Bad experience

[adamsfour]

Recently I purchase soft corals from an online store out of the west coast. I was very disappointed. The pictures were shot with a lot of blue and in my tank looks awful nothing like their picture. This seems to be common problem. basically a waste of money. Anyone have a go to store. I do have one that does shoot pictures in more true light but at the moment didn’t have any coral of interest

 

[littlefoxx]

@Hellfire Frags is a good place to go. Their corals look like their pictures. Of course it depends on your lighting but they dont shoot their pictures in overly blue light

 

[adamsfour]

Recently I purchase soft corals from an online store out of the west coast. I was very disappointed. The pictures were shot with a lot of blue and in my tank looks awful nothing like their picture. This seems to be common problem. basically a waste of money. Anyone have a go to store. I do have one that does shoot pictures in more true light but at the moment didn’t have any coral of interest

Thank you will check them out

 

[adamsfour]

@Hellfire Frags is a good place to go. Their corals look like their pictures. Of course it depends on your lighting but they dont shoot their pictures in overly blue light

Thanks will check it out

 

[VintageReefer]

Just use more blue light hehehe

Ok to be serious and not a jerk check out this site. Bonus - holiday sale and no shipping charges whaaat?!?!

https://tidalgardens.com/wysiwyg-banshee-goniopora.html

 

[paragrouper]

Just use more blue light hehehe

Ok to be serious and not a jerk check out this site. Bonus - holiday sale and no shipping charges whaaat?!?!

https://tidalgardens.com/wysiwyg-banshee-goniopora.html

+1 for @Tidal Gardens

when you look at a coral listed you can scroll down to see the coral under different lighting conditions and all corals I bought from them were very good quality.

 

[CHIEF_OF_THE_REEF]

I sometimes think that those corals that come in brown are some of the best. You dont really know what you are getting and then bam, one day it turns into the main attraction of the tank.


Hope you have better luck with what you are looking for in the future.

 

[Lavey29]

Corals rely primarily on blue and UV light. They don't need white it's only for our viewing pleasure and helps bump par up.

Most photos from corals vendors online have been doctored in my opinion but as long as they come in healthy you will be fine.

 

[LPS Bum]

I’ve always had good success with Matt and the gang at Austin Aqua Farms.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

I sometimes think that those corals that come in brown are some of the best. You dont really know what you are getting and then bam, one day it turns into the main attraction of the tank.


Hope you have better luck with what you are looking for in the future.

I agree, when I first decided to try acro, I found a few cheap browned out frags at a reef store for nothing, and when they got in my tank and colored up I was shocked. Gave me the confidence to buy more acro.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Recently I purchase soft corals from an online store out of the west coast. I was very disappointed. The pictures were shot with a lot of blue and in my tank looks awful nothing like their picture. This seems to be common problem. basically a waste of money. Anyone have a go to store. I do have one that does shoot pictures in more true light but at the moment didn’t have any coral of interest

You can always ask the vendor to send you pics under whiter light...
I usually take a small flashlight with me to my LFS because he keeps his coral room completely blue ;)

 

[permanaccour]

That's why I always shop at my LFS first, easier to know what you're getting

 

[VintageReefer]

I just made my tank match the lighting (for about 75% of the day) the sellers and lfs use ;)

My whites only come on for a few hours around noon. I’m full blue/uv for a few hours in the morning, then about 2 hours with whites, then a extended evening phase in full blue/uv for the afternoon and night

No disappointment when I get the corals :)

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I just made my tank match the lighting (for about 75% of the day) the sellers and lfs use ;)

My whites only come on for a few hours around noon. I’m full blue/uv for a few hours in the morning, then about 2 hours with whites, then a extended evening phase in full blue/uv for the afternoon and night

No disappointment when I get the corals :)

I prefer a white tank though.

 

[adamsfour]

Will check it out in more detail but on quick inspection that shot under false light. I just blew over 350 dollars on crappy looking corals unless I only have blue light on. I am but gun shy to spend more.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

Tidal Gardens is a good one since they show you pictures under the different types of light from white to blue.

 

[mtraylor]

Yeah I think that's the best advice is to stick to vendors that offer dual pics of corals and or vendors whom will provide you a whiter pic.

Today's market in US is mostly blue. That is the majority. However most vendors I use give pretty much exact pics of what you see
There are a couple that juice the photos, but you can tell on some those sites.

If you like say 6.5k to 8k spectrum, you are in the minority and will need to find corals that look good to you in your environment. That will.be on you.

you can also get a pen light in the blue spectrum to look at the coral you bought and you will probably find you bought exactly what you saw on internet if you have no blues on your display

Good luck

 

[Tidal Gardens Verified Sponsor]

Thank you all for the recommendations. We do our best to give an accurate representation of what the coral looks like under different lighting. We can say that it's a very rare occasion to get an email from a customer saying the colors are different from the pictures.

I also think that there is one thing that many people fail to realize about our corals, the size of our frags. We use larger frag plugs than nearly every reputable online vendor, so when you look at a picture of our frag that is a fully covered plug, that is actually twice the size of most other online vendors. We get that a lot from first-time buyers, "wow, I've blown away at the size of the frags compared to other purchases I've made online".

We also host monthly YouTube Live Shows where we have over 200 corals that we set up and record each coral for about 30 seconds. Each coral starts out in a daylight color and then transitions to an actinic color over the 30-second clip of the video. So this is about the closest you can get to actually shopping in person by seeing it on our YouTube Live Shows.

Hope this helps and we wish you all a safe and Merry Christmas.

 

[Gill the 3rd]

Thank you all for the recommendations. We do our best to give an accurate representation of what the coral looks like under different lighting. We can say that it's a very rare occasion to get an email from a customer saying the colors are different from the pictures.

I also think that there is one thing that many people fail to realize about our corals, the size of our frags. We use larger frag plugs than nearly every reputable online vendor, so when you look at a picture of our frag that is a fully covered plug, that is actually twice the size of most other online vendors. We get that a lot from first-time buyers, "wow, I've blown away at the size of the frags compared to other purchases I've made online".

We also host monthly YouTube Live Shows where we have over 200 corals that we set up and record each coral for about 30 seconds. Each coral starts out in a daylight color and then transitions to an actinic color over the 30-second clip of the video. So this is about the closest you can get to actually shopping in person by seeing it on our YouTube Live Shows.

Hope this helps and we wish you all a safe and Merry Christmas.

I've ordered a few times from Tidal Gardens now and can actually personally attest to the size of the frags. I've ordered from 4 different online vendors now, and Tidal Gardens by far has the largest frags. I could have fragged their frags if I wanted lol. Was always very pleased with what I ordered and I found their pictures and livestream videos to be very accurate to what I actually received.