jimfish98
Active Member
About 2-3 months ago while looking through coral for sale on the local forums and FB marketplace, I saw a listing for a kingspawn. A local guy had bought a few but space wise ended up having less space than he thought once they came in. It was an interesting coral in the pics and stopped by his place and brought it home for my 25g tank. When asked where he got it, he directed me to Oceanic Gardens. Within the next week or so was my first order with Gabe, a set of three kingspawn to finish up stocking my 25g tank. Every piece came well packed as in a foam box with each piece triple bagged. All three were dipped with a little baster to blow anything off of them. There was nothing, probably the cleanest frags I have ever bought.
I recently restarted my larger tank and had picked some stuff from local reefers but knew I wanted more kingspawn, a small garden of them front and center. I returned to Oceanic Gardens and found one I liked and decided to check out some of his other items. I picked up a couple Alveopora, torches, and other euphyllia in that order. Again everything was well packaged, shipped well, and arrived in great condition. The dip again was pretty clean.
At this point of two orders going flawless and enjoying everything I have gotten, I went back to Oceanic for more. The prices on his site beat out every LFS and also what most reefers around here were selling frags of the same coral for. With a plan of what I wanted with the tank layout and placement, I asked Gabe if he could hold orders for me for a few weeks as he got new stuff in regularly and I could place a few orders and just have them all ship out together. Gabe was ok with it and over the next three weeks or so I placed more orders for Kingspawn, Alveopora, Goni, Torches, hammers, and frogspawn. After the last big drop last week I gave the ok to ship everything out this week.
While packing my order, Gabe shot a message that one of my kingspawn he wasn't happy with how it was looking and didn't want to ship it out. He offered up a replacement that the photo itself would say was superior, in hand it is far superior. The order came Wednesday with a total of 25 frags. The box came FedEx and was well packed. Everything was triple bagged again, a lot of the pieces with new plugs, and a heat pack so coming in from the north their temp was stable for the trip. FedEx however did a number on the box. While the cardboard looked good initially, the styrofoam box was cracked in every direction from a corner. In that corner was a small puddle, a bag with little water in it, and a crushed coral. A frogspawn that was in a protective cup had broken off the plug and the thin wall of the skeleton on the side was shattered and the coral was a loss. Between this being a FedEx error and the massive upgrade on the kingspawn, I was ok and did not ask for anything back on my costs. I won't share a pic of the coral, but this is the foam box interior and exterior shots so you can guess the beating the shipping took. If anything I am surprised that more were not damaged.
The coral came in and I hit the bags with a laser temp and they were about a degree warmer than my tank so I just let them sit on the counter and acclimate via room temp. When it came time to dip, almost everything was extremely clean again. I change my dip out if I think its too dirty and after 8 kingspawn and 7 torches, the first of the next two pics is what came out. A few other euphyllia were clean as well. When I went to do the flower pot corals it was a bit dirtier in the dip. I could tell they were recently brought in and something that came from a QT tank directly into shipping as the plug was seasoned so to speak in comparison to all of his other stuff with new plugs. Most of this is just junk that gets caught in the pockets the polyps hide in and there were no pest issues in them. Type A personality likes to be precautious so clean dips are always appreciated.
So far every regular coral is out and fully extended in great condition. The really large replacement kingspawn was too big for a plug and my little garden area so it went onto a rock in a back corner. It looks big in the video, but the power heads are keeping it from fully opening. Some turbulence at the front wall has kept a few kingspawn from fully opening up there as well. Made some changes to flow and they have started to come out a lot more. I expect they will fully open before the weekend is over. With the kingspawn the lower the flow around them the more they open up so I will probably end up switching to gyre pumps to accommodate those corals more. The following video is the tank as of this afternoon. Gabe is where every Alveopora, Goni, and Kingspawn came from. All but two torches came from him as well. A couple hammers and frogspawns in there as well from him.
Overall its been great working with Gabe for multiple reasons. Prices are good, communication is good, and he's appreciative of my business. He's a small shop with low overhead compared to retail locations. He could match others pricing but he keeps them at a more affordable level. If I had to nitpick, the worst I can say is that he could do with a little more variety within his WYSIWYG section, but I could say the same with the LFS that tend to just stock fast movers. I have zero concern working with Gabe or recommending others check him out.
I recently restarted my larger tank and had picked some stuff from local reefers but knew I wanted more kingspawn, a small garden of them front and center. I returned to Oceanic Gardens and found one I liked and decided to check out some of his other items. I picked up a couple Alveopora, torches, and other euphyllia in that order. Again everything was well packaged, shipped well, and arrived in great condition. The dip again was pretty clean.
At this point of two orders going flawless and enjoying everything I have gotten, I went back to Oceanic for more. The prices on his site beat out every LFS and also what most reefers around here were selling frags of the same coral for. With a plan of what I wanted with the tank layout and placement, I asked Gabe if he could hold orders for me for a few weeks as he got new stuff in regularly and I could place a few orders and just have them all ship out together. Gabe was ok with it and over the next three weeks or so I placed more orders for Kingspawn, Alveopora, Goni, Torches, hammers, and frogspawn. After the last big drop last week I gave the ok to ship everything out this week.
While packing my order, Gabe shot a message that one of my kingspawn he wasn't happy with how it was looking and didn't want to ship it out. He offered up a replacement that the photo itself would say was superior, in hand it is far superior. The order came Wednesday with a total of 25 frags. The box came FedEx and was well packed. Everything was triple bagged again, a lot of the pieces with new plugs, and a heat pack so coming in from the north their temp was stable for the trip. FedEx however did a number on the box. While the cardboard looked good initially, the styrofoam box was cracked in every direction from a corner. In that corner was a small puddle, a bag with little water in it, and a crushed coral. A frogspawn that was in a protective cup had broken off the plug and the thin wall of the skeleton on the side was shattered and the coral was a loss. Between this being a FedEx error and the massive upgrade on the kingspawn, I was ok and did not ask for anything back on my costs. I won't share a pic of the coral, but this is the foam box interior and exterior shots so you can guess the beating the shipping took. If anything I am surprised that more were not damaged.
The coral came in and I hit the bags with a laser temp and they were about a degree warmer than my tank so I just let them sit on the counter and acclimate via room temp. When it came time to dip, almost everything was extremely clean again. I change my dip out if I think its too dirty and after 8 kingspawn and 7 torches, the first of the next two pics is what came out. A few other euphyllia were clean as well. When I went to do the flower pot corals it was a bit dirtier in the dip. I could tell they were recently brought in and something that came from a QT tank directly into shipping as the plug was seasoned so to speak in comparison to all of his other stuff with new plugs. Most of this is just junk that gets caught in the pockets the polyps hide in and there were no pest issues in them. Type A personality likes to be precautious so clean dips are always appreciated.
So far every regular coral is out and fully extended in great condition. The really large replacement kingspawn was too big for a plug and my little garden area so it went onto a rock in a back corner. It looks big in the video, but the power heads are keeping it from fully opening. Some turbulence at the front wall has kept a few kingspawn from fully opening up there as well. Made some changes to flow and they have started to come out a lot more. I expect they will fully open before the weekend is over. With the kingspawn the lower the flow around them the more they open up so I will probably end up switching to gyre pumps to accommodate those corals more. The following video is the tank as of this afternoon. Gabe is where every Alveopora, Goni, and Kingspawn came from. All but two torches came from him as well. A couple hammers and frogspawns in there as well from him.
Overall its been great working with Gabe for multiple reasons. Prices are good, communication is good, and he's appreciative of my business. He's a small shop with low overhead compared to retail locations. He could match others pricing but he keeps them at a more affordable level. If I had to nitpick, the worst I can say is that he could do with a little more variety within his WYSIWYG section, but I could say the same with the LFS that tend to just stock fast movers. I have zero concern working with Gabe or recommending others check him out.
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