Tropical fish sales increase amid COVID-19 pandemic - The Ledger

Brittany Hollon has farmed tropical fish on her family's farm in north Lakeland since she was 13.  

The Urban Tropical Inc. farm sold about 1.94 million fish last year — mostly varieties of angel fish — for sales in excess of $1 million, she said. 

"The demand is really high right now," she said. 

Sales data from Urban Tropical was added to a first-of-its kind survey of tropical fish farmers by a University of Florida researcher, who found last year the industry added more than $172 million in sales to Florida's economy.  

The pandemic helped fuel sales in 2021 as hobby-seeking, locked-down people populated their aquariums. But Hollon, now 35, said she expects this year to be a repeat of previous years.  

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"Our sales have grown consecutively every year since we have been in business," she said. "We have been in business since 2001 and we have never had a year when we went backwards. It has always increased." 

The family patriarch, Ray Quillen, 61, a retired Publix truck driver, oversees the operations, which now employees 19 people — from fish keepers and breeders to delivery drivers — on 30 acres in three different locations in the north Lakeland area. The farm maintains 186 ponds where 90% are angelfish.  

The business, which does not have a website, sells to distributors who ship their aquatic livestock to major pet store chains. The Urban Tropical price per fish averages 66 cents, she said. Depending on the variety and color, angel species range in price from 45 cents to $2 each.  

The survey by University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences calculated the $172 million in total sales throughout the state by surveying members of the Florida Tropical Fish Farmers Association, a press release said.

The industry survey participants reported 7,000 workers.    

Including fish growers in Polk County, the survey tracked direct sales to wholesalers, pet shops and other retail tropical fish sales, which includes revenues from selling tropical fish and aquatic plants from Florida.  

"That's the kind of industry we can all support," said Craig Watson, director of the UF/IFAS Tropical Aquaculture Lab, who conducted the survey.  

Florida fish farmers are producing up to 400 varieties of tropical species including fish, aquatic plants, coral and snails, said Watson, who has studied aquaculture for almost 35 years. The survey collected data from about 80% of the farmers who were asked to participate. 

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"What we are seeing is they have embraced technology and they are producing a lot of fish all while food farms have declined in size," Watson said. 

Florida seeing boom of tropical fish farms

In the United States, tropical fish are farmed mostly in Florida, up and down the peninsula. Imported fish come mostly from Asia – specifically, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, China and Japan. 

At the beginning of the pandemic, pet shops closed, and that hurt the U.S. industry. But when Asian imports came to a halt due to COVID-19 restrictions, domestic tropical fish sales benefited, Watson said. 

"Pet shops, which had been shut down at the start of the pandemic, were quickly deemed essential businesses," Watson said. "People were home and looking for hobbies. Some went to pet shops, and the pet industry exploded." 

"In a period of hard times — including a pandemic — this is a good story of a unique form of agriculture that belongs to Florida," he said.  

Another report Watson pointed out for comparison was conducted in 2012, when the Florida Agriculture Statistics Service reported $27 million in fish sales. Additionally, the most recent Census of Agriculture, conducted in 2018 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, reported Florida fish producers generated $28.7 million. 

While those surveys tallied farm-gate sales, they also excluded other related aquaculture products that Watson's 2021 survey reflects. He hypothesized that the $27 million figure did not reflect the entirety of tropical fish sales from Florida producers, and he set out to prove it.  

"Our annual evaluations of the economic impact of the programs at the Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory just for Hillsborough County showed the 2012 reported values were significantly below the true value," he said. 

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In surveys from pre-Internet times, Watson said ancillary economic impacts have been calculated and indicated fish farms can have an even higher overall economic impact when feed, plastic bags and distribution costs are calculated.

He explained the rise of larger pet store chains and larger logistics warehouses have contributed to further industry growth in recent decades due to the volume of aquaculture products now available.  

Survey of fish farmers sought to estimate economic impact

For his survey, Watson asked FTFFA members two questions: How much did they make from sales of their fish? And how many people do they employee? Watson attributes the high participation in his survey to participant anonymity and, more importantly, its conciseness. 

David Boozer, executive director of FTFFA, remembers the heyday of tropical fish hobbyists prior to the Internet and the proliferation of video games when market share for the hobby was much greater.  

Keeping an aquarium was more popular in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, he said. "As far as hobbies go, it ranked second or third right behind stamp collecting or baseball cards."  

"I hate to say it, over the years it kind of waned and went away," Boozer said. "Kids got into video games; Pac Man, Space Invaders came along in the 70s, in the late-70s, and 80s. We got hit hard by the electronic, I guess you want to call it, revolution."  

Most hobbyists start young in school and often include elementary pupils who study and are engaged with tropical fish behind the glass of a classroom aquarium.  

In addition to cultural shifts, imports have created competitive pressure on growers. But the drastic cut in international airline flights helped the domestic tropical fish industry, he said.

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In the United States, only two-thirds of domestic flights have resumed, such as Southwest Airlines, one of the most often used airlines for air freight of tropical fish, keeping demand higher than supplies of the water-borne pets.  

The freeze of agricultural crops in January throughout the state hit the supply of fish but breeders are starting to catch up with the coming of spring and warmer water. 

Pandemic gave tropical farms economic boost

Despite setbacks from video games and extreme weather, multiple farms have been expanding. Among those included in Watson's survey is a coral grower.   

Chris Meckley, 45, of Plant City, who runs ACI Aquaculture, Inc. raising coral for customers from Los Angeles to Miami and was another member of FTFFA who was surveyed.  

With 10 years in business, he sells 1,300 varieties of coral for retail stores and private aquariums at major pet shop in a 4,000-square-foot farm on North Frontage Road near Interstate 4. The building contains eight coral systems in tanks between 1,500 to 5,000 gallons. 

He said the business gained a boost from COVID-19.

"When the pandemic hit, what were people going to do, sit around the house and stare at nothing?," Meckley said. "They had an aquarium to stare at so the money they had to spend they spent building up their aquariums," 

"Now that COVID is pretty much over, we're back to normal business," he said. "Sales aren't breaking records like they were. It's back to the way it was before COVID." 

Boozer, meanwhile, fears inflation could hit tropical fish farmers hard.

If people are paying more for fuel, housing and food, they might have to cut back on their hobbies and stop buying pets as discretionary spending by households could be reduced.

"Sales have been strong," he said. "Inflation does not affect the price of fish, they stay pretty stable. Thing are good now, but if we go into the remainder of the second half of this year, you know if inflation does not come under control, I look for sales maybe to start declining." 

Paul Nutcher covers business and industry for The Ledger. He can be reached at pnutcher@gannett.com.