Indonesian Cultured Coral Exports will Resume Next Week!

[Graffiti Spot]

Like many members here who have been present when shipments came in over the last 20 years we all know that 10 to 15% of the acropora is like WOW! That might literally be 3 to 6 examples. The owner knows he can mark those way up compared to the others. He knows he can reserve some of those to frag or grow out to frag. The rest quite frankly is average to blah.

It is the way it has always been. The most desirable stuff we have today is that small percentage of amazing coral that come in via 100s of shipments.

Pick something even easier to figure out. Like monti cap. No ones cares about the usual colors. But if that one special cap comes in... hot dang... we have a winner. And a new craze starts. Ditto with digitata. A super cheap coral. But what if a new color came in like pink with yellow? Boom. 150 dollar frags and everyone must have it.

Acropora is exactly the same. I guess one gets jaded over time. The owner knows special when they see it quite often.

If everything was awesome... we would not even have pricing discussions here. Everything would be amazing. Well it ain't

I get what your saying, I have been in the hobby for almost that long. But that statement threw me off since indo has the most variety of acropora we can get basically anywhere. And lots of the nicer new stuff out now was what people have left from when indo was opened. Sure mariculture is mostly the same stuff for months at a time coming in and it sounds like this will be the case for even longer or forever unless they get wild collection going again. You really think out of that whole farm there is only a handful of really nice acropora in it? I guess everyone’s views on what really nice is varies but for the people who like to collect acros just for their color I guess they could say indo mariculture is boring but the guys like me who collect certain species for growth as well, we will be more excited to see this area open.
I wonder if we will see more pieces come in with nice green pigment infections from indo since all their racks have corals growing and weaving into each other. This is another thing I will have my eye on.
Fun part is we can actually debate and guess what things will be like soon! Imagine what things would be like if no sites opened ever again.

 

[Will Wohlers]

I get what your saying, I have been in the hobby for almost that long. But that statement threw me off since indo has the most variety of acropora we can get basically anywhere. And lots of the nicer new stuff out now was what people have left from when indo was opened. Sure mariculture is mostly the same stuff for months at a time coming in and it sounds like this will be the case for even longer or forever unless they get wild collection going again. You really think out of that whole farm there is only a handful of really nice acropora in it? I guess everyone’s views on what really nice is varies but for the people who like to collect acros just for their color I guess they could say indo mariculture is boring but the guys like me who collect certain species for growth as well, we will be more excited to see this area open.
I wonder if we will see more pieces come in with nice green pigment infections from indo since all their racks have corals growing and weaving into each other. This is another thing I will have my eye on.
Fun part is we can actually debate and guess what things will be like soon! Imagine what things would be like if no sites opened ever again.

You had me at "gfp" I didn't think about that but holy cow I'm getting excited

 

[John3]

Its going to be exciting having all the new corals hitting the market ,, not new as in ,, never seen before ,, just in the amount of corals coming into the market for sale that haven't had to have been fragged off of colonies that vendors have had in grow out tanks ,, a Torch head here ,, a chalice frag there ,, limited amounts of frags ,, because they had limited amounts of colonies to frag from ,,

Its going to take awhile for the market to get back to where it was before the ban ,,, but jmo ,, people that want to think that coral prices ,, on corals like Torches aren't gong to drop ,, jmo they don't know this hobby ,, its kinda like driving down to the new car dealership in your town ,, all around that brand new car dealership are 5 used car dealerships ,, companies like ASD are going to get in these big boxes of corals ,, chop them up ,, price and put them up on their sites ,, move them as fast as they can before the next shipment comes in ,, these companies are going to price their frag to move ,, that's just the way it is ,, that $300 per head Torch frag ,, ya'll really think companies like ASD aren't going to get that same colony in ,, chop it up and sell it for $75 per head and sell out of them

The lifting on this coral ban is the worst thing that could have happened to the upper end coral companies ,, they have had the upper hand with the limited amount of frags in the market ,, that's all about to change ,, you won't see it right away ,, but its coming ,, its jmo the best thing that could have happened for hobbyist ,, companies like WWC will have no choice but to cut prices ,, not because they aren't selling nice corals ,, but because they are going to have to compete for my coral $$ ,, why would I spend my $189 for that 3 polyp zoa frag from WWC when I can go to one of these other vendors and buy 6 frags for the same money ,,

I use ASD as an example because they are one of the bigger companies that were offering cheaper frags before the ban ,, that company isn't now ,, what it was before the ban ,, to think they won't get back to where they were,, your fooling yourself's ,, ASD is filling up tanks with fresh saltwater as we speak ,, cheaper Torch frags are a coming ,, cheaper Chalice frags are a coming ,, wait for it

That could very well be the case or it goes the other way. What do you think is going to happen to torch prices for example if the first shipments show up lackluster and with not many torches.... can you say whipsaw even higher......

 

[Braves Fan]

That could very well be the case or it goes the other way. What do you think is going to happen to torch prices for example if the first shipments show up lackluster and with not many torches.... can you say whipsaw even higher......

Its going to take awhile for things to get settled in ,, maybe a year or longer ,, I am sure lots of old contacts companies used before the ban are no longer in the business ,,, it went to no business over nite ,, Companies are going to have to make new contacts ,,, at first they will be dealing with the big boy exporters ,, who will be pretty much asking for the moon for their corals ,, I would be it is what it is ,,, it won't stay that way though ,,

I am sure companies like ASD are already on top of setting up their exporters ,,

 

[JaimeAdams]

Actually, we known for a while that cultured corals will reopen. Corals have grown to a huge size, but we started fragging them again few months ago, so for SPS, there are already a lot ready, don't you worry guys. For LPS it's a different story. It takes a bit more time.
Also Indo cultured corals are opening back, but not in the same way as before, so prices will never be the same, as there are a lot of new cost involved.
Cheers,
Vincent

Listen to acroporabali he knows what he is talking about first hand, not all this 3rd party talk everywhere else.

I just saw this on Facebook. This is what everyone needs to keep in mind. It would be nice for prices to go down, but I believe the reality is that there is a lot of lost income that has be made up for. There are more levels of government that have to be gone through before a coral can be exported as well. I can't wait to see what happens!!! I am very excited for this opportunity that is available once again. Hopefully more vendors will start farming coral as well to help the hobby become somewhat self sustaining.

That quote pretty much sums it up. The same trend happened with other "hot" coral even when they were wild collecting. Those collectors have the internet and see what people are willing to pay and they adjust their prices accordingly. The other key factor here is this is cultured coral. this is not wild collected like the past. prices are much higher for farmed coral than just plucked off the reef with no time or money invested in a farming site.

Like many members here who have been present when shipments came in over the last 20 years we all know that 10 to 15% of the acropora is like WOW! That might literally be 3 to 6 examples. The owner knows he can mark those way up compared to the others. He knows he can reserve some of those to frag or grow out to frag. The rest quite frankly is average to blah.

It is the way it has always been. The most desirable stuff we have today is that small percentage of amazing coral that come in via 100s of shipments.

Pick something even easier to figure out. Like monti cap. No ones cares about the usual colors. But if that one special cap comes in... hot dang... we have a winner. And a new craze starts. Ditto with digitata. A super cheap coral. But what if a new color came in like pink with yellow? Boom. 150 dollar frags and everyone must have it.

Acropora is exactly the same. I guess one gets jaded over time. The owner knows special when they see it quite often.

If everything was awesome... we would not even have pricing discussions here. Everything would be amazing. Well it ain't

SO very true sir.

 

[SeaDweller]

So.................
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[vanpire]

I am sure the people at the coral farms have internet access. They know what corals will be in demand and specifically grow those strains and color variations. My guess is that mariculture is very different than wild. Wild: sell what u can find. Mariculture: grow what will give u the most demand and high prices.

I love SPS and hope that the farmers chose to propogate colorful corals. I mean why take the space to grow a green acro when u can use the same space to grow a rainbow tenuis or a rainbow Mille. Gorgeous colors are good enough with me. Don’t need them to have names. Heck I hope they are colorful and I can name them myself.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

I would love to see any pictures of people’s indo purchases or any pics of their local shops acro shipments. Now that it’s opened we mine as well just start sharing pics! A local shop teased me with a shipment that isn’t there yet so hopefully I get a chance to go check out what they got.

 

[Gareth elliott]

I would love to see any pictures of people’s indo purchases or any pics of their local shops acro shipments. Now that it’s opened we mine as well just start sharing pics! A local shop teased me with a shipment that isn’t there yet so hopefully I get a chance to go check out what they got.

Top pic is what it looks like in my system
Bottom is what it looked like at the lfs, not the exact same piece but was from the same colony.