Photo Tomfoolery to sell coral frags... your thoughts:

[Hemmdog]

When I see legit vendors post pics like this it blows my mind. It have to squint to look at it or it hurts my eyes.

Lol, so true.

 

[justingraham]

When I see legit vendors post pics like this it blows my mind. It have to squint to look at it or it hurts my eyes.

You found it also I see

 

[Dkeller_nc]

But here's the major conundrum.....
Super mega online retailers (say WWC for example) can and do get their hands on A & B graded corals. You really pay for those A-graded corals reflected in the final sake price.

LFSs on the other hand being in mostly plain-Jane B-graded corals..... and even though there is NO SHAME having your tank filled with beautiful B-graded cirals... buy thru LFS versus Online, you are alienated from seeing A-graded corals.

This point is a good one, and worth discussing. The main reason that vendors use digital manipulation and/or environmental manipulation (i.e., "black lighting") for the photos of their corals is that there's been a shift in the "reef culture" over the last 5 years or so. Reef keeping in the 1990's/early 2000's was largely about creating a biotope, and "awesome tank" generally meant a clever aquascape with grown-in large colonies of corals (whether softies, LPS or SPS) and a selection of interesting fish that occupied all of the environmental niches of the tank.

A fairly high percentage of reefers today focus on the individual corals rather than the tank as a whole. A good technical description of what they're doing is "coral gardening" or "coral collecting" rather than "reef creation". Don't get me wrong, I'm not condemning coral gardening if that's your thing. But because of this shift in focus, the on-line coral vendors have shifted the focus to the color attributes of the individual corals rather than colony size or morphology. This makes sense when marketing to coral collectors, because collectors tend to be focused on the appearance of the coral and the fact that they have it - up to a point, the size or morphology of a colony is irrelevant. In fact, you could go as far as surmising that large colonies are undesirable from the collector's standpoint in that they occupy more tank space that could be used for acquiring different corals.

That's quite unlike someone that is focused on creating a reefscape, where larger (and fewer) colonies are highly desirable, and where someone is unlikely to pay more for a different colored corallite on the same colored background because it just doesn't get noticed when looking at the tank from the macro perspective.

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[ZAB]

What I thought and what I bought..black Friday sales.

 

[Hemmdog]

What I thought and what I bought..black Friday sales.

Wow!!! lol! That does not look like what was advertised at all!

 

[ZAB]

Wow!!! lol! That does not look like what was advertised at all!

Icalled vendor sent pics...said corals get stressed in shipping.give them some time..

 

[bubbaque]

Icalled vendor sent pics...said corals get stressed in shipping.give them some time..

That's the excuse vendors give all the time. It's the easy way out and allows them to get away with selling junk coral. Buy from honest vendors and your corals will arrive as advertised.

 

[Mike N]

Unfortunately, such greed and deception will exist as long as the money flows.
Also unfortunately, these unscrupulous people/vendors use R2R as a platform to take advantage of as many as possible. Would they be able to scam the same amount of people locally, or on facebook? Doubtful.
R2R is a great resource, but when it is being used for these purposes, its really depressing.

 

[justingraham]

What I thought and what I bought..black Friday sales.

Two of them look dead or close to death

 

[9975]

To me this is scamming in a sense as you aren't getting what you paid for and the quality isn't equivalent to the intended product

 

[Hemmdog]

To me this is scamming in a sense as you aren't getting what you paid for and the quality isn't equivalent to the intended product

Couldn’t agree more. It’s fraud.

 

[PurpleMonsterSlayer]

I think 99% of coral sellers on line doctor there photos. You just have to look pass that and realize it’s not going to have those i popping colors when you get it. I adjust color a little bit but only to make the photo look like what i see in real life. But then again most buyers that get from me see it in my tank before they buy so their always happy before they purchase. I don’t have the option of finding a nice coral frag at the LFS. Since what they sell is crap brown corals at WWC prices.

 

[PurpleMonsterSlayer]

Well ya learn something new every day! I had no idea coralline could be green!

Yep one of my tanks looks like it has algae on it but it’s green coraline algae

 

[Jax15]

I’ve been burned many times by the “WYSIWYG” advanced photography and photoshop. I get that you want to show your product in its best possible state. And it works... I drool over juicy coral photos. But it’s an ethical grey area at best. I’d love to see more vendors do a side by side with “best possible state” and a “iPhone camera shot” for a more realistic photo. I’m sure I’d still drool and spend too much. But with the obscene cost of corals lately, having a brownish whatever looking coral show up that’s nothing like the photo is quite a disappointment.

 

[Jax15]

What I thought and what I bought..black Friday sales.

Wow. I fee your pain... you spend days excited as heck, looking back at the photos, can’t WAIT for your amazing corals to arrive... and what you get is “stressed from shipment” corals. Plllease.

 

[ZAB]

Wow. I fee your pain... you spend days excited as heck, looking back at the photos, can’t WAIT for your amazing corals to arrive... and what you get is “stressed from shipment” corals. Plllease.

You got that right...

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[ZAB]

I have bought corals from this vendor before quite a while back.they took good care of me before..I called e-mailed..not any response other than corals need to recover from shipping..I guess they don't seem to care as much as before.
At least I know where not to buy corals from.

 

[Photosynthetic]

Lol the corals are too bright. Help me my eyes hurt lol. Too funny. Here are some pics from my tank I run at full blue most of the day except for a 6 hr period with 10 percent whites. Maybe I did start my obsession because of how incredible a high end, well tweaked tank looks in blues. A more thorough appreciation for the animal came later. Still would rather not see a tank full a brown buggers. Sure, many trashy vendors crank their saturation and over edit their pics but that's why we need to be careful consumers and stick with reputable and transparent vendors. It could also be that it may be challenging to get optimal colors out of our corals. I know I've had a really tough time with some. But at least i know what colors to shoot for on account of those letter prefixes and funky names. Lol. Complaining about stuff sure is fun huh? Protect your eyes when viewing these pictures, they maybe so bright they cause headaches and seizures.