patronage. If they have to raise prices, so be it. It's a rough place to be right now.

Speaker B:

I mean, right now we're looking over in the fargo morehead area. You're looking at $6 for a cherry shrimp or a cherry shrimp, which costs $0.35. Right. But got to get it here. And that just becomes an ongoing problem. And right now, there's no relief in sight until airlines start carrying it again. What would fedex rather carry? Would they rather carry all the stuff from Amazon, or would they rather carry your fish, slosh it on the back of their truck? I mean, because it's a perishable, just like flowers, they charge you an exorbitant amount because it's perishable. And they say they treat it better, but they don't it doesn't come any faster. It doesn't come any slower. Just comes with everything else. But because of a perishable, like in the airlines, the first thing that airlines have when you go back into the back room of Delta, which you can't do anymore, but before 911, I could go back in the back room.

Speaker C:

Well, you have other reasons why you're not allowed in the back room at Delta.

Speaker A:

Yeah, we're friends with you.

Speaker B:

That's great.

Speaker A:

You look like you should be on an underwear. A model cover of the Taliban daily.

Speaker B:

That's right.

Speaker C:

Really? Taliban Daily?

Speaker B:

Taliban Daily.

Speaker C:

That's the best you can come up with?

Speaker A:

Well, I was trying to be nice.

Speaker B:

Come on, now, adam's half Egyptian. If you don't know.

Speaker A:

I mean, honestly, we do get people that get to come join us on the discord. Again, if you wanted to listen to these podcasts live, go to Quorumguyspodcast.com, bottom the web page, you'll find a link for discord. And that's where you get to see Adam. And we actually had messages because we had a person say, that Minnesota accent is sexy. That was about Adam, but then they get to see him on camera now, and we've had comments, something like heart throb. I believe one of them was, yeah, fluke you.

Speaker B:

Fluke you, Adam.

Speaker A:

Okay, we're going to eat mc ribs.

Speaker B:

And that's why I call you malibu Ken.

Speaker A:

Apparently.

Speaker B:

Malibu Ken. anyways, so if you went in the back room of Delta Airlines back in the day, they had their priority list, and it was printed in big, bold letters, and this was their Ten commandments. Number one thing that they move that's a priority is an HR. HR is human remains. So if Grandpa dies in Arizona and you need to fly him back to Alaska, he's going to get priority over airline luggage, over anything else that they carry. And you'd be so surprised what they carry underneath an airplane. On any given flight, you are sitting on top of a dead body, a whole bunch of blood from the blood bank parts for your local bobcat stitch gear and flowers and fish and pets. But number ten is perishables meaning flowers or fish. And why does that just make you mad? If perishables are what they say, perishable, why wouldn't they be up the chain of command a little bit? But no, this is the first thing.

Speaker A:

They bump because you're not supposed to eat them. Jimmy I know, but the mc rib gets higher priority than fish.

Speaker B:

That sucks. And mc ribs can last a lot longer than a fish in a box, I'll tell you that much. So the first thing you would think that you would make sure that dead grandpa gets on the airplane and the passenger luggage and the perishables would go and then we're not going to worry so much about the parts because if the parts sit here for a day or so, no big deal, they're not going to die. But no, it's the exact opposite. Perishables are the very last and they don't care. And if they tell you they care, they're lying. They just want your money and they're going to ship it. And I hate the airwise.

Speaker A:

So we're talking about prices, we're being older, everything's too damn expensive, but we're telling you why. So we're going to have a bunch of people with feedback if we don't go through some of like the common fish species and tell it was before and after. So you prepared for that.

Speaker B:

Jimmy let's talk about Neon tetris.

Speaker A:

All right, number one, your favorite, blue boys and red boys.

Speaker B:

I can buy Neon tetra 300.

Speaker A:

Let's go, let's go. Before and after. So like say 2018 to 2020 after COVID.

Speaker B:

Now these to be a special 300 neons, $0.09 large, $0.09 captive bread, large neons, nine cents.

Speaker A:

Nine cents. But you had to get a, what was it?

Speaker B:

300.

Speaker A:

Yes. But you also had to make an order. So it was technically not just 300. 300 was one bag as part of your other order. So let's say 500 neons and you could probably meet their minimum requirement.

Speaker B:

I buy by the bag and that's how they're packed. And so you would buy twelve bags to complete an order because you need, there you go, you need twelve bags just to make freight. And what I'm saying by that, yeah, you can order one box, but you're going to pay the same price for one box to three boxes because they sell it by the 100 weight. And now what they're getting you is they're doing it by the cubic inch because their freight amount has gone down. So now we just jack up the price with cubic inch. So if you are sending a little bit of fish in a huge box, you're still paying a huge amount of money and it's very frustrating.

Speaker A:

So nine cents a piece.

Speaker B:

Nine cents a piece when you put.

Speaker A:

Minimum for 300 and you had to get the other order right now what are they at?

Speaker B:

79.

Speaker A:

79. And this is like importing supposed to be the cheapest flat price on these things. What is like a Florida, because again, these are native, not natively, but locally bred in Florida farms and Florida before it wasn't like on special assistant for thirty nine cents.

Speaker B:

Thirty nine cents it used to be. Now they're at least double the half that now.

Speaker A:

Right. So for the absolute cheapest. Now let's go down the list, Jimmy. Before and after angel fish, that's always your fun one.

Speaker B:

Angel fish, if you import them, I.

Speaker A:

Would say no matter what, we do know that our sources are from either import or export exports. Generally you have to buy in bulk, so we'll give you those numbers, but most of this is going to be import speech.

Speaker B:

A good quality large Koi angel went from $6 now to $29 domestic. What's the price for large Koi angel? I just looked at it before I came over because I was looking at the difference. And the thing is too is when you're buying large angels, you get very few in a bag.

Speaker A:

What about domestic?

Speaker B:

Domestically they were down to about 1250, but the quality there is just 1000%, much worse on that particular item.

Speaker A:

So let's pick on something that I think kind of stayed close to the same. Goldfish.

Speaker B:

Goldfish? Yeah, I mean, you can buy 500ft of goldfish for $30 from seacrest Farms. That hasn't really changed any. But now it costs you about $50 to ship them. Whereas before you said it cost you about twelve dollars to fourteen dollars to ship them. Right.

Speaker A:

So again, shipping has hit you there. And the helpful reasons on Koi, and not necessarily high end Koi, that's a different market goldfish is because we do have a lot of consistent farms, and not just Florida, they were spread all over and they sold independently a lot of times. Like for instance, we have people which we need to get on the podcast for ozark. Did I say that correctly?

Speaker B:

Ozark goldfish.

Speaker A:

Yeah, yes. And they're seasonal, so they necessarily can't stop producing because they do batches throughout the year. And people like those help stabilize the goldfish market for sure. At least domestically.

Speaker B:

Yes, now is the time to buy your goldfish, because in the summer and the fall the goldfish are small and a little weak, and they'll tell you that when you purchase them. But right now, at this time of the year, especially if you're in Minnesota, they'll send goldfish, koi fan tail, and they will get you right to your door in a cardboard box with no insulation whatsoever. And I've had ups on my front door and water temperature has been 38 degrees and it's absolutely fine.

Speaker A:

Yeah, they pretty well stabilized. All right, so let's go live bearers, specifically guppy.

Speaker B:

First man, don't get me going on guppies.

Speaker A:

Oh boy, don't get them going, Sunny.

Speaker B:

I have quit buying import guppies. And just because they can't get them alive, well, not even alive, but they.

Speaker A:

Come radiated, which wasn't necessarily a problem, but it's a real ethics issue.

Speaker B:

Well, they're sterile and most people buy a guppy for what reason?

Speaker A:

They want to breed them.

Speaker B:

They want to breed them, they want to have babies. The kids can watch them grow.

Speaker A:

Otherwise why watch a dumbo fish, right?

Speaker B:

But anyway, right now I've got two suppliers locally that I've got cranked up and stuff and I'm going to go pick up another 300 guppies here very shortly. And I'm paying seriously next to nothing for them and not having any shipping on it and stuff. So that's where I am trying to finally make my money back is by buying as much stuff locally as I can and I'm saving the freight.

Speaker A:

Hell, you bought from me, you got 75 players at a crack. I think you got another close to 100 shrimp from me.

Speaker B:

Yep.

Speaker A:

Yeah. I mean this is the time where people need to sit down and we'll get into that a little bit and do it on your own.

Speaker B:

But molly's, molly's, molly's, molly's, Molly's, molly's have about tripled in price in the last year and a half. And I would say at one time of buying molly's for thirty nine cents and now a decent molly is next to a dollar. And locally Florida mollies are just as good as any other molly. Absolutely and stuff.

Speaker A:

So a lot of Florida stock is fantastic.

Speaker B:

If I can buy from Florida, 19 out of ten, I'll buy from Florida. If I can. There's just certain items that Florida just does not produce and probably never will. I did get some interesting information from somebody down in Florida just recently. Florida is getting back into guppies. Most of the guppies coming out of Florida are imports. They're just reselling them.

Speaker A:

And that's been like that for a.

Speaker B:

While, for a long time. Because when the Singapore flu or whatever you want to call it came through, wiped out all the guppies in Florida.

Speaker A:

I was told that and that reset the market. Then they started importing them and no farmer wanted to compete with those prices because it was already an established chain. They would have to undercut import prices at that point and there hasn't been a lot of great opportunities to do that consistently unless you have a very high quality product which wholesalers have petco demands, other things like that and they need to stock shelves.

Speaker B:

So the latest news coming out of Florida and has not been out there, there is a new chemical, I think is the word I want to use. There's a new chemical that they can treat guppies with that's going to be approved here in the Us. In the very next few months and it will turn your guppies into about 90% male.

Speaker A:

Oh yeah, the hormone thing. I heard a little bit about this.

Speaker B:

Yeah. So they are going to come out and be able to produce 90% male guppies and everybody goes, why would you want to do that because that's people buy males. People buy males because of the color. Absolutely.

Speaker A:

That ends. Some stores are just exclusively buying males because they have issues with aggression. If you have three males and three females, one of them is probably going to get stressed out just for the sake of the sexual behavior. There you go.

Speaker C:

Sorry, I didn't hear about this chemical thing. So they are female, are they what we would consider in the reptile world? Hot females, which means they don't breed. They act like a male, but they are technically a female with the color and everything.

Speaker B:

Great question. I have no idea.

Speaker A:

You have to tell us. Maybe what happens maybe the case.

Speaker B:

What happens with reptiles?

Speaker C:

Adam okay, so with leopard geckos, which I would consider the guppy of the reptile world, I agree. If not one of them. Leopard geckos are temperature sex determined. So if I'm remembering correctly, upper like 85 to 90, 92 is a male. And then like mid, upper seventy s low eighty s to like that 85 degree range. You get all female. But every now and then you get the odd egg that is supposed to be a male incubated as a male, but it turns in it's an actual female. And I've never seen one, but I've seen pictures of them and if you put them next to a male, the only way you can tell is if you flip them over and they don't have balls and they don't have the pores, but they act like a male.

Speaker A:

You may not that's for lizards. Never mind, I got you.

Speaker C:

Yeah, but as far as I've understood from everybody that I've talked to that had hot females and that's what they're called is they're called hot females. They don't breed. They're basically a sterile female leopard gecko. I'm just wondering if that would be what these are. Because of the chemical.

Speaker A:

We would have to find out to see exactly what this particular instance does. But we know that in other instances of sex change, especially like beta's, other fish, because fish are known to be very volatile, especially some species to change gender. Like just we had on the conversation with simply beta yeah. That they switch over. They are capable of breeding. And I don't know if this is the case.

Speaker B:

Yeah, I don't know. it'd be pretty weird. Because it's a chemical. It's hard to say because I mean chemical, normally you think it's a chemical would probably make something sterile.

Speaker A:

Plateaus and swordfish or swordtails.

Speaker B:

Jimmy I love platties and swordtails.

Speaker A:

Before and after.

Speaker B:

Before and after. I'm saying what, dollar a piece?

Speaker A:

Seventy cents a piece before import.

Speaker B:

Twenty three cents.

Speaker A:

I mean, domestic you're sitting at $75 to a buck.

Speaker B:

Religiously be on sale for forty nine cents and now you're looking at $0.99. So doubled in price.

Speaker A:

Those are sale prices, not everyday prices. Which is very different.

Speaker B:

Yeah, it all depends on I mean a lot of companies will give you. The more you buy, the cheaper they get.

Speaker A:

Right. And those aren't really as affected, honestly. platties sword tails, the specific variations that were already niche, like vampire sword tails, they have twin tails, stuff like that, very much on the uptick.

Speaker B:

Those are way high. Those are $12.

Speaker A:

Yeah, those are crazy high. But the traditional swords, yeah, the Florida.

Speaker B:

Does this a great job doing the red velvet sword.

Speaker A:

Yes.

Speaker B:

And you cannot get a red velvet sword imported, and that's just something that exclusively goes from Florida. So if you see a red velvet sword tail, you can be about 90% sure it came directly from Florida. And I don't know if it's because of the somebody had told me one time because of the deep red velvet color, that it's a certain food that's available only in Florida. I don't know if that's the truth to that, but it would make sense to me because the first thing that the orient does, or as soon as somebody has got something new, they get some and they start reproducing it immediately.

Speaker A:

Right. Well, again, these are a lot of the bread and butter stock. So before we get into the more obscure stuff, let's keep doing a couple of bread and butter.

Speaker B:

So danos zebra, danos zebra daniels under a dime and now $0.40.

Speaker A:

So definite increased tiger barbs.

Speaker B:

Tiger barbs. A regular sized tiger barb, not a green tiger barb or an albino religiously. You can get them for $0.39. Now you're talking about 89 piece.

Speaker A:

Let's just do a couple of blanket ones because we have the traditional tetras. And when we say traditional tetris, we mean outside of the neon tetra range. The stuff of the basic tetras, the seper tetras, the blood fin tetras, the black phantom tetras, even some hard boras penguin tetras. What are tetras looking at? Across the board?

Speaker B:

Tetras have all gone from that mid 40 to 50 cent range. All right. Up near that dollar range now. And that's something that Florida does an excellent job on, is tetras. Absolutely wonderful. Some of the most beautiful black phantom tetras ever seen came out of Florida. The red serpent tetras come out of Florida. And the thing is, even if they are available from the orient, but they're double the price from the Orient for some particular reason.

Speaker A:

And at least if they're niche like this, like a diamond tetra would be out of that range and a half. Yeah, there's other ones that are outside of this, but like bread and butter stock, white skirt tetras, you know, that the more plain nano tank friendly tetris is what we're speaking about. So let's go to some of the different.

Speaker B:

I want to talk about a mono shrimp.

Speaker A:

Let's let's hit some shrimps.

Speaker B:

The model shrimp is five times the price it was a year ago. Five times? Why?

Speaker C:

They're not even pretty.

Speaker B:

I love them, and I keep them in a. Lot of different tanks they don't die, they just live forever it seems like and do a great job they take a beating. Yeah. And anyway I used to pick them up for sixty cents and now they're two and a half dollars. Why?

Speaker A:

Boom.

Speaker B:

Yeah, and that's just disturbing. I mean, I was selling them and making huge money selling them for $4. And I had to take up my price just recently to $7 just to try to try to make I'm really.

Speaker A:

Trying to grab that, because that used to be, like, a 350 thing.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

As low as $3 if you bought in quantity. And that's at the pet store after everybody's taken care of. Now you're talking more than double four times. That's crazy. Let's go some of the bigger ones.

Speaker B:

Discus discus are out of this crazy.

Speaker A:

So I think we could pick on international because you and I used to get what we would call Culworthy discus in bulk. We get the big bulk bags and they're, they're about what, a quarter? About the size of a quarter 50.

Speaker B:

Cent body quarter size. Yeah.

Speaker A:

And these weren't high end discus by any measure. Some of them had a couple of issues with their back colors were weird, they had a lot of black spotting all over it. You could tell it wasn't the greatest stock and we would get those for at cost without shipping was it $3? But you can order a crap ton.

Speaker B:

Yeah, you have to order 20 and.

Speaker A:

They had to be on sale otherwise I'd say as high as $10.

Speaker B:

Oh yeah. And right now even the discus I'm seeing here in the Us. Have gone from the $0.50 size discus which they don't really sell in the Us. We have to import that small size but say a two inch discus which I used to religiously pick up for $14 now is $23 and that's just a plain old pigeon blood discus that's a blue diamond or something really nice.

Speaker A:

And now what we go is for like the premium species where you get a nice high quality discus from say like the domestic prices, right? Domestic prices used to stabilize at the smaller size of $20 for just everyday prices if you wanted to order from different places, different local wholesalers now we're seeing prices up in the $40 range.

Speaker B:

Oh yeah. Right now a two inch fish anything with the word albino in front of it is $40 and there's a lot of different the thing I love discus so much but the thing I hate about Jessica so much is that everybody renames the same discus. So you might have a blue diamond discus called 14 different things then you.

Speaker C:

Buy it sink and then it's something cool and then you're like oh, it's.

Speaker A:

Just a blue diamond the wholesalers do not keep proper that's for sure. If you want to get like the proper names and know exactly what you're going for you have to go for the real breeders, the bread breeders do keep to consistent, but wholesalers? Hell no. They'll just pull it out their ass.

Speaker B:

And the thing is too is you go, oh, this sounds really cool. Like the snake skin, blue diamond skin melon cross hybrid. And you look it up on the internet and you go, that's a gorgeous fish. There's no way you're getting that fish because every fish that's on the internet is a fish in breeding colors and number one best fish, oh, nobody takes pictures of a shit fish and put them on.

Speaker A:

People don't know when you're wholesaling you don't get pictures of this shit either. You just get a black and white excel sheet and you barely get a name. And then a code you can refer to. So you can tell them I want F 50, one B and I want eight of them, right? Or 200, because that's the minimum of bag quantity if you get it from import.

Speaker B:

And the thing is it would be blue diamonds, two inch, two and a half inch, three inch, three and a half inch, four inch, four and a half inch, five inch, and then jumbo. And it goes up $5 every time you say a bigger. And then you get to the jumbo fish and you're looking at $89 for a fish wholesale before shipping. And you hope it gets here alive because you're on your own.

Speaker A:

Cross your fingers. oscars.

Speaker B:

I hate oscars so much.

Speaker C:

They're a pain in the ass.

Speaker B:

Oscars have gone up tremendously. I just raised the price of my oscars $4. I'm talking about inch and a half, two inch Oscar. And they are probably about 450 to 550 depending on what color Oscar you're getting. Where these used to be a dollar 50 fish.

Speaker A:

Now I want to say clown loaches, but clown loaches is an astros clown loaches. You go to certain places and you can get yourself a four inch to three inch specimen and you're going to pay retail potentially of $150 for that one clown loach. And that's because they are tacking on so much shrink onto that bag when they order these things and getting a size. So we have the combination of clown loaches are extremely slow grow. So if you want any sort of size beyond small and then again they're hard to ship, good luck. So if you get any size to them, they're worth a ton, then they have no scales. So you can't use copper products to disinfect the bags of any type of ic. And they're extremely susceptible to ic and any other disease like it. So you can't treat them in shipping. And they're also, in my experience, susceptible to other, what's the word, inhibitors such as like clove oil in the bag or any type of suppressants to calm down the fish when you're shipping internationally. So you have the perfect storm of a problematic fish. So when you get a bag. You have to quarantine them for super long. And product on yourself, not sold, cost you money, whatever survived in the bag. And then you have your final product, which took forever, cost a ton. So they're going to mark those up to accommodate that. And I've seen outrageous prices for clown loaches, but on the list is what we're going to talk about.

Speaker B:

Well, here's another thing, too, about cloud loaches. Like Rob just said, you get monday they look good. Wednesday they have ick. You can set your watch to it. But here, the bigger the fish, these fish go through the bag. They go through the bag. You know how cloud loaches have the barbells? Boom.

Speaker A:

They stab the bag.

Speaker B:

They stab the bag. And so the mortality rate is pretty high because they'll triple bag or quadruple bag, these heavy, heavy plastic fish bags put in like on a large fish, like those six inch fish, you'll get six fish in a bag. And that's what you get. You get six fish in a bag because there's no water in it once it gets here, because they've already put 25 holes in it from the barbells. So it's very hard just like piranhas to ship these large fish. And so normally it's a high mortality rate, so it's much easier to get the smaller ones and grow them up. But like Rob said, they grow very slowly. And the other thing that really sucks about clown loaches, because of the time of year, it's like the stock market. When cloud locations are running, they are very decently priced. But farther down the road, when they are scarce and hard to find, then you're talking three times the price. So it's a very seasonal price on clown locations. So you'll see clown locations on sale at certain times a year. It's because in certain countries they're running and they're readily available, but as the water gets cooler and stuff, they hide and they can't find them to sell. So most clown locations are wild caught. But now you're talking on my price list right now. Today I looked at clown loaches. Now this is wholesale anywhere from $4 for two inch fish up to $119 for a jumbo, whatever that may be. You're at their discretion. When they say jumbo, it doesn't say seven inches. Oh, yeah.

Speaker A:

They're not going to tell you if it's four inches or nine inches. It's just you got to roll the dice. And they're not going to check for you like, hey, this week, how much are there? They're like, bite me. And they'll hang up the phone.

Speaker B:

Well, they're trans shippers, right? You're talking to a trans shipper who is only able to email them. And there's such a time difference by.

Speaker A:

The time that you get a confirmation, yes, they're nine inches. They've already sold that stock three times over.

Speaker B:

Well, that is too late to order anyway. It takes you three days to order and takes them that long to get back to you.

Speaker A:

Done.

Speaker B:

There's been times where I've ordered just like a ton of discus and gotten none. And the next time you think, well, I'm just going to order an extra three bags so I get something, and then all of them show up that next week. And then all of a sudden you're discus poured because you just spent $700 on discus. But, yeah, the price on claw locations are extremely volatile, depending on the season, the very seasonal fish.

Speaker A:

So I think the last two to pick on would be cory cats and placoes.

Speaker B:

Cory cats. Now let's talk about cory cats. If you buy a mixed lot, you'll get albinos paleontas, which are the green ones, and then the salt and pepper ones.

Speaker A:

And this is pretty standard for every single import, domestic, whatever it is. That's how they assort them, is the bronze, the peppered and the albino, right?

Speaker B:

And you'll get them in and what happens? You'll get in your sordid corris and you put them in the tank. And if you're going to have problems.

Speaker A:

With your core, albiny's are gone.

Speaker B:

First thing. Albinols are gone. All of a sudden, the albinyls are gone always. And then the peppered ones are gone, and then you have all the green ones left, which are the bronze. And so just like goldfish, genetically, the black moors are the weakest link. Weakest link. And so as soon as you see your mixed corey cats or your mixed goldfish fan tails and you start losing the black moors and you start losing the albinyls, you know, you've got issues. And then you immediately got to start doing water changes and then treat them.

Speaker A:

So the assortment skew, domestic or import? Your choice. Thirty nine cents and now buck $19 19. That's an incredible lift there. I didn't actually didn't expect that. I figured that's the one of the fish that would have stayed stable.

Speaker B:

And so when you've got an average retail price of 299 on something and all of a sudden now it's 699, people notice.

Speaker A:

Okay, so we did that math equation, right? We showed that a $400 box of fish costs you six to ship in. Pretty much that's about the whole rate tranship or the whole thing. So if we take that same rate and we say a dollar twelve for a quarry cat or a dollar 15 right now, you're going to mark that up, you know, one and a half percent, one and a half times just to cover your, your shipping costs. And then you have to find profit. So where how in the world are people selling them for 299? They got to be marked up to at least $6, maybe eight, just to make back their money.

Speaker B:

Especially with the petco. And the pet smarts of the world, they're more apt to go up in price just for the fact that there's not one person they're going to go to and complain about price. But when you have our mom and pop shops like we do over in West fargo, I mean, they know that owner and they go over there and just go, what's the deal? And try to put the old pressure on. I don't understand why people can go into a pet store and say, hey, would you take 1299 for that discus rather than 1599? And it's like the barter system. You can't go into Walmart and say, hey, this quarter oil. Can I give you a dollar off?

Speaker A:

So here's a scary thought, right? Just to put you guys tucked in and warm at night in your bed, just go to having some sweet dreams. I worked at Walmart for a couple of years. I was a manager that they sent to problematic stores to go clean up. And I was at my own store manager for electronics, wireless photo, that whole thing, right? And I know that this is still the case. walmart's TV wall on any day without sale, without those big Cyber Monday whatever sale prices they are making on average, nothing. Or just a tiny tish below, like going in the hole on every TV on average on all those tvs, there is no margin on televisions. And they purposely do it because it's a losing winner for the store that it brings them in. They're going to buy their TV, and when they buy their TV, guess what they're going to get? They're going to get a mount. The amount they're making 90% on the television mount. They're going to buy hdmi cables, which you think $20 for an hdmi cable. They're making 92% on a profit on an hdmi cable. Oh, what, you need a dvd player or a roku box? They're making deep margins on those as well. So it's a losing winner. Now, if the Petcos and Pet Smarts of the world just look at that model and look at the success that other departments and other stores have used lost winners for, they're going to go and say, hey, what if we just essentially sell fish for close to cost?

Speaker C:

That's not how it works.

Speaker A:

What if we just try to maintain the price, right?

Speaker C:

But that's not how pets go and Pet Smart do it. I'll tell you how we do it.

Speaker A:

That's not how they do it at the moment. But if they got smart about it, and that's what they're going to do after this COVID scenario, and they're going to keep prices maintained, how is that going to hurt your mom and pop shop? What, I got to go get a Cory cat for six to $8. Or guess what? I'm going to give them two for $5 at Petco.

Speaker C:

But at Petco PetSmart, that's not how they sell their that's not how they get their fish. When they buy their fish, they have a 90 day guarantee on their fish through their wholesaler. So when you sign a contract, and I know this because I actually talked to jim knows who I talked to. He was trying to get in with them. So what petco and PetSmart do is they keep that fish. They say that we have 90 days on that fish, say they buy it December 1. They don't have to pay you for 90 days. And then what they do is they just count all the dead fish, and all the dead fish get rotated up, and then they just send you a constant stream of dead fish rotation.

Speaker B:

That's what Walmart did.

Speaker C:

So they never, ever basically, you give your fish to free for petco PetSmart, right?

Speaker A:

But especially with knowing that right, knowing how they can really hit the system for these fish, that gives them more incentive to not raise prices on purpose and just keep them low just to make sure they get people. In order to get that aquarium, buy the food, get the decor, do all of their shopping there because they know fish can be a lost winner. So that's my fear, is that it's going to get worse as these prices go. We're going to see these Petcos and pet smarts just eat fish prices out the ass.

Speaker B:

Now, here's my question to you and Adam, and answer me truthfully. So any petco or pet smart that you've gone to in the last, let's say the last five years, have any of them added more livestock?

Speaker C:

I was just there on Friday to pick up stuff for my puppy because we don't have any local ones anywhere near me. And they have they've basically kept it about the same in the last five years.

Speaker A:

They rotate it, but that's about it.

Speaker C:

They rotate it. And it's the same generic animals. And I'm not meaning generic, but it's the same bread and butter stuff.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker A:

They'll have about three tanks out of their entire display of what they call, like, rotational stock, and they call it seasonal. Like what they're going to just put in to make it look fresh. Like, I went in the other day, they had Rose Line sharks, right? And actually, that Rose Line shark has rotated probably three times in the last year. So I think they just keep that skew and then just make it look fresh.

Speaker B:

Eventually, what you're going to have is you're going to have the stores do not I mean, our local one up in the fargo morehead area, when they redid their whole fish area, they reduce it by 30%, and the amount of birds they have is reduced. The amount of reptiles probably stayed about the same. And what what they're doing is, like Rob said, it's a loss leader to carry the livestock, but they got to keep a little livestock just to keep your interest. But pretty soon, it's been like going to a zoo, and there's no animals to look at. So then they're forcing people to go to the Internet to get anything of interest. I mean, the last time I saw anything other than a Silver Angel fish in any of these big box stores has been months.

Speaker A:

So we've talked about doom and gloom, we bitched about prices, this whole podcast. But more importantly, we told you why. We're not just saying the price is too damn high. Well, this is why. I mean, you're seeing that it costs six bills to get four bills of fish in wholesale and that four bills of fish has gone up exponentially. We've painted the picture. We've talked about the threats of big box stores. Now, let's tell you how you can win, right? Number one, you can win by being the hobbyist you dreamed about. So in 2018, you hear about, oh, I want to open up a fish store. Oh, I want to sell fish out of my basement. I could make so much money doing this. And then as your hobby grows, you talk to these wholesalers, you get the inside information. You learn the cost of maintaining your tanks, the electricity, the shrink of accidents happening in your tanks. And you realize there's no way you're going to be $0.39 for a neon tetra. All right, well, this is the time. Now, that $0.39 tetra is a buck, right? People are having hard times getting a hold of them. Shipping is 1.2 times the cost on top of them. This is the time where if you're a breeder and you want to do it fun in your basement, you're going to make a little bit of bank doing this. So if you want to go in your basement right now, set up a 55 gallon to start breeding high end guppies, guarantee that there are shops out there that will pay for them, and they'll pay you the normal wholesale rates. So what were guppies again listed at? Jimmy? Buck $15 25 a pair.

Speaker B:

Buck 29 a pair. But the thing is that if you're going in there, you are in the driver's seat because you know, nobody has anything right now. Nobody is getting tough, or if they.

Speaker A:

Do, they don't feel good about getting it. And they know they have to pay the shipping.

Speaker B:

The shipping. I mean, if you go in there and say, I know the shipping is killing you guys right now, I'm here to help, and you give me a fair price on guppies, guess what?

Speaker A:

I'm going to do? $0.75 ahead, dollar ahead. And this is a high quality adult product. You can easily have that done and then expect them to take stock.

Speaker B:

Yeah, it's not a big deal. Ask for cash because don't get store credit. I mean, store credit is wonderful if you're doing this once or twice, if.

Speaker A:

You'Re having fun with it and this is not what you're wanting to do. Store credit is fine. If you establish that with a vendor, do it. But go in there, know the game, and don't expect that you're going to be walking in saying, oh, I want $3 for my bread cordy cats. No, you're going to get $0.50. You're going to get a $0.75 apiece for them because you're trying to compete with other prices even though they're struggling, but they're going to be more apt to work with you. Every time I got platos in caves, I put extra caves out. Now, before, they just brought their own for fun and I would just really not know what to do with them. I'd sell them for credit, that type of thing. Now I don't have to. Even without Jimmy, I could go to a pet store easily, get a buck apiece for him, not a problem. Yeah.

Speaker B:

So you're just better off just going in, being honest with them. And then the thing is, when you get this relationship with this person and they call you on a Saturday and say, hey, can you bring in some plecos? You know what, drop what you're doing, take them in 50 plecos and you will start a rapport with that person. And cash is king. I can't tell you how much I like cash.

Speaker A:

You want to make them happy? Here's how you do it. Let's just use the guppies as a model, right? Or plecos. Sure. You have your breeding tank where it happens, right? You have a grow out tank. I would recommend that being sizeable to grow up the stock. And then you have your hold. The hold tank is you expect that once they grow out, guess what? I have 300 guppies. Maybe your pet store isn't ready to swallow 300 guppies or 300 playcos at a crack. So instead you have a holding tank to keep these on hand and be ready and tell them, hey, I got 40 in a bag for you right now. You call, I'll have it there by the end of the day. Then you keep scooping them out. You're getting the prices and you're not putting pressure on them that they have to buy quantity because they already have options to lower prices to buy quantity. You're making it easy on the store and taking advantage of this problem that we're all having of raise prices, terrible shipping rates and then getting screwed in the system. When my fish punctured a bag or someone did the wrong job and I'm already getting taken it up from shipping. You're going to make a smile on their face the moment you walk in the door with a bag of healthy, happy fish and they'll easily hand you money. You just got to make yourself be worth a while by having those three tanks set up and then stand behind.

Speaker B:

Yourself and be reasonable. I mean, if you took these guppies and they said they didn't last, they died, and you know, they got cold in your car or they got too hot in your car, suck it up, give them credit and it will go a long way. But I can't tell you how many pet stores, people have come in and sold them stuff and it's been great going ten times and then one time it's not good and they say, hey, can you give me some credits or a better price this next time? And people go, no. Well then guess what? I'm not buying you from next time. You'll find that most pet stores are very honest with you.

Speaker A:

I mean that's the wonderful part now of we're in this cool niche scenario where there's plenty of outlets now the prices have gone up. Hobby aquarists probably win a little bit if they capitalize on this and make it reputable. I mean, what was it? We have tropical fish shop locally and you tell me like, oh yeah, they're getting snails locally. There's a guy that does some play cos they're trying to source and actively looking for sources local because they're trying to find answers to the problems because they're getting more demand than they've ever had before. They're recalling this to times before 911 when the pet shop used to be booming business and they're seeing massive cry for people, stimulus checks, nothing better to do. They want to be in their basement with their fish so they can try to cope with our new world.

Speaker B:

Let me give you one thing that you shouldn't do. And I've seen this bite people in the ass so many times. If you get a relationship with a pet store and you're selling them, don't go on Facebook and sell them in that area, you know what I mean? Don't go sell your pet store and then go because then people, people talk and people come in and say you're selling to the pet store for a dollar but you're overrun. So you're selling them on sale for fifty cents. And somebody says, I get them online for $0.50 from this guy on Facebook. And they'll go, oh, where are you getting them from? And then they'll pull up Facebook and they'll show that person and you just cut your own throat, you burnt your bridge. So what I'm saying, if you got extra fish, maybe it's time to expand your market and see if you got other stores you can take care of in neighboring towns. But do it and be honest with people and they will appreciate the hell out of you.

Speaker A:

Got anything else to add to that, Adam?

Speaker C:

Well, not really, I guess. But I do know that I'm thinking that this will be like, it'll be like this for a while. And the one thing that I will say that I know from the pet store when I had my store is that stuff goes in cycles. So like zebra finches, I'm just using this as an example because zebra finches are easy to breed. They're a bird that's easy to breed. There's almost no bird breeders left in Minnesota that I know of. There's a handful. But you used to be able to find zebra finches for like three, $4. Now you're seeing zebra finches. I think the last one I saw was like $32.

Speaker B:

Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker A:

Because nobody breeds them.

Speaker C:

And what happens is nobody breeds them and then they don't realize that they breed like guppies or rabbits. And so everybody sees $32 a zebra finch. They're figuring, oh, I can get $1012 a zebra finch, which is actually a really good price. And so then everybody breeds them and then the price goes down, and then all of a sudden the price go, and then nobody then everybody gets out of them because they're only getting the dollar or two a zebra finch, and then the price goes back up again. So just learn to pace with the cycles. I don't know if we'll have cycles like that anymore. I think that the higher price will be like that for a long time to come.

Speaker B:

Yeah, we used to see the same thing with hamsters. I mean, everybody in the world had hamsters, and you're buying them for a dollar a piece. And then all of a sudden you couldn't get a hamster, and all of a sudden you're paying five, $6 for a hamster, which was the retail back in the day. So if you can stay the course and like Rob said, if you keep your extra tank full of these for sale guppies, or you have these extra hamsters or gerbils or rats or mice, whatever the heck you're breeding, if need be, you need to go outside your area and try to sell somebody else.

Speaker A:

I'm looking across the room right now. My 60 gallon filled with endlers, I mean, feeder guppies just ready to go.

Speaker B:

You want to put some bleach in there on the way out?

Speaker A:

Feeder guppies?

Speaker C:

You mean endlers, you cocksucking son of a bitch.

Speaker B:

Well, Adam is right. You are a cocksucking son of a bitch.

Speaker A:

The moral of the story is there's opportunity here, right? Capitalize on it. If you go to a pet store, open your wallet. They deserve it, trust me. They're trying to maintain prices just as well as you, and they're going through mad staffing issues. I mean, you name it. All businesses deserve a little credit during this time. And do a nice thing for them. Bring them donuts. Just go out of your way if someone's there at a pet store. And that goes for any other COVID affected businesses. But we're a pet podcast. We're going to lean to one direction here.

Speaker B:

If you came to me with mc rib, I'd buy your guppies.

Speaker A:

Yeah, see, drop off some donuts at your local fish store and tell them that the accordion guys told you to. Guys, until next time, if you like what you heard on the podcast and you find it beneficial, go to our website. According to podcast.com, buy some merch shit. It's nice, let me tell you. We put some work into it. We got designed done. Get your favorite ones promo code. rob's, Jimmy. Or Adam all work for 5% off. That's R O bb Z, by the way. Again, according to uspodcast.com. Support us, support our sponsors.

Speaker B:

How do you spell dickwad again? R O bz. No holding.

Speaker A:

Try Jimmy.

Speaker B:

Stop that.

Speaker C:

In the western Dakota is on my way to pick up my puppy. Governor Walsh is the dickwad.

Speaker B:

How we do that?

Speaker A:

Until next week, thanks guys for listening to the podcast. Please go to your favorite place where podcasts are found, whether it be spotify, itunes, stitcher, wherever they can be found, like subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content. Like this safe word. Is there a safe word? Tonight.

Speaker B:

I'm having blueberry pancakes in Oklahoma.

Speaker A:

You know it's great when you're have a return guess and then they're asking for the.

Speaker B:

Bigfoot because people are going to explain that. Oh, my God.

Episode Notes

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