What happened to the non commercialized hobby?

BroccoliFarmer

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Is it just me or does it seem like everyone in this hobby making it about making money? I remember about 10 years ago before I took a break it was all about beautiful tanks and competition on who could make the healthiest ecosystem. Now it seems like everyone has a frag tank or are investing in aquaculture vs the pure joy of reefing. I am sure this is more of a perception than reality just because of the nature of these sites. I just missing seeing the georgeous tank set ups that are more about aesthetics than optimal frag growth and room for frags for profit.
 

Lost in the Sauce

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Maybe you're looking in the wrong places bud. I'd venture to bet most members don't have frag tanks and the majority of those don't make even close to a profit.

It still is about the beauty and ecosystem.

As you can see after your 10-year break, The price of this hobby's gone up exponentially. If people are able and want to sell a few frags here and there to help supplement salt costs, I don't see in any way how that detracts from the hobby being about what it is.
 
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BroccoliFarmer

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Maybe you're looking in the wrong places bud. I'd venture to bet most members don't have frag tanks and the majority of those don't make even close to a profit.

It still is about the beauty and ecosystem.

As you can see after your 10-year break, The price of this hobby's gone up exponentially. If people are able and want to sell a few frags here and there to help supplement salt costs, I don't see in any way how that detracts from the hobby being about what it is.
Fully agree. As I said..probably a perception issue. And I am not trying to demonize people from supporting their hobby by selling their excess growth. Just an observation.
 

tehmadreefer

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littlebeard

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I think it's great. More coral frags for everyone! More supply usually means it will lower prices. Which in turn means I'll be less sad when I kill a less expensive coral.

It also will have a more sustainable effect on the hobby as a whole as then we will need less frags from the ocean.
 

Silvas

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Fully agree. As I said..probably a perception issue. And I am not trying to demonize people from supporting their hobby by selling their excess growth. Just an observation.
As a very much new member to the hobby, I can see where you might get that perception; just as I've been reading, lurking, doing research and gathering the stuff I need to get my tank up, I've found myself thinking eventually (unless I want to sink all my spare money into this hobby) I'm going to have to (at some point) sell frags or trade them just to afford buying new corals - the one and only LFS in my town doesn't believe in coral frags under $30 each for a tiny frag, there's a few more LFS about an hour to hour and a half drive away from me but that's less than ideal from a transporting animals for that long, the drive itself, and gas standpoint, and online sellers holy fish... corals get expensive fast.
 
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BroccoliFarmer

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As a very much new member to the hobby, I can see where you might get that perception; just as I've been reading, lurking, doing research and gathering the stuff I need to get my tank up, I've found myself thinking eventually (unless I want to sink all my spare money into this hobby) I'm going to have to (at some point) sell frags or trade them just to afford buying new corals - the one and only LFS in my town doesn't believe in coral frags under $30 each for a tiny frag, there's a few more LFS about an hour to hour and a half drive away from me but that's less than ideal from a transporting animals for that long, the drive itself, and gas standpoint, and online sellers holy fish... corals get expensive fast.
I can’t find anyone within 30/40 minutes of me that is just willing to ‘trade’. The few people that I have been able to find start comparing the retail pricing of what I have to trade for what they have and try to make a value comparison. It’s not even about the aesthetics but about what they can sell it for. That dynamic was a lot rarer 10 years ago. It used to be, ‘sure. I don’t have that, let’s trade’ not caring about what cute name the coral has. To be fair, I felt myself doing this as well until I realized what I was doing.
 

MONTANTK

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I don’t necessarily agree. Think about it. We are growing living animals which we need to trim. Instead of throwing them out and killing them, a lot of reefers are selling them which also helps fund their hobby. While I’m not crazy about the prices, I do like how it’s so easy to get corals from a hobbyist rather than a store. I noticed a pretty steep uptick in the amount of local vendors a few years ago.
 
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BroccoliFarmer

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I think it's great. More coral frags for everyone! More supply usually means it will lower prices. Which in turn means I'll be less sad when I kill a less expensive coral.

It also will have a more sustainable effect on the hobby as a whole as then we will need less frags from the ocean.
Except all evidence to the contrary. Look how expensive things have gotten. Yes we have more diversity but the costs are growing exponentially. Until supply comes back into balance with demand, the prices will continue to rise. I don’t see prices retreating anytime soon
 

Silvas

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I can’t find anyone within 30/40 minutes of me that is just willing to ‘trade’. The few people that I have been able to find start comparing the retail pricing of what I have to trade for what they have and try to make a value comparison. It’s not even about the aesthetics but about what they can sell it for. That dynamic was a lot rarer 10 years ago. It used to be, ‘sure. I don’t have that, let’s trade’ not caring about what cute name the coral has. To be fair, I felt myself doing this as well until I realized what I was doing.
I think that's a function of the high cost of "higher end" corals and their perceived desirability - if you're wanting to get that new hyped coral that costs $600, and you're trying to fund it through selling or trading frags you're obviously going to try to get the most value you can out of what you're selling; I believe this spills over into trades where it might turn into a coral+cash trade, or just because of the habit you're already in of maximizing value, you find yourself trying to do the same thing with trades - well if I can get 3 new, but "lower value" corals in trade for my "higher value coral", why not? sort of thing. Or, people will try to go the trade up route, increase their value with each trade.

I suspect it's not so much borne out of greed or just trying to make money off the hobby, rather than as a means to reach the goal of owning those expensive corals.
 

Stoney

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I dont think the prices have much if anything to do with the hobby itself. Prices of everything, especially collectibles like coral have gone up massively in the past few years. I'm honestly surprised coral prices havent gone up as much as some other items like trading cards, watches, etc.
 
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Forty-Two

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I think its also the cost as well. It seems to me (with a limited view of the hobby) that there are huge number of tools available now based on a plethora of research.

This has resulted in more options, and better options it seems to keep reef tanks - however the cost seems to have gone up. This combined with supply for natural resources going down has lead to a situation where people are likely funding their hobby through selling.
 

ReefCheef

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Honestly, everything in society has gone the same way. The rise of sneaker culture has given rise to a generation of people that care more about the exclusivity of things than the quality. It's led to every industry realizing that by simply decreasing supply, the demand goes up, even when they spend less on components/infrastructure. Hell, even governments are doing it now. Society is fixated on collecting these days, and reefing is no exception.

For what it's worth, I share your sentiment that this is the wrong direction. All these glorified blacklight frag tanks masquerading as display aquariums make a mockery of the hobby imo. To each his own though. I see how they could be addicting when you see an extra millimeter of growth each month, but this modern philosophy doesn't look anything like nature to me.

Personally, I'd rather make more money in my career than nickel and dime my way to breaking even in the hobby via the hobby. It's a heck of a lot more work to frag, heal, package, ship, cover deaths etc than just working an extra hour a week and having the same money to support my reef addiction.
 

Jekyl

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Is it just me or does it seem like everyone in this hobby making it about making money? I remember about 10 years ago before I took a break it was all about beautiful tanks and competition on who could make the healthiest ecosystem. Now it seems like everyone has a frag tank or are investing in aquaculture vs the pure joy of reefing. I am sure this is more of a perception than reality just because of the nature of these sites. I just missing seeing the georgeous tank set ups that are more about aesthetics than optimal frag growth and room for frags for profit.
Blame the naming of every single variation
 

Jekyl

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Don’t forget the multiple names for the same coral because someone else wants to have a signature piece
It's why I refuse to buy from LFS and online retailers. I only buy from local reefers now. Cheaper, no shipping and better health.
 

brandon429

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Cycling a reef tank is 1000% about generating retail money. all the training materials we can source for cycling lead you to a bottle bac purchase, though its possible to attain a completely free and equivalent cycle by waiting sixty days with water in the tank for the whole thing to self cycle (or 30 days if you're feeding fish food as a boost, cheap)


we have been trained to buy bottle bac in reaction to everything. Once bottle bac sellers don't write all the cycling info, that'll begin to re balance.

I guarantee you that any cycle you think might be stalled, just change all the water out for new and then its not (what's left behind is the working slick, and you dont need to test known safe water with guess kits now...the reason this has been omitted from all prior retail training is because it runs counter to the purchase impulse)
 
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littlebeard

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Except all evidence to the contrary. Look how expensive things have gotten. Yes we have more diversity but the costs are growing exponentially. Until supply comes back into balance with demand, the prices will continue to rise. I don’t see prices retreating anytime soon
So when we compare this to 15-20+ years ago, yes prices have risen. Cheap coral from throughout the world was easy to be found. Colonies were affordable and dying at every LFS. Now with bans and regulations, the flood of cheap corals stopped to a trickle and the hobby shifted. Prices skyrocketed.

15-20 years ago, who would want to pay for a browned out birdsnest frag when you could literally buy a colony for the price it now costs to ship it across the US? People were giving frags away!

Now, you'll have to pay an arm and a leg for those colonies assuming you can find them. Focus has shifted from selling corals to selling unique/colorful corals as the desire for them was greater. Why grow and sell a brown coral for $5 dollars when you can grow and sell a colorful one for $500?

So yes, longer term coral prices have shot up from the wild west days.

I think now though prices for non unique/non in-fashion corals(what happened to cheap hammers?) have stayed relatively flat. Example, a mystic sunset coral sold by wwc in 2015 was $39, it's still $39. In 2015 dollars that would be a $45 dollar coral. In summary I would still argue in general frag prices have gone down in the past 5 years due to an increase in frag supply. This does of course change when you look at those hot/in-demand crazy colored, crazy named corals.
 
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