How did you get into selling coral?

[Gumbies R Us]

So this is a question I am asking to both sponsors and to those who have had experience selling coral before (whether it has just been one frag, or you sell a couple of frags here and there). I have never once sold frags before. I never had any that would be worth selling, nor do I really understand the whole selling process of corals, haha. I am curios to see what got you into selling coral. Did you find it easy to get into, or was it actually hard to start doing? Any thoughts and opinions are welcome!

 

[elysics]

Once a tank is running well, you have to do gardening. And when you do that, you either throw perfectly fine coral in the trash or you give it to other people. And once you start doing that, you might as well frag some others as well to trade for some more nice corals

edit: additionally there's the whole sharing thing, you buy a fancy new expensive coral, your friends buy different fancy new expensive corals, 6 months later you share frags with each other and all of you got 3 expensive corals for the price of 1, as well as backups in case yours die.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I accumulated too many frags, lol! The tanks reach a saturation point where the coral start to kill each other without intervention. I can’t quit my day job or ship, so I do local trade shows. I also design 3d printed reefing gear and own/operate Frenchy Frags Aquaculture.

 

[KrisReef]

From the Book "Naked Lunch," Dealing is a bigger addiction (heroin) than using. The premise of this almost banned book is that peoples motivations and self interests can be driven by many kinds of desires, for power, wealth, or other things, many of man's basest desires many come into play.


YOu are asking sponsors to reveal their secrets? Ha!

When my tank was rocking, the sticks and corals grew faster then the tank size, so it was always an opportunity to trade stuff in at the LFS for salt and stuff to keep the tank going. Later, I just donated a lot of stuff, just to keep the LFS going. This hobby is expensive for everyone in it. It's a lot like a drug habit for many folks, but most people don't ever talk about the corals they are cooking, like they used to?

I double dare the sponsors to share their pains and woes in this hobby. I sent out a free box to a reef and overnight shipping was $200+. I must be crazy, but the corals are living and beautiful. What other reason does a person need?

 

[RobynR]

Once a tank is running well, you have to do gardening. And when you do that, you either throw perfectly fine coral in the trash or you give it to other people. And once you start doing that, you might as well frag some others as well to trade for some more nice corals

edit: additionally there's the whole sharing thing, you buy a fancy new expensive coral, your friends buy different fancy new expensive corals, 6 months later you share frags with each other and all of you got 3 expensive corals for the price of 1, as well as backups in case yours die.

This!! When we were trimming things it seemed wasteful to throw it away, thus blossomed a frag tank and a supplemental coral petty cash account. It was also a great way to meet people in the hobby, swapping frags.

That being said now living in a condo with very limited space, I doubt I will do it again this go round… but you never know… once I’m fished up and this quarantine tank has done its job… :D

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Once a tank is running well, you have to do gardening. And when you do that, you either throw perfectly fine coral in the trash or you give it to other people. And once you start doing that, you might as well frag some others as well to trade for some more nice corals

edit: additionally there's the whole sharing thing, you buy a fancy new expensive coral, your friends buy different fancy new expensive corals, 6 months later you share frags with each other and all of you got 3 expensive corals for the price of 1, as well as backups in case yours die.

That's not a bad idea! I like the idea of doing a "coral swap" with someone once it grows out enough

 

[me & my baby]

Once a tank is running well, you have to do gardening. And when you do that, you either throw perfectly fine coral in the trash or you give it to other people. And once you start doing that, you might as well frag some others as well to trade for some more nice corals

edit: additionally there's the whole sharing thing, you buy a fancy new expensive coral, your friends buy different fancy new expensive corals, 6 months later you share frags with each other and all of you got 3 expensive corals for the price of 1, as well as backups in case yours die.

That's not a bad idea! I like the idea of doing a "coral swap" with someone once it grows out enough

That is what we used to do back in the early days an it was fun . For some reason now not to many people do that it’s mostly all about the $

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was never interested in the logistics of having lots of people over to sell stuff, or to take it to local stores, but I did have a friend who enjoyed doing that and had lots of his own to sell. So every once in a while I would trim out big hunks of corals and give them to him, and we would share what he got from them.

 

[DIYreefer]

I impulsively bought some Jawbreakers from the classifieds here back in 2021 and they grew like weeds. I started selling a few of those, which allowed me to get more corals. Those grow well too. Now I have a spare bedroom full of frag tanks. Aquaculture is my favorite aspect of the hobby and selling frags allows me to continue to build my collection of stuff to farm. I don’t sell full time nor do I have any plans to do so, but I’m just about out of room for more tanks, and growth rates aren’t slowing down. So I’m likely going to buy a sponsorship here on r2r soon so I can start selling here again (I lost my selling privileges once I started selling frags on eBay) in hopes that I will get my corals in front of enough people to meet the growth rate and not have to keep setting up additional tanks. It’s a good problem to have but it really is getting a bit overwhelming.

I don’t sell locally out of respect for my LFS. Which is kind of ironic because when I try to sell/trade with them they want to nickel and dime me (I offer them VERY good deals). I could own the local coral market if I wanted to, lol. Anyway, I’m getting off topic.. I got into (back into, I sold corals full time many years ago, but that’s a different subject) selling corals out of necessity due to overgrowth, and it has snowballed from there, basically. It’s fun :)