Reef Essence

10/08/2023

TDO is such a versatile food with sizes to suit a large range of fish and corals needs. This chart can be useful in choosing the right food for your needs.

22/07/2023

Back by popular demand!

TDO is now back in stock - available from the Reef Essence website:

https://reefessence.co.nz/product-category/dry-goods/

19/06/2022

Another peak at what’s to come later this week.

Keep an eye out at the following retailers as their stock goes live end of the week.

Reefscape
Coral Collective, Christchurch NZ
Aqua Forest Aquarium Studio

18/06/2022

Last major clean and pest inspection prior to sales prep this week!

07/06/2022

Its so great to finally be looking after such gorgeous creatures for you all again!

20/05/2022

Leaving the facility at 4am…

19/05/2022

Reef Essence is bigger and better than ever! The facility is almost ready to relaunch and start importing again!

I cant wait to bring more gorgeous stock in for you all very soon.

Watch this space!

12/03/2022

A big thanks to Aqua Forest Aquarium Studio, Jack Jiang and Heng Wong for a new batch of salt!

22/01/2022

Congrats to Bali Aquarich and Mr. Wen-Ping Su

The marine ornamental fish farm, Bali Aquarich, has successfully produced second-generation (F2) captive-bred Regal Angelfish, which has the potential to forever change how we perceive this iconic species in the aquarium hobby.

18/10/2021

Huge congrats to the Coral Spawning Lab!! We look forward to following this closely

The coral, Homophyllia australis, endemic to the Great Barrier Reef, has long been a hobbyist favourite due to their large fleshy polyps and the incredible colour variation they can possess. Now this ionic species has been spawned and embryological development successfully documented thanks to the b...

27/09/2021

A note from one of our Hawaiian contacts..

“Oahu Fishery Hearing Oct. 8th - It will be from 9 am to 12 noon. Hawaii time

Kona environmental review passed but lawsuits were filed. The lawsuits hold no standing and we expect just a delay in permit Heairng issuance. If no Oahu Lawsuits, permits could be approved in 2 months.”

18/09/2021

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest. --Benjamin Franklin

Over the last 24 hours I have had a number of people contact me asking if we will see huge price inflation with our livestock and I have seen this also being discussed in some groups so I thought I would break down one of the costs many are talking about... Shipping.

Today I have taken some time to dive into the actual impact shipping costs are having to us as a company and what that means for you the customer.

For this I have taken the average cost of shipping from an import in 2019 pre Covid and then compared it to two figures a, an import we did in March and b, the current price we are being quoted.

A, The price pre COVID vs March this year. This worked out at a cost increase on average across the shipment of roughly $4.35 NZD per fish

B, Current price - the current price we are seeing is roughly 3 times our 2019 price putting the cost per fish at roughly $8.70 higher than 2019.

When I take this figure of $8.70 and average it out against the average retail price of our product it works out at a tiny 3.7% increase.

To give you a comparison between the 20th Aug and 4th Sept the NZD Vs USD increased 4.9% (This alone more than offsets the cost of freight)

I have attached a chart showing the NZD Vs USD over the past 10 years as this shows the huge differences this has at any one time, its constantly changing and is a huge part of our business as all our exporters deal in USD.

So COVID or no COVID the cost impact is minimal vs our constantly fluctuating dollar. What do we do about it? We build that fluctuation into our everyday cost - some imports we are up a bit more than normal, others we are down a bit more than normal but at the end of the day it all averages out.

Remember to invest in Knowledge and take the emotion out of the decisions.

17/09/2021

Happy Friday everyone!

We have some very exciting news to share which we have been holding back on until fully confirmed but can now share.

While the country has been in lockdown we have been hard at work looking at what's next for Reef Essence and are excited to announce we are going BIG! The way we see it is lockdowns provide the perfect time to reassess and reinvest.

Last week we finally sealed the deal on a new commercial lease we have been working on for close to a year. This will see us in the future being in a position to hold much more stock and allow for a much more seamless supply to our network.

Please bare with us in the meantime as there will be some downtime while we close down our current facility and begin the fit out at the new complex. There are some challenges especially with building material supply shortages etc but we will do everything we can to try and keep this down time to a minimum.

Kia Kaha, Noho Haumaru

Stay strong and stay safe everyone!

14/07/2021

Well what a ride!

Life has been extremely busy lately hence the silence and cricket sounds chirping off into the distance.

The great news is I have finally been able to transition from doing this part time to full time and things are only going to continue to ramp up from here.

While we won’t spoil the surprises we have coming we will leave you all with this as one of our teasers.

04/05/2021

This is an amazing accomplishment!! Well done to all those involved!

Rising Tide Conservation has just shared the news of an incredible marine aquarium fish captive-breeding breakthrough at the University of Florida/ University of Florida/IFAS Indian River Research and Education Center - Captive-Bred Copperband Butterflyfish! Read the story now: https://www.reef2rainforest.com/2021/05/04/captive-bred-copperband-butterflyfish-chelmon-rostratus/