AMDA Board of Directors speak out

Now IMO:

There a good and bad etailers as well as retailers. I think the main problem is is box stores and mass merchindisers like Dr Foster & Smith. I don't have problems with locally owned companies likr Marine Depot or Champion Lighting. The men who own the companies live and work at their business every day, just like retailers, and care for more then just a buck (I know all 3 of them). The problem is when companies like the good doctors who don't have a person who owns them, they have a corperate BOD running them. They can care less about the environment even though there web page says different. A test for them is to find any place on their site where they say they cary Philippine fish. Around 70% of their supply is based on PI, but they cover that fact up with an ambigious "Coral Sea". They don't have a facility to hold fish, they basicly ship straight from the wholesalers in LA. They support the "dark side" of the industry, the side that caters to the cyainde collected exporters in Jakarta and Manilla. I've delt with the guys who run Dr F&S, they truly only care about the buck. When they heard about AMDA's stance at MACNA last year, they were pissed. So pissed, they offerred some money to get in tighter with AMDA (money turned down, sent them packing). Don't let the pretty website sway you, they're the Borg. They are in the process of buying out much of their compitition and securing their own line on production (they're buying a major LA wholesaler to supply themselves, just like they did with Flying Fish Exspress (that should tip you off as to which wholesaler they're buying as FFE was a side business for it) and that Caribbean etailer. The big companies are swallowing everything in site. Try to find a glass tank not manufactured by a holding of the parent company Central Pets (er, I think they have a parent company, but I don't remember the name, Aquaria inc?). This mass centralization will only lead to a few large faceless companies, the forum sites and a few good etailers. It will effectively rid us of both good and bad LFS, believe me. Money isn't made on livestock per say, its the dry goods that make the real money for stores. Take that away and leave them with just livestock, they're dead. You can't even run a wholesale company in the trade, with out dry goods, belive me, we don't sell em and it hurts us.