How do the get designer corals

[jda]

If you want to try some colonies, call a semi-wholesaler and order a box. You will need to buy a whole box. livestockusa.org can probably help you out, but there are others. This is as cheap as it will get, but you better be able to handle 20+ colonies and go to a major airport to pick them up.

 

[BoomCorals]

If anyone is wanting to buy wild or mariculture colonies feel free to contact me. It would be up to you to QT them etc. But for example you could get large 5” Aussie colonies for around $200 each, as well as other sizes. Can usually also get Indo colonies, for example 3” for around $75 each. Different sizes as well.

 

[Big E]

Anyone remember reefer madness? He used to sell some crazy wild colonies at great prices... them days are gone

Yup, they were the best when Chris was managing the place. Dr. Mac used to get a lot of nice stuff back in the day too.

My advice to the OP is be patient, buy aqua cultured frags with proven colors in many reef keepers tanks. Most of the time about 10% of hyped new corals actually end up being worth keeping and growing.

Don't buy any site unseen colonies or frags from anyone that doesn't offer up legitimate pictures and reasonable pricing.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Even if you are buying boxes of stuff it's already been picked through. It's a matter of who you know, and how deep your pockets are.
Yes, some times something brown comes through and ends up being a nice piece, I think part of that is the system it ends up in. Picking up zooanthelle from that system.


That's why JF goes diving and hand picks a lot of his stuff, strait to the source

Man Jason sure does advertise to his market very well. I doubt most of his corals come from his own collecting when diving. I would say more of them were renamed pieces then there are ones he hand picked.

And if you order boxes from the culture sites there isn't that much "cherry picking" that goes on. That's actually how most vendors get their new stuff. Ordering boxes through a wholesaler is where your stuff will already be picked through.

I believe deep pockets help some of the vendors who have relationships with wholesalers who get select hyped pieces. Take in mind vendors know that us collectors feed off a story of how rare something is. Saying they pay extra and do things differently than other vendors to source hot pieces just makes us think we are putting our money in a "just cause" ( not the right word maybe). Really I don't think it's too complicated and the simplest explanation is always the most likely. :)

 

[Jason_MrFrags]

Man Jason sure does advertise to his market very well. I doubt most of his corals come from his own collecting when diving. I would say more of them were renamed pieces then there are ones he hand picked.

And if you order boxes from the culture sites there isn't that much "cherry picking" that goes on. That's actually how most vendors get their new stuff. Ordering boxes through a wholesaler is where your stuff will already be picked through.

I believe deep pockets help some of the vendors who have relationships with wholesalers who get select hyped pieces. Take in mind vendors know that us collectors feed off a story of how rare something is. Saying they pay extra and do things differently than other vendors to source hot pieces just makes us think we are putting our money in a "just cause" ( not the right word maybe). Really I don't think it's too complicated and the simplest explanation is always the most likely. :)

Have you not seen the pictures of his dive trips? Do a quick search
https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/114831/

 

[Finhead]

I can tell you how one particularly famous Canadian SPS guy does it. He pays big money to divers and wholesalers overseas to insure that he gets the best wild pieces they have available. Deep pockets go a long way. On top of that, for every 30 wild SPS colonies he gets, 1 will turn out to have potential. He then colors them up for 2-12 months under strong T5 lighting. What's left at the end of the day can be extremely nice or a big pile of brown.

He can ask $200-600 for a frag and I'm ok with that because I know the work that went into it and I know that the coral is very healthy.

Just out of curiosity who's the Famous Canadian? I'm in Canada so I wonder which store your talking about.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Have you not seen the pictures of his dive trips? Do a quick search
https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/114831/

Yea I have seen them, pretty cool stuff. I am just saying I bet he has collected more nice corals from ordering and purchasing corals than he has from his selection of his personally wild picked corals.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yup, they were the best when Chris was managing the place. Dr. Mac used to get a lot of nice stuff back in the day too.

My advice to the OP is be patient, buy aqua cultured frags with proven colors in many reef keepers tanks. Most of the time about 10% of hyped new corals actually end up being worth keeping and growing.

Don't buy any site unseen colonies or frags from anyone that doesn't offer up legitimate pictures and reasonable pricing.

Yea Dr. Mac used to get nice stuff. I have stopped looking there a while ago though. Pictures are funny colored and the pieces are fairly generic. Plus prices are way to high. I live a few hours away and haven't even visited because they never have enough stock to interest me. The amount of places that do most buisness on acropora colonies has dwindled into almost nothing. I even miss the chop shops!!! Who would have known i would be missing mr. Coral. Even though the service was bad and some stuff would die, it was great to get a ton of wild frags to grow out for 10 bucks each. Some of my best sellers grew from frags from Mr. Coral.

 

[jda]

You can order wild stuff and they will pack what you want... mostly. Box of 20-22 corals for about $600-650 to LA and then another $100 to get them from LA to your local airport. I asked for Simplex once, they did not have any and called and asked what colors I wanted - I told them purple and blue and they collected them that next week and included them in my order... but they died.

The more that you order, the better stuff that they will give you.