The thing is, back in the "good old days”, I suppose not a whole lot unlike today really, there were always corals that would become extremely popular and consequently extremely common. A lot of the old Tyree and ORA stuff for sure, Pink lemonade, the Rainbow Monti, Garf Bonsai, Shades of Fall, Red Planet, Palmers Blue Milli even, just to name a few. These pieces along with many others grew fast, were hyper propagated and passed around. A lot! Especially with the growing popularity of reef forums and classifieds, sharing of valuable knowledge. Sps became easier and easier to keep alive and actually propagate. People growing out colonies, swapping and selling and such meant that so many of these older gems were just everywhere. Of course back then I think the barrel that we had to pick out it was a lot smaller so there weren't as many pieces to choose from on the grander scale. But after a certain point getting your hands on any one of these was for the most part a breeze. They were very available and very affordable.
Lots of us had these pieces, and lots of us propagated them. And I think in many cases, within a year or two of their initial “releases” they became ubiquitous, demand plummeted just as fast as their prices did. Great! That's really what it’s all about if you ask me. In fact, I relish watching this cycle play out again and again, as extreme scarcity eventually becomes exhausted ubiquity,
Now if you're still with me, I think it's safe to say that we'd expect most of these corals to be even more prevalent these days having been circulating for so long, and passed around and sold for so many years. I mean literally, we should all have a piece of Pink Lemonade thriving in our tank somewhere. Or at least know someone who does. Or at the very least have no trouble whatsoever finding a frag if we wanted one. Right? But the remarkably odd thing, is that almost the exact opposite is true. No one's got the old PL anymore! And the same goes for a multitude of these older classics.
I find that very odd and believe that something strange, or rather unexplained has happened with most of these "would be" classics. And that is to say that after certain amount of time or certain amount of “something”, many of these corals that were so ubiquitous, somehow kind of just fell off the map to the extent that nobody’s got them anymore. And being in the position that I am as a vendor, I am pretty in tune to how often people look for some of these older pieces, and how often they are nowhere to be found.
This is interesting to me and I ask myself, why is a once otherwise extremely popular and common coral that thrived in captivity in numerous tanks and conditions, not so suddenly, nearly impossible to find? I mean seriously, why did we all loose them? Is it possible in any way, that some sps essentially "expire" for lack of a better word after a certain amount of time in captivity. Regardless of the condition they are kept in? Based on what I have personally seen and experienced over roughly 20 years of reefing, as odd as it sounds I want to say that there is some minute amount of truth to this.
In my case, a lot of these instances in particular, certain corals were all lost among people I knew and traded with around the same time window, which is even more interesting to me and further demonstrates this "Sps expiration" theory. That is not to say these pieces are all 100% extinct in captivity. I'm sure many of these corals are still out there somewhere, but the vast majority of thriving captive pieces are all but gone. The best example I can think of this happening is with the ORA Pearlberry sometime around 2012-2013. This was a coral that was really popular and traded and sold like crazy. It grew like weed for so many of us and in my neck of the woods at least it was deemed a “freebie” in a surprisingly short amount of time. Then, truly as “all of a sudden” as it can get, we all just kind of lost it, for reasons no one really ever zeroed in on. And not long after that I started getting asked about it. More and more people were looking for it and not having any luck. It was literally like the masses had all lost this thing, all at the same time. I mean that's weird right? The same can be said about the once extremely coveted Red Dragon that dominated the desires of sps fanatics in 2012 like never before. Within a couple years of that initial craze, we all had a softball or two, or three of this thing. Fast forward to today, and while you’d expect the Red Dragon to be as common as clownfish, I don’t think there’s much of it left out there either. And I can come up with quite a few more examples that followed this course as well to some extent, and I really just ponder why that is.
How does an otherwise super adapted, captive coral suddenly just stop doing well for multiple people in multiple environments under multiple circumstances, and simply fade out of captive existence? Is this really happening or is it just me?
How about it, you having trouble finding a coral you are nostalgic about that was popular as ever but now seems long lost? Or more specifically, did you happen to loose your Pearlberry around 2013 as well? Like the rest of us...
Lots of us had these pieces, and lots of us propagated them. And I think in many cases, within a year or two of their initial “releases” they became ubiquitous, demand plummeted just as fast as their prices did. Great! That's really what it’s all about if you ask me. In fact, I relish watching this cycle play out again and again, as extreme scarcity eventually becomes exhausted ubiquity,
Now if you're still with me, I think it's safe to say that we'd expect most of these corals to be even more prevalent these days having been circulating for so long, and passed around and sold for so many years. I mean literally, we should all have a piece of Pink Lemonade thriving in our tank somewhere. Or at least know someone who does. Or at the very least have no trouble whatsoever finding a frag if we wanted one. Right? But the remarkably odd thing, is that almost the exact opposite is true. No one's got the old PL anymore! And the same goes for a multitude of these older classics.
I find that very odd and believe that something strange, or rather unexplained has happened with most of these "would be" classics. And that is to say that after certain amount of time or certain amount of “something”, many of these corals that were so ubiquitous, somehow kind of just fell off the map to the extent that nobody’s got them anymore. And being in the position that I am as a vendor, I am pretty in tune to how often people look for some of these older pieces, and how often they are nowhere to be found.
This is interesting to me and I ask myself, why is a once otherwise extremely popular and common coral that thrived in captivity in numerous tanks and conditions, not so suddenly, nearly impossible to find? I mean seriously, why did we all loose them? Is it possible in any way, that some sps essentially "expire" for lack of a better word after a certain amount of time in captivity. Regardless of the condition they are kept in? Based on what I have personally seen and experienced over roughly 20 years of reefing, as odd as it sounds I want to say that there is some minute amount of truth to this.
In my case, a lot of these instances in particular, certain corals were all lost among people I knew and traded with around the same time window, which is even more interesting to me and further demonstrates this "Sps expiration" theory. That is not to say these pieces are all 100% extinct in captivity. I'm sure many of these corals are still out there somewhere, but the vast majority of thriving captive pieces are all but gone. The best example I can think of this happening is with the ORA Pearlberry sometime around 2012-2013. This was a coral that was really popular and traded and sold like crazy. It grew like weed for so many of us and in my neck of the woods at least it was deemed a “freebie” in a surprisingly short amount of time. Then, truly as “all of a sudden” as it can get, we all just kind of lost it, for reasons no one really ever zeroed in on. And not long after that I started getting asked about it. More and more people were looking for it and not having any luck. It was literally like the masses had all lost this thing, all at the same time. I mean that's weird right? The same can be said about the once extremely coveted Red Dragon that dominated the desires of sps fanatics in 2012 like never before. Within a couple years of that initial craze, we all had a softball or two, or three of this thing. Fast forward to today, and while you’d expect the Red Dragon to be as common as clownfish, I don’t think there’s much of it left out there either. And I can come up with quite a few more examples that followed this course as well to some extent, and I really just ponder why that is.
How does an otherwise super adapted, captive coral suddenly just stop doing well for multiple people in multiple environments under multiple circumstances, and simply fade out of captive existence? Is this really happening or is it just me?
How about it, you having trouble finding a coral you are nostalgic about that was popular as ever but now seems long lost? Or more specifically, did you happen to loose your Pearlberry around 2013 as well? Like the rest of us...
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