I have a hard time with a lot of what goes on today so I don't buy a lot of stuff. I know that conservation efforts and inflation play a big part in current coral and rock pricing but I think the big difference is online retail. It opens up buying a piece of whatever from a few hundred people at the LFS to a few million online. Look on ebay at all of the listing for items at significantly above retail. A lot of people impulse buy instead of research. I don't remember what I was looking at the other day but it was like $75.00 direct from the manufacturer, on their website, but there were four or five ebay listing that ranged between $100-$350 for the exact same part. Nuts.
The one that really gets me is paying extra for a zoa or a mushroom. They were just a part of the live rock, and usually pests at that.
Glad I didn't look at the worm rocks for sale, I might have swallowed wrong and ended up with a lung full of coffee. Porites with 'Christmas Tree' worms isn't exactly rare in the wild. Now in a brain coral maybe a little extra. In the 80s and 90s, one the size of my fist was $25.00 or so.
That said, I like coral.com and think they have bigger, healthier, and more attractively priced pieces than many of their competitors.
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