I have a question

[liddojunior]

How do you know if it’s a mariculture frag?

I like to buy frags if I see it puddle the plug. I rather get wild rather than maricultured. With wild there’s a chance for new variants.

It seems like if they don’t say aquaculture it’s most likely mariculture.

 

[mycoralswontgrow]

Nice thread came across this during my what is @Battlecorals up to now search.

Inexperience/inability to tell would be the main reason I used to go one way of the other.

I'm now aware that I have both in my tank, and the challenges that wild can cause. I don't specifically go looking for wild, as my aquacultured are indeed much more resilient, however some of my most unique pieces are wild for sure. I'm do not however spend anywhere near $50/frag on average for anything wild.

I will say for newer reefer I can imagine it's really a big sticker shock when they see what prices are from the main stream vendors out there or there LFS, so when someone is selling something bigger, that looks good, for way cheaper it's an attractive grab.

Not sure how to accomplish it, but better education/ways to tell are what is really needed. Since most reefers aren't in the hobby long, having them know the pitfalls of one or the other is hugely important I think.

I will continue to buy both, but I treat wild much different than I do a box from battlecorals, and always will. Ultimately I hope to change some of these wild to aquacultured, but that's a battle in and of itself.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I’ll say what definitely does not count as aquacultured is the Mari/wild colony “cooking” for several months before getting chopped up.

Curious of why you feel this way? It is one thing to get a fresh mariculture and chop it up and another to grow it out for a few months. By doing that the coral is adopting to new lighting and water parameters. The growth will be new under these conditions, how is this not aqua cultured?

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I will also try to expand on my other post. Here in California we are coral spoiled. We have so much coral available to us, the market is over saturated. At the swaps most coral is sold at a 1/4 to a 1/3 of online prices. Why? because there are 10 other venders selling the exact same coral. The answer is to offer your customer something different. I do have a LFS that imports mariculture, usually a colony for $60-80 bucks. So with part luck and part experience, you can get a colony and let it develop into what it will become, in a 400 par captive ocean. The end result is hopefully something different than the person has next to you at the swap. It takes time, effort and love to develop these corals, just the same as an existing aqua cultured coral.
To be honest, if the corals survives my chaotic reefing, they are probably bullet proof.

 

[liddojunior]

Curious of why you feel this way? It is one thing to get a fresh mariculture and chop it up and another to grow it out for a few months. By doing that the coral is adopting to new lighting and water parameters. The growth will be new under these conditions, how is this not aqua cultured?

I would say that’s just making sure the coral survives adapts to captivity.

Aquaculture is a defined by growth of a whole generation only in captive tanks. So it requires growing a new colony from a frag. The whole point of aquaculture is that the mother colony had never seen the ocean and is proven/guaranteed to be colony forming in captivity. Aka not survive for a little while in captivity.

 

[Battlecorals Verified Sponsor]

I would say that’s just making sure the coral survives adapts to captivity.

Aquaculture is a defined by growth of a whole generation only in captive tanks. So it requires growing a new colony from a frag. The whole point of aquaculture is that the mother colony had never seen the ocean and is proven/guaranteed to be colony forming in captivity. Aka not survive for a little while in captivity.

Well said. these are my sentiments as well. And I say this all the time, but my collection was literally built from those single or few surviving frags grown out that came off of wild colonies that ultimately crashed. I've just never really put any value on those wild cut frags. Just way too volatile. But I've given lots away for free over the years.

And I guess that is why it's off-putting, if I am being polite to see vendors actually charging a fortune for them. but maybe I just need to tone down the altruism and accept where the market is. lol However I still feel there is room for education if people aren't necessarily being misled, but ultimately just don't know the difference, or don't even realize there is a difference.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

but my collection was literally built from those single or few surviving frags grown out that came off of wild colonies that ultimately crashed.

In the big picture, what is the difference between growing out a frag from a Mariculture/wild colony and growing out the colony itself. But let’s just call it a large frag because Mariculture “colony’s are just that, a large frag.
I understand part of your frustration of resellers just chopping up something from the wild and turning around and selling it right away. But if one puts in the effort of “culturing” a coral, it may have started out wild but after a certain point it is not any more.
Remember all our corals we have today started out wild. It seems you’re giving more weight to the person who frags an existing known coral, than to the person who takes the risk and effort to develop an unknown one. Without those people, we wouldn’t have the great corals we have today.
Maybe I am not understanding your feelings about your OP question.

 

[liddojunior]

In the big picture, what is the difference between growing out a frag from a Mariculture/wild colony and growing out the colony itself. But let’s just call it a large frag because Mariculture “colony’s are just that, a large frag.
I understand part of your frustration of resellers just chopping up something from the wild and turning around and selling it right away. But if one puts in the effort of “culturing” a coral, it may have started out wild but after a certain point it is not any more.
Remember all our corals we have today started out wild. It seems you’re giving more weight to the person who frags an existing known coral, than to the person who takes the risk and effort to develop an unknown one. Without those people, we wouldn’t have the great corals we have today.
Maybe I am not understanding your feelings about your OP question.

You said it yourself. After a certain point it is no longer wild/maricultured.

It’s one thing to get a coral to survive for a few months. It’s another to have it actually thrive in reef tanks. That’s why aquaculture is specific to mother colonies grown from a frag in a tank.

The question posed is more about coral chop shops.

And yes wild collection is critical to finding new strains. So there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s more that there’s risk and it’s wrong to put that risk on customers who aren’t aware