This BS Actinic coral phase has to stop lol I'm sorry. After most of the people in this store have been in the industry for over 25 years we still can't believe what is going on with these corals. We have enough people sitting around this place almost daily that can't believe how people are buying these corals for $500 and the number of people discussing how they're notoriously hard for keeping them colored up. In NO WORLD is straight Actinic an adequate light source for any sort of reef life. The specifics of what happens to the coloration of those corals in the grower's tank is going to be almost impossible to replicate from tank to tank. What people are ACTUALLY buying these days makes our jaws hit the floor. I mean you can have some stray sunlight or even light from a LAMP creep in and wash the coral out. Yet people are still buying these things. At some point the industry turned into "black light bowling" with coral coloration lol 2 cents
Time for the losing my mind rant LOL
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Exactly. Chances are about 85% the colors are GOING to change. I'm going to leave specific coral names out of this, but to me it's just nuts. Oh here's $700 dollars because it looks like someone shot your frag with 11 different colors of paintball. Let me save some newbies the trouble, IT WON'T STAY THAT COLOR. Some of them might maintain some solid original coloration, but none of us have seen one that lasted longer than a year. I would love to see someone on this board post the picture of what they bought, what the vendor used, and then post a picture of it looking the same 2 months later. That thing DIDN'T COME OFF A REEF lol It's the product of light and sometimes even dye manipulation.
johnanddawn
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Don't forget the camera filters being used today as well as post processing software
Caveat emptor
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You would be surprised, a lot of newer reefers spend big money on corals.
And I agree that times have changed, I don’t care for the crazy camera theatrics either. I rarely see any well lit aquariums with large colonies anymore.
All you have to do is go snorkeling in the tropics or sub tropics to see real Coral colors and shapes...then all these black light pictures just fade to black. I love the look of natural lighting in aquariums. So I see your rant...and agree!
smiley28
Hectorj
Might have to hit up the Aquashella peeps with this one.
Geebs19
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I thought it was funny when we went snorkeling in believe and most of the healthy corals are brown, green, yellow, red. My wife was like wheres all the pretty stuff and I said behind the cameras and lights.
Some of this depends on where you go. Most people go to the Caribbean or Hawaii and wonder why the corals are so dull looking yet probably nobody has those colors in their tanks - not only are they protected, they are ugly.. like going to a forest in New York's Central Park and complaining that there are no redwoods or cypress. Go to the Coral Sea, Austraila or other South Pacific places and you can see some wonderful corals under about 6500k lighting... blues, greens, pinks, pruples, yellows and all of the colors.
29bonsaireef
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Very true, acropora look great straight out of the ocean, and there are many multi-colored "rainbow" acropora that can be seen in natural lighting, just have to go to the right places. Something that many rarely see, is a freshly collected acropora placed under actinic lighting. I think it would blow most hobbyist away to see how bright a coral freshly collected from 10-20ft of water glows when placed under blues. Thing is these corals grow their whole lifetime without ever seeing that spectrum, yet they have amazing glow and coloration. Actinics might help make these colors visible to the eye, they're not what creates these colors in the zoox.
I completely agree that the corals vary from location to location. Waste water run off around Australia is slowly taking that out though. Also, I feel the corals are amazing looking for when it comes to NATURAL. But no one is going to dive off the coast of Queensland and see a Bubble Double Rainbow Purple Pickel (or whatever the random name they're throwing at them these days lol). I doubt there's a person on this board that can produce an Acropora in nature that looks like some of this crazy glowing stuff these days. It's like the name thing. Someone can get a coral in and throw it under 18k for a month then just throw some sort of catchy name at it and then next thing you know people are losing their minds "OMG I GOT A PIECE OF THE FLAMING MOON DABINGO!!!" - plus like one person said people are fragging frags. Like here's a good example of natural in one of the frag tanks here that's about a week old....
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That Crusso Kid
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Could not agree more with your sentiments about what has been happening at the frag swaps and corals for sale online with pics that have been manipulated. The prices have become ridiculous and after some time under more "natural" lighting the corals will change. I'm personally not sure why more buyers do not request a look at the corals under more "natural" lighting whether at a frag swap or buying online.
My friend, @dantimdad , went to a swap this past weekend and we were discussing this exact topic today.
dantimdad
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Yes, this has become an issue. You have no idea the number of people who just said "No".
The fact that some of the vendors would not turn up the whites on request, made me not trust them.
There was actually a thing of plane Jane green palys someone was selling for $140 for 4 of them but they had some crazy name I googled on the spot and could not find and were under pure blue lights so they glowed.
Enough is enough.
SeaDweller
2500 Club Member
I completely agree that the corals vary from location to location. Waste water run off around Australia is slowly taking that out though. Also, I feel the corals are amazing looking for when it comes to NATURAL. But no one is going to dive off the coast of Queensland and see a Bubble Double Rainbow Purple Pickel (or whatever the **** random name they're throwing at them these days lol). I doubt there's a person on this board that can produce an Acropora in nature that looks like some of this crazy glowing stuff these days. It's like the name thing. Someone can get a coral in and throw it under 18k for a month then just throw some sort of catchy name at it and then next thing you know people are losing their minds "OMG I GOT A PIECE OF THE FLAMING MOON DABINGO!!!" - plus like one person said people are fragging frags. Like here's a good example of natural in one of the frag tanks here that's about a week old....
So... are you selling either the bubble double rainbow purple pickle or your flaming moon dabingo? I’d love to see it with only blue LEDs! [emoji13]
smiley28
Hectorj
Kind of reminded me of the post by reefbuilders and how some pieces can be seen right off the boat. However I remember a couple of the first lfs I ever walked into used primarily daylight colored mh. The fact that this hobby even exist was amazing to me back then and seeing pieces or invasive coral take over a tank was the most appealing to me.
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I won't disagree that there are some corals that are made to look over the top through pictures. However, I do think a couple of points could be made here to contribute to this discussion.
1) There was a statement that actinic light can't sustain reef life, but isn't it true that the primary spectrum of lighting needed for photosynthesis is in the blue color range? Also, I'm pretty sure that some of the more popular LFS (ones with crazy displays) keep those tanks under blue lighting pretty much exclusively.
2) The comments about most of corals we see on natural reefs being more neutral/bland colors is certainly true, but that doesn't mean that the multicolored corals you see sold by vendors are faked. As has already been pointed out, a lot of it depends on where the collecting is being done, and it also depends on what the collector is bringing in. If collectors know what sells, you can bet that's what they're looking for (Jason Fox, for example, does much of his own collecting and seeks out stuff that he knows will be popular). So, my point is that the colors vendors can show at these shows are natural (I mean, they aren't being injected into the corals, so they have to be naturally occurring under the right conditions, right?) and also attainable by hobbyists. I've seen plenty of tanks where hobbyists have grown out beautiful colonies of "named" corals, and they're awesome.
3) Anytime, "daylight" or "natural light" is brought up in these discussions, I'm always curious as to what people mean by those terms. IME there's a bit of variance among hobbyists as to what qualifies as "daylight."
1) There was a statement that actinic light can't sustain reef life, but isn't it true that the primary spectrum of lighting needed for photosynthesis is in the blue color range? Also, I'm pretty sure that some of the more popular LFS (ones with crazy displays) keep those tanks under blue lighting pretty much exclusively.
2) The comments about most of corals we see on natural reefs being more neutral/bland colors is certainly true, but that doesn't mean that the multicolored corals you see sold by vendors are faked. As has already been pointed out, a lot of it depends on where the collecting is being done, and it also depends on what the collector is bringing in. If collectors know what sells, you can bet that's what they're looking for (Jason Fox, for example, does much of his own collecting and seeks out stuff that he knows will be popular). So, my point is that the colors vendors can show at these shows are natural (I mean, they aren't being injected into the corals, so they have to be naturally occurring under the right conditions, right?) and also attainable by hobbyists. I've seen plenty of tanks where hobbyists have grown out beautiful colonies of "named" corals, and they're awesome.
3) Anytime, "daylight" or "natural light" is brought up in these discussions, I'm always curious as to what people mean by those terms. IME there's a bit of variance among hobbyists as to what qualifies as "daylight."
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