Opinions on high end corals?

BriansBrain

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Whatever makes YOU happy.

However,
I personally think people need to stop thinking the “Instagram Tanks” packed full of 6 corallite acro “frags” or every shade of xyz holy knicks fireworks grail torch is the normal with all the bells and whistles when it come to tech and automation.

If you fill a tank with high ends, I guarantee your coral husbandry will go up like 10x though lol
 
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MaxTremors

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I always looked at it like sneakers. Some people wait for the chance to buy the limited drops...maybe grab 2 so you can sell one. But with corals, you have a chance to grow them and make some cash if you can frag it or trade. My 45g has a mix of standard corals and high end. I can appreciate both of them.
See, I think the scalper thing is gross. I mean, look at the PS5, it’s a year since it released and despite Sony releasing more consoles than any console launch ever, people still can’t get them because scalpers and their bots buy them up and sell them for twice the MSRP (and people pay it because FOMO). It shouldn’t be that way, whether it’s sneakers, electronics, concert tickets, or corals. IMO, it’s not an ethical or honorable way to make money.

My ego won't let me have cheaper frags. The dream is for designer pieces like gmk and jf homewreckers that cover the tank

I don’t mean to offend, but that just makes me feel really sad. And as mentioned, by the time they grow out they’ll be last season.
 
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Heres_doe_

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Thanks for all the answers. I buy what i like. I try not to buy anything hype at all. I bought $5 shrooms and $200 torch. My first tank and i won't spend hundreds of dollars just to kill something no way. Just wanted opinions that's all.
 

Camaro Show Corals

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History also tells me that prices / demand change quickly. Investing in a $1K frag to grow out to see they only sell for $100 a few months later scares me away from that. Buy what you enjoy looking at.
It’s never that drastic, yes prices decrease over time but depends on what is it. Zoas decrease faster then sps because they grow faster and frag easy while people kill sps. The whole torch phase has died down a little but still in demand because torches grow slow and you can’t frag right away
 

Blumy

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I’ll throw in my 2 cents. First go round was FOWLR. Local reef shop got me into corals. Went cheap, softies, zoas, GSP, zenia, Kenya tree. dang things were weeds and overran every inch of rock and the back wall. Looked crowded and random in my opinion. Traded it all for new rock that was in a sump for 7 years. Now it’s SPS only and I love it. Some high end live, others do not. Bit of luck if the draw I suppose. Used multiple vendors until I found one that must have similar parameters to me as everything lives and thrives. Stags in the back hiding the back wall and acros up front. Just as much color than those pesky zoas, LOL.
 

Falreef

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Is there so much money in the midst of everything that is going on snd in the economy to justify anything more than $50 (that’s probably to much as well), for a 1/4-1/2 piece of a coral. Regardless of name. We should be doing more to get better at preserving and growing the difficult corals for the world. That may be our part. Get these into the hands of many.
 

Scorpius

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It's capitalism and the free market folks If a coral grower can get you the buyer to part with your money that's how it works. If you think a goofy name, blue puke lighting, and photoshop makes a coral special then shame on you, not the coral grower.

If we'd all wise up and think with our brains and not our wallets then this stupid trend would end, but hey that's just capitalism and the free market.
 

Richsoar

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I think the prices for a lot of these "Sales of Corals" is ludicrous. I thought when I joined this forum I could learn through others experiences and possible get some great deals on Marine Life and equipment. POTO, Reeftide, Live Reef Orlando they're all the same. Any Newbie to the Reefing World would run like the wind away from this. $250 -$900 for a Frag, please please please STOP. And R2R, quit encourgaging them by allowing these business to advertise their "Fragtastic" Sale every freaking weekend. They're worse that furniture stores.
 

N.Sreefer

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Wonder if we’ll see them lobby for legislation against hobbyists selling to each other.
I'm actually surprised that no vendor has gotten an exclusive copyright on a named coral. Lots of plant cultivars are "asexual propagation prohibited" I could see the same thing happening with coral.
 

20LogR

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There's not really a single answer for this bc it depends so heavily on tank maturity, hobby skill level, coral type, whether you are ok shipping coral, size of the local hobby and saturation level.

Generally, if your tank is less than a yr old and/or you've been in the hobby less than a couple of yrs and/or you mean the newest named pieces being pumped by high end vendors and/or worth it means you can grow enough to frag and make your money back.

The answer is no.

Unless you have a hook up with a high end vendor, you will not be able to get a frag of the newest hottest stuff until several other ppl with a high profile in the hobby market already used their hookup to get it. They will have higher odds of success growing/fragging/selling than most hobbyists.

On top of that, the newest hottest stuff is going to be from a place that just lifted a multi yr ban on exports barely a yr ago. That means the newest hottest stuff will only have been in the captivity for a yr and a half (not nearly long enough to fully adapt to hobby conditions IMO).

100% this… this hobby has such a high turn over rate, because this forum pumps the idea that everyone just needs to buy some high end frags and then they will be able to support their hobby.

Fact is it’s more like Wall St. by the time you know what the play is, it’s already too late and you are just a sucker bag holder.

It’s truly a disservice to the hobby as a whole and wish it would stop.
 
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Heres_doe_

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I think the prices for a lot of these "Sales of Corals" is ludicrous. I thought when I joined this forum I could learn through others experiences and possible get some great deals on Marine Life and equipment. POTO, Reeftide, Live Reef Orlando they're all the same. Any Newbie to the Reefing World would run like the wind away from this. $250 -$900 for a Frag, please please please STOP. And R2R, quit encourgaging them by allowing these business to advertise their "Fragtastic" Sale every freaking weekend. They're worse that furniture stores.
When i first started a few months back i bought my first frag off of someone who had some incredible pictures when I got to his house and seen these tiny little specs i was like what the heck is that. Then i kept doing research and seeing people sell frags 1" for hundreds of dollars
 

mdb_talon

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I think the prices for a lot of these "Sales of Corals" is ludicrous. I thought when I joined this forum I could learn through others experiences and possible get some great deals on Marine Life and equipment. POTO, Reeftide, Live Reef Orlando they're all the same. Any Newbie to the Reefing World would run like the wind away from this. $250 -$900 for a Frag, please please please STOP. And R2R, quit encourgaging them by allowing these business to advertise their "Fragtastic" Sale every freaking weekend. They're worse that furniture stores.

Haha I could not agree more. I stay away from most vendors who do live sales. Its like buying jewelry from a mall chain store. If it is not at least 80% off then you overpaid. At least in the jewelry store you dont have to decide in .7 seconds and then have lightning fast mouse skills to get it though
 

lanceinhuntsville

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I'm actually surprised that no vendor has gotten an exclusive copyright on a named coral. Lots of plant cultivars are "asexual propagation prohibited" I could see the same thing happening with coral.
Yeah when I see “WWC” or “Jason Fox” from commercial vendors that aren’t those companies, it surprises me. I’m not sure why they haven’t done that, at least for their own names.
 

MaxTremors

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Haha I could not agree more. I stay away from most vendors who do live sales. Its like buying jewelry from a mall chain store. If it is not at least 80% off then you overpaid. At least in the jewelry store you dont have to decide in .7 seconds and then have lightning fast mouse skills to get it though
Live sales are a cancer on the hobby. I don’t understand why anyone would want to buy corals that way, especially when the prices aren’t even that great. Sure, they throw in a few $5-$10 frags (of course with the requirement that you have to also buy two regular price frags), but for the most part it’s not a sale, you’re not actually saving any money (especially with shipping).

I recently went through one of the live sale threads, and picked out 5 corals that I liked and would’ve hypothetically bought, and then I went to the online vendors I use most often that have good prices and good clearance sales, and found similar frags and the total price was like $65 less, and would’ve qualified for free shipping (so almost $100 cheaper).

Again, I just don’t understand who it is that likes to buy corals this way. Sitting and refreshing the page all weekend to make split second decisions on corals (where you don’t even have enough time to consider whether it’s even a good deal) is not my idea of fun or of a positive shopping experience. I think they prey on people new to the hobby and exploit peoples’ FOMO, they convince people who maybe don’t know better that a particular frag is limited edition or one of a kind and at a once in a lifetime price, and it’s all just lies. I honestly don’t understand why the admins haven’t banned them.
 

Camaro Show Corals

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Live sales are a cancer on the hobby. I don’t understand why anyone would want to buy corals that way, especially when the prices aren’t even that great. Sure, they throw in a few $5-$10 frags (of course with the requirement that you have to also buy two regular price frags), but for the most part it’s not a sale, you’re not actually saving any money (especially with shipping).

I recently went through one of the live sale threads, and picked out 5 corals that I liked and would’ve hypothetically bought, and then I went to the online vendors I use most often that have good prices and good clearance sales, and found similar frags and the total price was like $65 less, and would’ve qualified for free shipping (so almost $100 cheaper).

Again, I just don’t understand who it is that likes to buy corals this way. Sitting and refreshing the page all weekend to make split second decisions on corals (where you don’t even have enough time to consider whether it’s even a good deal) is not my idea of fun or of a positive shopping experience. I think they prey on people new to the hobby and exploit peoples’ FOMO, they convince people who maybe don’t know better that a particular frag is limited edition or one of a kind and at a once in a lifetime price, and it’s all just lies. I honestly don’t understand why the admins haven’t banned them.
Because they are making money from them. There’s definitely some really true good ones and others are not so great and just a come on that jack the price up to make you think your getting a “sale” . You see every Sponsor on here is paying Reef2reef $300-$400 a month which is a good chunk of chance if you count up all the sponsors but it doesn’t cost that much to run the site, I have some family friends who build and maintain forums and while the larger the site the larger the cost and this is the best and largest reef forum so I’m not saying it’s cheap to run but it’s not crazy crazy money.
 

cancun

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Interesting points! The key is when we as hobbyists quit buying the high end corals or any coral for ridiculous prices, like Holy Grail Torches, Dragon Souls, for several hundred dollars per head etc etc, the price should come down IMO. So in short if we are willing to pay a bunch of cash for a single torch coral head, or a tiny SPS frag, that's what people will keep selling them for.

Too bad we can't all come together as hobbyists to drive the price back down to where it used to be LOL! I miss the good old days, when you could get a huge beautiful torch coral colony with several heads for 80 bucks or less. Just my 2 cents!
 

stephj03

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I miss the good old days, when you could get a huge beautiful torch coral colony with several heads for 80 bucks or less. Just my 2 cents!

Yeah but those good old days never really went away.

You can still get no name common zoas, torches, stags, etc for very reasonable prices.

There's actually a lot of really beautiful formerly high end corals that are very affordable now that they've been out for a while.

Pink Cadillac
PC Rainbow
SSC
Most no name LPS
Most no name shrooms

Almost all of these cost the same as entry level frags always have and yet are way nicer than what was commonly available for a good price 10-15yrs ago.
 
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