Are these prices serious? Who buys this stuff?

[MnFish1]

If more than 5% of your frags don't make it you are doing something wrong.

Right - but I think someone answered the question before I added the 'cutting a large frag doesn't count as losing a frag'.

 

[Michael Biando]

I can’t go more than $100 on any one frag
Those prices are hard to believe

 

[User]

If more than 5% of your frags don't make it you are doing something wrong.

Agreed.

A 95% success rate is probably fair. I feel like people who buy big colonies maybe lack the virtue of patience and want a great looking tank ‘right now’ instead of taking pride in growing them out. Maybe they take pride in keeping the colonies alive? If they have the coin, who cares what they spend it on?

 

[Lousybreed]

ACT NOW!!! WWC has the extremely rare Walt Disney acro for the low price of $599!!!!!! What a deal!!! The frag is a FULL one inch!!!

 

[Bryson.bobby]

ACT NOW!!! WWC has the extremely rare Walt Disney acro for the low price of $599!!!!!! What a deal!!! The frag is a FULL one inch!!!

That’s a heck of a deal folks!

 

[Rakie]

A lot of this stuff IS a blatant cash grab... But many of you have NO idea how wholesale works, from a broker side to the wholesale shop side. There's a phrase you need to know -- Minimum Order.

To buy from a good source sometimes a wholesaler will have to spend in excess of 50,60, 75k -- And that can sometimes only be 3-6 boxes of coral. A box has 30-40 pieces usually, and is RANDOM. That's right, these guys DO NOT GET TO PICK. And these collectors aren't stupid, they know what the gems are. You have to put in a SERIOUS order to get a real gem.

In some situations wholesalers will have to spend 50k to get 3-4 boxes in hopes it contains A COUPLE good gems. The vast majority of it would be bulk/assorted corals of little to no value, which these wholesalers sell off at cost to Bobs Dead Fish, while good shops are pointing at the million dollar frag and being told "10k minimum" to buy that one GEM. These wholesalers sometimes spend that much to get ONE coral worth a fraction of that cost. Then the shops have to spend a lot to get that gem, you can't just walk in, and take that coral a wholesaler essentially paid $50k to get.

There's a whole bunch going on, and the vast majority of people here have no clue what it's like or how it works. It's complicated, and dependent upon almost every factor you can imagine and several you never considered.

Now all of that? That's on the one hand, and has to do with how the real day to day business end works. That doesn't mean you don't have a point -- Some companies are going hog wild with laughable pricing. I won't name any names, but you should have no trouble telling the difference between the good businesses that break their banks to get real stuff... And the ones you all are talking about.