POLL: What Concerns Do You Have When Ordering Coral Online?

[ThaBeast]

I am concerned about overall quality and health. Are the corals coming from a pest free facility? Does the vendor go the extra mile in packaging for shipment? Example: Unique corals and Cherry corals both do an excellent job packaging, they use little cups to protect frags during shipment. I ordered several euphyllia from another sponsor on R2R and all the bags were just thrown in a box, no protection from crushing. All of those frags were slimed up pretty badly and took until the next day to look decent in my observation tank. One was a gooey mess in the bag and didnt make it. I also look at the pics online, do I have any hope of those corals looking anything similar in my tank or are the images so over saturated and edited the images belong in a cartoon? I really like the vendors that post there water parameters, lighting, and par. I want my corals to have the best chance of success and knowing parameters and par helps immensely. Price is the last thing I look at, I'll always purchase enough to receive free shipping but if I buy the cheapest of any product I won't expect or deserve to receive much

 

[ReefStable]

I think I just placed an order! Do me proud!

I just sent an email your way!
I'll do my best!
Just a heads up, with extreme cold here in Wisconsin (-27 wind chill this morning), I made the decision not to ship this week for the health of the coral. Let me know in the email I sent your way what would be the best day next week for you

 

[ReefStable]

Thanks all for the current feedback!
I like the themes I'm seeing! The photos seem to be the most common trend. While I don't do all the photoshop magic for the ridiculous saturation. It feels shady when people do that.

I run OR3 blues though so I just make sure the photo looks like the coral does in my tank.

I'll have to see if I can do some white-light photos. Sounds like that's what most would like to see as well

 

[CBonito]

I've learned the hard way to Google what the coral looks like in other people's tank before I buy. What I ended up getting didn't even compare in color and size to the picture on the site.

I never worry about that with SPS.

I'm more worried about paying 200 bucks for an exotic blue/red stag and losing the color in my own system than I am something arriving not so colorful. Usually the ones I've received that were dull, turned into monsters once they sat in one spot long enough under my own lighting. It's 50/50 whether some will even live to begin with. Some of them are pretty hard to figure out.

Any of the pretty much "colorfast" corals though like zoos or whatever, if it's red in the pic, I'm expecting it to be red. And the thing is since MOST of us now use LEDs, we can replicate the lighting of the places we get stuff from at least close.

When I first started doing this and vendors kept their stuff under 400w 20k radiums and hqi ballasts, changing bulbs every 6 months...it wasn't something every customer could afford to replicate. So crushing disappointment was common when something bright red under those was more brown under a 250watt Iwasaki. lol

 

[CBonito]

I just sent an email your way!
I'll do my best!
Just a heads up, with extreme cold here in Wisconsin (-27 wind chill this morning), I made the decision not to ship this week for the health of the coral. Let me know in the email I sent your way what would be the best day next week for you

Replied. No trouble, that will likely save a bit of hair loss.

 

[Tired]

Does "alive arrival" refer to some sort of guarantee, or to the corals actually arriving alive? Because I can't imagine anyone who buys corals online doesn't care if they come in alive.

 

[ReefStable]

Does "alive arrival" refer to some sort of guarantee, or to the corals actually arriving alive? Because I can't imagine anyone who buys corals online doesn't care if they come in alive.

Mostly was referencing if DOA (and filing for it) was the concern. Perhaps better worded as trust in shipping.

 

[Colemansreef]

I need WYSIWYG I won’t buy it if it’s not typicallly and more pictures of the coral. A top down view of an open euphyllia isn’t enough I want to see a pic of that same coral open and closed and a side view of the tissue band on the skeleton. This view also shows you the number of heads or if a head is splitting. I personally feel like the whole not wysiwyg is just a way to be able to give the customer what you decide to give them.

 

[Bob Weigant]

My biggest complaint is the photo looking completely different than what I get. Take a peak at ebay. Im sure its been mentioned but thats what bugs me the most

 

[ReefStable]

This is all GREAT feedback! Keep it coming!

For the photos, is it just about seeing it under 2 lights (blue and white) or more of a blue, white, and mixed? Or just the more the better?

Additionally posting what the equipment (light/par) and possibly parameters are at.

WYSIWYG is ideal, but usually comes at a cost so perhaps balancing WYSIWYG for higher ticket coral?

Seems like these are the largest concerns.

Thoughts?

 

[ReefStable]

So before I call this "research" done, does anyone else want to toss in some ideas?

My current summary is:
- WYSIWYG is always preferred (Downside is that the price goes up :/ )
- A lot of vendors saturate photos and they look better than reality. While mine use a VERY blue light, this can make it look this way as well. So either a white light photo option or tone down the blue light a bit? (Matching everyone's tank is simply not possible, so this one is a thinker)
- Good packing!

Any other thoughts? If I had pages for how I take product photos and how I pack coral, do people ready those? Is it nice to just have the link?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Troylee]

wysiwyg will always be preferred.. why the price would be higher is unknown? White lighting I think is best for pictures for this reason! If it looks good under white lighting and somebody buys it it’s gonna blow them away under blue lighting! It’s a win, win for both parties. From what I’ve seen most people nowadays just buy stuff for the cool name that comes attached to it and bragging rights! Very few like myself just buy it cause of the color fills a void in my tank haha! Growth patterns come into play also for me but we’re not here to discuss that lol.

 

[shakey]

I voted other. My biggest concern is the wysiwg coral is being put under special light colors and filters to make it as colorful as possible. When I receive it and put it under normal light settings it doesn't look anything like the pics from the seller.