theKoolAidMan
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- Aug 1, 2018
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So I went to one of the LFS in my area who I often go to for corals. He has a great selection and generally doesn't agree with the often astronomical prices that get charged for certain morphs. Thus, he keeps his prices very reasonable. He's explained it as that he grows almost everything himself, and rarely buys new colonies, so at this point after being in business 10 years, the frags are just a cash cow and he doesn't see the need to ask $100 per head when he can still make money and share great corals with people for a far more reasonable price. He once said, "a $20 coral and a $100 coral cost me the same amount to grow". I can often get a nice 6-8 polyp frag of a nice, but not super rare zoa for $20-30 which is far better than most online or other local prices. He also usually has quite a lot and frags often, so there is always something cool to find.
I've set up a 2nd tank, a Reefer Nano and am starting to add corals. I'm going mostly softies, so lots of zoas and shrooms.
I picked out some run of the mill stuff, a nice 12 polyp frag of Spiderman zoas for $30, 12 polypos of radioactive dragon eye for $25, good deals in their own right IMO.
As he was bagging them, his teenage assistant asked me what I thought of a colony of his that he was growing. He said they fragged them recently and was going to again soon if I wanted some. He called them Nirvana Zoas and I agreed that they looked cool with their green fringe and purple/blue/gray disc with goldish yellow star/galaxy like pattern. I had no idea what a Nirvana Zoa was and asked how much. He said $10 per polyp, which I thought was fair for such a unique looking zoa. He passed me off to the owner who mentioned that this is a fairly high end coral, but they've got a ton of them, so I should take a look at the frags they had already cut. With the $10 per polyp price in my head he showed me their frags which each had between 8-12 polyps and immediately figured I was going to walk out without them, as I really don't like spending that much on a single coral regardless of how nice they are.
This is when he really surprised me. He said, well, we have 6 frags here and are due to frag more from the colony. We've got a lot, so how about $35 for any one of the frags.
So I walked out of there with and 11 polyp frag of these Nirvana Zoas/Palys for $35. When I got him and decided to look them up and found that he wasn't BSing me when he said they were an expensive zoas. WWC sells these for $99 PER POLYP. Even his $10 per polyp price would have been a huge deal, let alone 11 for $35! This place always provided disease/parasite free coral that has always very quickly acclimated to my tanks and grow like wildfire. I quickly acclimated them (float, then just add half a cup of tank water every few minutes, dump, and then do it again. Done in 15 minutes followed by a Coral Revive bath for 5 minutes more). Within 10 minutes they were opened and looking like below.
Below is a picture. So to you collectors out there, is this deal truly as good as I think it is? (picture is cell phone, so it's far bluer than in reality. I've compared them to reference photos of Nirvana zoas/palys from WWC, Cherry Corals, etc and they are indeed the real deal.)
I've set up a 2nd tank, a Reefer Nano and am starting to add corals. I'm going mostly softies, so lots of zoas and shrooms.
I picked out some run of the mill stuff, a nice 12 polyp frag of Spiderman zoas for $30, 12 polypos of radioactive dragon eye for $25, good deals in their own right IMO.
As he was bagging them, his teenage assistant asked me what I thought of a colony of his that he was growing. He said they fragged them recently and was going to again soon if I wanted some. He called them Nirvana Zoas and I agreed that they looked cool with their green fringe and purple/blue/gray disc with goldish yellow star/galaxy like pattern. I had no idea what a Nirvana Zoa was and asked how much. He said $10 per polyp, which I thought was fair for such a unique looking zoa. He passed me off to the owner who mentioned that this is a fairly high end coral, but they've got a ton of them, so I should take a look at the frags they had already cut. With the $10 per polyp price in my head he showed me their frags which each had between 8-12 polyps and immediately figured I was going to walk out without them, as I really don't like spending that much on a single coral regardless of how nice they are.
This is when he really surprised me. He said, well, we have 6 frags here and are due to frag more from the colony. We've got a lot, so how about $35 for any one of the frags.
So I walked out of there with and 11 polyp frag of these Nirvana Zoas/Palys for $35. When I got him and decided to look them up and found that he wasn't BSing me when he said they were an expensive zoas. WWC sells these for $99 PER POLYP. Even his $10 per polyp price would have been a huge deal, let alone 11 for $35! This place always provided disease/parasite free coral that has always very quickly acclimated to my tanks and grow like wildfire. I quickly acclimated them (float, then just add half a cup of tank water every few minutes, dump, and then do it again. Done in 15 minutes followed by a Coral Revive bath for 5 minutes more). Within 10 minutes they were opened and looking like below.
Below is a picture. So to you collectors out there, is this deal truly as good as I think it is? (picture is cell phone, so it's far bluer than in reality. I've compared them to reference photos of Nirvana zoas/palys from WWC, Cherry Corals, etc and they are indeed the real deal.)
