- Joined
- Dec 2, 2019
- Messages
- 493
- Reaction score
- 508
I was in the hobby from 2006-2012, starting as an 8th grader that bought coral with lawn mowing money. Safe to say, I did a lot of dumb things and took bigger risks than I would think about today. I had never heard of dipping corals, and never quarantined. I also never once had a pest issue (that I knew of at least), and great results. In fact, only one coral ever died in my original 75 gallon tank. All of the corals were from an LFS, most certainly not aquaculture.
I just started up again this past Nov, and it seems like it is now incredibly unlikely to get lucky. I get coral exclusively from the most popular farm on this website, and I can’t even describe the number of unspeakables I have had to deal with in QT: zoanthid nudis, monti nudis, acro red bugs. Even coral barnacles.
I have a theory that the coral farms are far more likely to provide us with a pest than a wild caught LFS specimen. They have their mother colonies growing in a tank indefinitely, giving pests an infinite amount of time to colonize and a limited diversity of predators for those pests compared to the ocean. I’m not sure how long wild coral typically bounces between distributors on the way to us, but my guess is that there is a limited amount of time for something bad to take hold.
I feel like this is why I have observed so many pests with my new corals. Wasn’t sure if any other hobbyists who were in it prior to the farming boom the past decade or so had similar experiences, please let me know.
I just started up again this past Nov, and it seems like it is now incredibly unlikely to get lucky. I get coral exclusively from the most popular farm on this website, and I can’t even describe the number of unspeakables I have had to deal with in QT: zoanthid nudis, monti nudis, acro red bugs. Even coral barnacles.
I have a theory that the coral farms are far more likely to provide us with a pest than a wild caught LFS specimen. They have their mother colonies growing in a tank indefinitely, giving pests an infinite amount of time to colonize and a limited diversity of predators for those pests compared to the ocean. I’m not sure how long wild coral typically bounces between distributors on the way to us, but my guess is that there is a limited amount of time for something bad to take hold.
I feel like this is why I have observed so many pests with my new corals. Wasn’t sure if any other hobbyists who were in it prior to the farming boom the past decade or so had similar experiences, please let me know.