What do you do or how do you feel when the corals you receive look nothing like the venders pictures?

[Spazizz]

I’ve bought from two different venders where the corals colors looks nothing like the online pictures. The toadstool is the most disappointing since its straight up brown. The devils hand isn’t as bad because I feel like there is some potential color wise and I like the shape and growth pattern, I drove more than an hour to get it so it was disappointing to see it not look like online pictures but I did buy any ways for the reasons I mentioned. At best I feel like I could leave google review for these two companies with pics to warn other reefers.

I’ve also made another online order with a different company and I’m totally feeling uneasy about it not looking like their pic but they at least say they take pictures under whiter lighting and they try represent the coral accurately.

My lighting is probably 12-14k temp wise in these pics but even with blue/actinic these corals are nothing like the vender pics.

 

[MarshallB]

Lights make a very big difference. Eyeballing it these do look like the advertised corals. The vendor pictures do look like they were using high intensity UV/Blue lights. The corals I buy from my LFS look different when I put them in my tank due to different spectrum being used. I bought a monti over the weekend that looked very red at the LFS, but looks way more orange/pink in my tank.

 

[Tamberav]

I like venders that post photos under both white and blue spectrum.

What really bugs me is when I order a torch or frogspawn or such and when it arrives it’s clearly receded from the base and has skeleton showing all around the edge but you can’t see it when open in the photos they took. Don’t ship me unhealthy stuff... come on.

 

[vetteguy53081]

For this very reason I quit buying from many vendors

 

[LBReefer]

For this very reason I quit buying from many vendors

Me too.

I found POTO and Cali Kid to be the most realistic in their photos.

 

[monti mike]

I support my LFS now and won’t buy from the vendor again. I learned my lesson the hard way!

 

[kartrsu]

I am curious how others handle this too. I most recently feel like I got duped during Black Friday. Upsets me but I should have known better that the coloration was too good to be true.

Pink hammer stock vs actual (orange filter). What type of photoshopping is this???

What upsets me the most is the broken skeletal structure. How does this go for $200 normally???

Also, what do you guys do when the coral is damaged vs stock photo? See my lobo stock photo and the actual received. Flesh peeled from skeleton and judging by growth around the exposed area, looks like it’s been the case for a while.

 

[kartrsu]

Me too.

I found POTO and Cali Kid to be the most realistic in their photos.

Unique corals has also been great on color representation.

 

[MarshallB]

I am curious how others handle this too. I most recently feel like I got duped during Black Friday. Upsets me but I should have known better that the coloration was too good to be true.

Pink hammer stock vs actual (orange filter). What type of photoshopping is this???


What upsets me the most is the broken skeletal structure. How does this go for $200 normally???


Also, what do you guys do when the coral is damaged vs stock photo? See my lobo stock photo and the actual received. Flesh peeled from skeleton and judging by growth around the exposed area, looks like it’s been the case for a while.

I would venture to bet that a place that is willing to edit images and willingly sells damaged pieces wont lift a finger to help.

The best option is to just never buy from that place again, warn others, etc.

I've had good luck with world wide corals. I like that most of their images let you hover over them to see what they look like under all white light. The five frags I have from them I felt were fairly represented.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I buy from private sellers at this point
This past Friday I spent $120 and got these colonies

 

[92Miata]

Lights make a very big difference. Eyeballing it these do look like the advertised corals. The vendor pictures do look like they were using high intensity UV/Blue lights. The corals I buy from my LFS look different when I put them in my tank due to different spectrum being used. I bought a monti over the weekend that looked very red at the LFS, but looks way more orange/pink in my tank.

That's not light. The first photo, maybe, but the second one is all sorts of wrong. It's a sloppy photoshop job.

 

[Tamberav]

I would venture to bet that a place that is willing to edit images and willingly sells damaged pieces wont lift a finger to help.

The best option is to just never buy from that place again, warn others, etc.

I've had good luck with world wide corals. I like that most of their images let you hover over them to see what they look like under all white light. The five frags I have from them I felt were fairly represented.

You would be correct.

I actually had the best luck from active members on this forum in the livestock section. They are quick with doa refunds and have always sent healthy pieces. I only buy from active members that seem to sell fairly regularly though.

I still try to use local first but sometimes I can’t find something which opens me up to being burned.

 

[footgal]

Dang man I’m sorry you had to deal with this crap. POTO, ASD (only on LPS and softies really), UC, and WWC seem to have pretty good picture-to-real-life comparisons. I really love POTO, their stuff is A+ awesome and the auctions they have every week always have a couple hidden gems.

My favorite by far is buying from hobbyists because often, they are just selling overgrowth from their display tanks so the corals are very very healthy and happy (and cheaper!). Buying from individuals also offers the safety of being able to ask for pics under whites or a specific angle to ensure that the pics are current. This will probably help you prevent poorly represented purchases in the future and hopefully you’ll also find a really good deal!

At least the corals you got were healthy, it’s one thing to photoshop a coral to nearly unrecognizable proportions but it’s a whole different game when the pictures don’t represent the health of the coral. Nothing makes me more upset than seeing a picture of a healthy coral (in my case- a scoly), buying it, then recovering a coral thats not as bright as the pic at all AND has damage/tissue recession that you can clearly tell was not caused by shipping. That really rubs me the wrong way, because I paid for a healthy coral that was WYSIWYG and received a coral that needed a lot of extra care that I wasn’t really all that prepared for.

Long story short, buying from hobbyists will probably give you better results. I’m glad that the corals you did receive were healthy but I’m upset for you that they were misrepresented in their photos online. Best of luck to you and your future purchases!

 

[Spazizz]

@Tamberav I think euphyllia is the worst, venders call them orange or yellow and they end up being green irl.

@footgal I’d much rather buy from local hobbyist but I’ve been looking for uncommon soft corals where as most people these days have sps.

 

[don_chuwish]

Having just dipped my hand into selling off some surplus corals I can say it was important to me that I get photos that look like what my eye sees. Turned out it was pretty easy - IceCap 20K filter on my iPhone is all it took. The 14K one made things look freakishly neon, but 20K is perfect:

 

[Tamberav]

@Tamberav I think euphyllia is the worst, venders call them orange or yellow and they end up being green irl.

@footgal I’d much rather buy from local hobbyist but I’ve been looking for uncommon soft corals where as most people these days have sps.

Yeah I bought a gold looking octospawn that is definitely green lol

Have you tried marine farmers? I haven’t bought a softy from them but they actually sent me a truly orange hammer.

 

[homer1475]

The longer your in the hobby, and participate in live sales, browse vendors websites, etc, you'll get to notice the extremely photoshopped pics of corals.

One tell tale sign in the color of a frag rack or frag plug. If it's blue, it's a dead giveaway of a photoshooped pic.

 

[footgal]

The longer your in the hobby, and participate in live sales, browse vendors websites, etc, you'll get to notice the extremely photoshopped pics of corals.

One tell tale sign in the color of a frag rack or frag plug. If it's blue, it's a dead giveaway of a photoshooped pic.

Truth. Slight blue tint is usually okay but a super super blue plug is the tell tale sign of photoshop. If I take a pic of an empty plug in my tank, it comes out tinted just a tiny bit blue. If I mess with pretty much any setting, the plug turns very blue. Also works with white eggcrate backgrounds. If a coral ever looks just a little too pretty to be true (say a torch) and you absolutely cannot find anything even remotely close on R2R or through Google then it’s probably also photoshopped. Do your research!

In OP’s case though, both of the pics of leathers provided weren’t easy to tell if they were photoshopped. They both actually exist and the vendor did a pretty good job of hiding the photoshop. Neon greens never photograph well for me, they always come out glowy. Honestly, if I had looked at whatever website OP did and wanted those leathers, I would’ve been confident that I would receive them as pictured because it’s just a fairly common neon green leather. He obviously got scammed and I can’t really tell if the devils hand is even the same coral as the one in the pic. I’m sorry OP, AquaSD has a lot of neon green leathers usually and their pics are usually pretty on point if you run blue lighting.

 

[vetteguy53081]

WHAT DO I DO ?????

 

[LeahAnn]

I’ve bought from two different venders where the corals colors looks nothing like the online pictures. The toadstool is the most disappointing since its straight up brown. The devils hand isn’t as bad because I feel like there is some potential color wise and I like the shape and growth pattern, I drove more than an hour to get it so it was disappointing to see it not look like online pictures but I did buy any ways for the reasons I mentioned. At best I feel like I could leave google review for these two companies with pics to warn other reefers.

I’ve also made another online order with a different company and I’m totally feeling uneasy about it not looking like their pic but they at least say they take pictures under whiter lighting and they try represent the coral accurately.

My lighting is probably 12-14k temp wise in these pics but even with blue/actinic these corals are nothing like the vender pics.

Ive had the same luck on ebay with 2 sellers. The last one i bought 3 times from, being a newbie at frags i believed her when she said, theyre just stressed and will be ok. Well some did do great but colors not what was picture. most recently i bought a purple and green acro, sposed to be overnighted paid 45 for overnight, plus got 3 other corals. Well it took 4 days, the water temp was 68 everyone was pale. The lepto had broken off the frag. So 3 wks later now the acro died. She reimbursed 15 of 45 of shipping. Wont buy there again. Here in Omaha there is only 1 store with corals and they recently moved and lost most if them.. . Any suggestions of where you order and recieve what is shown? Thanks for reading my blog. Open to suggestions.