!!!SO I’VE BEEN THINKING!!!!

[Zagreus]

Adam you worked very hard to develop an excellent brand and reputation. Both are very hard to develop. I would say if you are practicing the same standards and principles you are known for and comfortable with, than your brand could easily transition into whatever you want. But a very common mistake many brands make is expanding too much and doing 10 things wrong rather than 5 things right.

Personally I think you would do fantastic and have an excellent market for high end Lord Acans, Chalice and maybe Zoas. For me you seem perfect for helping people put together high end Acan gardens with great color diversity.

 

[tautog83]

i said ya its a good idea , make more money then the sps prices can go down. in all seriousness im sure lots would add on with some lps or softies if they already had a battlebox comin.

 

[Abhishek]

This is amazing news Adam !! Like others I would definitely encourage you to do it . Here's my 2 cents - hardly there are vendors that do non - photosynthetic corals specifically apart from Divers Den on a regular basis .
I know it's hard and customer base is really low, but if you can think of incorporating non photosynthetic corals like a dedicated system for them , it would really diversify the choice and give you a niche like you have on sps .
I personally have plans for a NPS tank only in the near future once I get a bigger tank going for my BC frags .

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[ReefInskeep]

I’ve been reading through R2R for years. Only been able to afford a couple 10 gallon tanks so far. Got a 40 in my basement I’ll be setting up soon. I’ve spent a questionably insane number of nights reading here and planning my future tank. My plan is to only buy SPS from you and maybe Reefwise in Chicago. Plan was to just give you money and say please pick & help me. I’d love to be able to do that with LPS & softies, as well.

You’ve built a reputation that has me dedicated to your business before I’ve even filled the tank with water. If you do this, do it right.

 

[Battlecorals]

I can't thank you guys enough for all the feed back and comments! Really means a lot and i appreciate it tremendously. I think tomorrow, ill start prepping one of the big tanks. Going to keep it as its own system and super simple. Gravity fed top off, skimmer and heater in the tank. No sump or other gizmos at all. And I'm thinking will throw my last 6 bulb ati over it i think. Heavy on actinic

Suppose i should chronicle this over in the build thread.

So I have a question then to any and all potential non sps customers, what kind of stuff should i say away from? I mean what's at the very bottom of your lists for desirability? I'm really curious about this

 

[Abhishek]

I can't thank you guys enough for all the feed back and comments! Really means a lot and i appreciate it tremendously. I think tomorrow, ill start prepping one of the big tanks. Going to keep it as its own system and super simple. Gravity fed top off, skimmer and heater in the tank. No sump or other gizmos at all. And I'm thinking will throw my last 6 bulb ati over it i think. Heavy on actinic

Suppose i should chronicle this over in the build thread.

So I have a question then to any and all potential non sps customers, what kind of stuff should i say away from? I mean what's at the very bottom of your lists for desirability? I'm really curious about this

Favias just don't cut it for me . Gonioporas are top of my list for non sps and I can hold off getting some once you have ur system going . Would definitely enjoy some aquacultured gonios .

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[dodgerblew]

I can't thank you guys enough for all the feed back and comments! Really means a lot and i appreciate it tremendously. I think tomorrow, ill start prepping one of the big tanks. Going to keep it as its own system and super simple. Gravity fed top off, skimmer and heater in the tank. No sump or other gizmos at all. And I'm thinking will throw my last 6 bulb ati over it i think. Heavy on actinic

Suppose i should chronicle this over in the build thread.

So I have a question then to any and all potential non sps customers, what kind of stuff should i say away from? I mean what's at the very bottom of your lists for desirability? I'm really curious about this

With your ATI go with blue plus and add a purple plus Adam. Adam, your taste in sps will do well with what you choose with other stony corals and the like. Choose only what you'd put in your tanks

 

[Braves Fan]

Guess I am going to go the opposite direction with my advice ,,, I would suggest you stay away from other corals,, stay with the one you brought to the dance,,, There is just way, way, too much competition out there to make it worth your while, for the effort it would take you to do this,,, JMO ,, Between the coral vendors you know,, and all the auction sites out there,,, just to many vendors out there fighting for every coral $$$ that can be had.

What I would suggest, WYSIWYG ,,, other vendors have this for a reason,,, Reefer's want to see what they are getting,,, read that part again,,, maybe even let some of your frags grow to a larger size,, I know I would pay a premium for a larger than average frag,,, specially one of yours There is nothing wrong with what you are doing,,, but it could be tweaked a bit to make it better,,,

I am going to add something here,,, this is defiantly JMO ( rant )

A lot of vendors,,, quality vendors ,,, don't really try and sell frags on their sites any longer,,, they put such a high $$$ price on their sites,, if they sell one,,, that's fine,, if not,,, there is that yearly online sell,,, they sell a ton of corals,, at 75% more or less,,, cheaper than they have had that coral for sell ,,, for the past year on their sites,,, Guess I am just not seeing the reasoning behind it,, maybe ,, you only have to spend a few days a year shipping out corals as opposed to daily,,,

 

[tripdad]

Adam, after getting less than what I expected when purchasing off the photos from other vendors I say YES to a vendor who uses real, non oversaturated photos. It would be nice to have a quality vendor to buy from.

 

[bubbaque]

I have a different view from most comments here. I have ordered from you several times and was always extremely happy. The main reason I ordered from you was because you were THE sps guy, if you wanted sps no one else came close. Just specializing in sps makes it seem like you could care less about the other stuff, and I like that. When you spotlight a coral I know it must be special.

Starting to get into the other corals makes it seem like your kind of like every one else. I know your not now but what brought me to you in the first place, before I read about your reputation or had the awesome experience with you was because you only dealt with sps.

"Finest sps available" is true but when people start posting pics of your acans or zoas do you think it will take away from slogan to new people who join the hobby?

I know your a business and making money is what matters. Having more corals to sell sounds like it would make more money but have you thought it could effect business because your not exclusive to sps anymore?

 

[Battlecorals]

Guess I am going to go the opposite direction with my advice ,,, I would suggest you stay away from other corals,, stay with the one you brought to the dance,,, There is just way, way, too much competition out there to make it worth your while, for the effort it would take you to do this,,, JMO ,, Between the coral vendors you know,, and all the auction sites out there,,, just to many vendors out there fighting for every coral $$$ that can be had.

What I would suggest, WYSIWYG ,,, other vendors have this for a reason,,, Reefer's want to see what they are getting,,, read that part again,,, maybe even let some of your frags grow to a larger size,, I know I would pay a premium for a larger than average frag,,, specially one of yours There is nothing wrong with what you are doing,,, but it could be tweaked a bit to make it better,,,

I am going to add something here,,, this is defiantly JMO ( rant )

A lot of vendors,,, quality vendors ,,, don't really try and sell frags on their sites any longer,,, they put such a high $$$ price on their sites,, if they sell one,,, that's fine,, if not,,, there is that yearly online sell,,, they sell a ton of corals,, at 75% more or less,,, cheaper than they have had that coral for sell ,,, for the past year on their sites,,, Guess I am just not seeing the reasoning behind it,, maybe ,, you only have to spend a few days a year shipping out corals as opposed to daily,,,

I really hear you on this and appreciate the honest feedback. That's exactly why i threw this out today and you are right man. The voice of reason even perhaps. The link in the first post was to my own thread after being pretty much defeated at an attempt to branch out beyond my specialty a coupe, l years ago already. I mean I've done this before lol. Granted the site was pretty rough back then, and my heart may not have been in it entirely, but the truth to the matter was that, that stuff sat around here a long time regardless.

And I also hear you on you your constructive criticism as well. With the new set up I do fully intend to get a good wyswig section going as well. Thats been one of my goals in fact. But, here's the hard truth about full aquaculture. It's a double edged sword unfortunately. The busier we get, the faster out inventories shrink, and there is a point at which growth will not keep up with demand. So we are limited exponentially by growth rates and the subsequent challenge to keep colonies that are in constant state of recovery, alive and growing. Perhaps the biggest hurdle in aquaculture but something I very much accept as part of the job. Now, I guess another question for you guys then would be, would you like to see more straight up sps that wasn't aquacultured, like bali maris and such, or would that just serve to muddy the waters? No pun intended.

 

[bubbaque]

Adam, when you get corals now are they not mari or wild? I always thought they were and you just grew them forever and cut and turned them aquacultured (I always imagined that's how your bubble bath unicorn was seeing your different threads on and how it evolved over time) Are you meaning to sell them when you get them from your vendor? If so, I would be interested.

 

[Scott.h]

If you have 3 tanks I'd set one up for Zoe's and softies and one for LPS. See how it goes. Since you have the room the worst thing that could happen is you sell them off and go back to as you were right?

 

[Battlecorals]

Adam, when you get corals now are they not mari or wild? I always thought they were and you just grew them forever and cut and turned them aquacultured (I always imagined that's how your bubble bath unicorn was seeing your different threads on and how it evolved over time) Are you meaning to sell them when you get them from your vendor? If so, I would be interested.

Yep you are correct, that has been the way I've done it since day one. Growing out small colonies or more often the frag that survived, is how most of my collection was built. I have toyed with the idea many times of doing more buy and sell type stuff, mostly because it's product that can be replenished as opposed to constantly diminished. Captive sps colonies can only take so much lol, and when they have had enough that's it. As many of you have been asking about certain pieces for ages now know very well. Can't just order another Snipers Bbgum colony and start fragging away. I hear your previous post as well. I've carved out a nitch as an "sps guy" to the core and believe me, when i tried the first time to branch out it broke few hearts I know it lol!

I really appreciate the discussion though guys! Thanks a lot for engaging in this one with me.

 

[leahfiish]

I would really love to see aquaculture gonioporas and torches(especially gold ones) . I've had many bad experiences buying non aquacultured versions of these, some of them practically fresh cuts, that end up dieing over the course of the next month or 2, while everything else in my tank is doing great. I would really appreciate being able to buy a coral that I know will live. That is why I like lps and softies. They are much more forgiving. But "wild" colonies of certain lps seems to be a toss up sometimes and that is absolutely not what I'm looking for. I just don't trust many other vendors not to be a chop shop. My #1 concern is if the coral will survive.

 

[c.declivisowner]

If you hold "the other types of coral" to the same standard as your SPS frags absolutely.

 

[newbreefer316]

I'm a new customer but here's my 2c. I immediately wanted to respond yes earlier but I tried taking a second and looking at it from both sides. You have alot of valuable real estate with the extra tanks but, from the outside looking in, it looks like SPS provide a higher profit ratio per sq foot of tank space. As a consumer I would love to see you branch out and give me the opportunity to fill out my order with some other goodies but what makes better business sense for you? Would you turn a better profit setting up those tanks as stand alone systems for more mari to sell at a quicker rate. Then by going through more colonies it would increase the volume of pieces you could choose from to grow out and expand your aquacultured collection.

As far as your "name" goes, i think it's more synonymous with good quality and customer service rather than just SPS but at the end of the day SPS is definitely what you're bread and butter. Another random question would be how passionate you are about LPS and softies? Do you enjoy them or would you be being them in more for just the customers sake?

 

[Reefrookie220]

Here's my thoughts:

I'd like to start it off by saying I'm not a brown noise kind of guy.

Then I'd like to follow it up with some brown nosing!

The thought of BATTLE SOFTIES, BATTLE EUPHYILLA, or BATTLE ZOAS. Excited me for a few reasons, but here's the major one... YOUR PHOTOS!

I ordered a battle box from you, not even for myself but for a reef club member who was struggling. I was new to you as a vendor and was astonished by the prices on your site, all the raving reviews, your customer service is top notch. So I pulled the trigger and scooped the box from FedEx next morning and delivered it to the member.

Upon opening the box, I was amazed at the amount of frags in it for the money I sent. After a float dip and drip, they made it to the frag rack polyps out. Then we used your site and it's photos and how true they were, blew me away.

So many misleading photos out there, so if you offered some awesome chalice, or euphyilla I'd buy in an instant, knowing the service and transparency I'd receive.

 

[foxt]

Seems to me that you just need to decide who you are. From your website:

I started out as a hobbyist moving rather quickly to brazen collector. As my passion for sps grew, so did my collection. I began to give away and eventually sell frags on a few reef related forums. After a number of years as a hobbyist, I finally decided it was time to embrace the sentiment that kept bringing the same customers back and then telling friends about their experience.

The two big words in that paragraph are: passion, and experience.

Will you have the same passion for other species of coral? When you expand to other corals, will you be able to offer the same experience that got you to where you are today?

You've started out by asking us what we want to see you sell. I turn that back to you: what is it that you'd be just as passionate about as you've been so far?

Me, I'd love to find a place that curated a diverse collection of gonis that I could get thriving in my tank.

 

[Rakie]

Hey, I'm a big fan of corals, and non-corals alike (non corals are any non-sps species). There are some great looking non-corals out there, and you've got an eye for color. This tells me you can easily find some great non-corals for us to enjoy as well as your traditional coral selection.

TLDR; Yes.