Florida's tropical-fish industry hit hard as guppies freeze to death
The images of Florida's freezes are familiar, sad and earthy. But just past the crop rows here in the state's agricultural core, there swims another sizable industry that has suffered more than any other because of this year's unusually long cold snap — tropical fish. The little guys are dying by the millions.
By DAMIEN CAVE
The New York Times
LAKELAND, Fla. — Frosted oranges, strawberries encased in ice: The images of Florida's freezes are familiar, sad and earthy. But just past the crop rows here in the state's agricultural core, there swims another sizable industry that has suffered more than any other because of this year's unusually long cold snap — tropical fish.
The little guys are dying by the millions.
A severe guppy shortage has already emerged, according to distributors, while fish farmers statewide expect losses of more than 50 percent as African cichlids, marble mollies, danios and other cheerful-looking varieties sink like pebbles to the bottom of freshwater ponds across Florida.
Florida provides about half of the tropical fish sold nationwide (Asia provides most of the rest), and like oranges, the colorful pets sell best in winter.
The fish farmers who serve the $45-million-a-year industry here were already suffering because of the recession and a slow shift away from live hobbies and toward electronics.
"We were hoping for an economic turnaround to pull us up by our bootstraps, and that may happen, but we certainly didn't need 10 days of subnormal temperatures," said David Boozer, executive director of the 120-member Florida Tropical Fish Farms Association. For fish farmers, the subtropical temperatures and high water table made this the only place in America where outdoor tropical fish farming could exist.
The first entrepreneurs got started in the 1930s, mostly around Miami. When land prices there spiked, the farmers moved to the lake-filled area between Tampa and Orlando.
As recently as a few years ago, tropical fish were the No. 1 cargo shipment out of Tampa International Airport, but fish farmers complain that not even the hobbyist who pays $100 for an emperor pleco gives much thought to the producer.
"People know there are pet stores, they know there are fish," said Ray Quillen, the owner of Urban Tropical. "I guess they think they just appear or come from the wild."
Tropical fish begin to have problems when water temperatures dip below 60 degrees. So for most of the past week, as air temperatures collapsed into the 20s, farmers who should have been filling orders scrambled to cover ponds with plastic and to pump in warm water. Then, as the cold continued, they started to move as many fish indoors as they could.
At Quillen's farm, that meant ditching millions of babies to make room for angelfish closer to the size needed for shipping.
A penny saved is a government oversight.
