Why Do We Continue To Buy Frags?

[Gribbliest]

I disagree with regard to mail order and corals. The online seller is at a disadvantage from the the LFS as the online seller had huge shipping cost per order. (of course no one is stopping the LFS to sell online if its so much better). The big box reef section with PETCO is a failure.

It takes so much time effort and space for an LFS to dedicate and the market demand is very limited relative to retail space for other business , like the freshwater/local pet store, that the online retailers are able to fill the demand in locations where the cost of individual shipping overcomes the inconvenience of long drives to a LFS (which may not be so local).


Here on Long Island, in one of the most densely populated regions in the country, where in a 5 minute drive radius, I can get gas from 5 stations, food and other things from 3 supermarkets, 6 delis and 6 7-elevens, 2 Home Depots, a Target a Walmart etc, I have to drive 40 minutes in ether direction to go to an LFS that carries corals (which I do) . Note that I will pass about 20 pets stores along the way.

While demand is driving up the price of frags, paradoxically, it's the lack of demand (and thus lack of truly local LFS) that is enabling he online retailer to over come the insanely (relative to price) cost of shipping livestock.

Well, I'm just sharing my experiences. Support your lfs for dry goods rather than saving pennies at BRS, and maybe they can afford lower prices. Maybe there'd be more of them too.

Take a look on FB at reefdreams in the UK. They have amazing dry goods, and amazing livestock.

I drive 30 mins each way to my lfs - I'm fortunate to be near ARS in Malvern PA.

 

[Sarah24!]

By buying inexpensive corals or participating in a hobby within their means? Most LFS start corals at $10-20, there's tons of budget threads on this forum. Nobody is owed the opportunity to have a reef tank, this entire hobby is a huge and expensive luxury.

You can golf with a used set of clubs that cost $20, or you can spend thousands on a set of custom clubs. There's people who enjoy both approaches, neither is right or wrong.

Hello,

Your right nobody is owed, but every person has the same equal right to enjoy Mother Nature. I won’t get into the rest of it because the debate will never end. But in My post for research purposes only I’d love to see those case studies.

 

[Silver14SS]

Good thing nature exists outside of reef tanks :)

 

[bobsfolly]

I just had a conversation with a friend who was snorkeling in Hawaii and was sharing with me the large schools of Achilles Tangs he saw. As for the theme of this thread, I do prefer aquacultured corals. As many have stated, I feel they do better in our aquariums. Corals have become crazy expense, but as the supply of aquacultured corals grow the prices will drop. Then again, I get many of my corals for my new mixed reef set up for free or trade from friends in my local fish club. While I don't want tiny frags, I don't want fully grown corals either. I like to have the corals grow into my aquascaping instead of forcing a large piece to fit.

 

[mnk]

No one is considering the fact that many LFS are struggling to keep their doors open. The prices of the frags you buy aren’t going up just because they are inflating the prices, they are also purchasing them for a higher price. You also have to consider the cost of maintenance. Keeping tanks running, lighting in the correct range, the electricity bill, etc.
Of course it’s not nice to have to pay more for something, but what will happen when the stores close? My nearest LFS is around 30 minutes away from my house, before it offered like 10% discount if you were to spend more than 230 dollars, and now he can’t afford to do that, because if he was to do he would go bankrupt and would have to close the business.

 

[PYRU]

Wheres the popcorn eating emoji?

 

[Saveafish]

Is there reall over 300 people in this thread?

 

[Hermie]

I actually prefer freshly cut frags. Frankly, I'd prefer if they cut the frag and shipped it without any plug. I always take the plugs off my frags the day after I get them and put new ones on. I don't want some aiptasia/ich/bryopsis infected plug in my tank! I've never had an issue with a frag dying because it was "freshly cut".

Well buying those frags isn't doing any help for new hobbyists.

Do Jason Fox frags have aiptasia? Do fruits and vegetables you buy at your local store have e. coli? There are practices and common sense rules that should be in place for all coral sellers and propagators and "Farmers," but because people know they can make a quicker buck, they take shortcuts. We know these shortcuts are taken, because why not? Make more money for the sellers. But the real problem is that the customer base is enabling it.

 

[mnk]

But there are advantages to fragging. Say you receive a single colony of a rare acropora. You can either sell the entire colony to a single person who will be the only one enjoying it, or you could frag it and allow say 10 people enjoy the coral.

 

[Michael Gilbreath]

Lol I drive over to hrs 150 miles just to go to a Fish store I by frags or check local club for stuff i'll by a frag but no way will I pay 50 or more for 1 zoa polyp sorry was here when they first came out then saw everybody start putting a fancy name to them and watch prices jump. So i'll stick with my 5-30 frags because that's what I can get not say peoples wrong for paying more that's there choice. Just ask don't look down on me for not doing it. That seem to be a issue with this hobby now sometime people think everybody should have this are that. Man if you like what you have it could be a tank full of GHA if you like it then i'm happy for you remember this is a hobby with 1000 different ways of doing the same thing. So let enjoy and learn the different ways. And yes as something new grows older and more people have price usually drops. Michael

 

[Paul Sands]

Well buying those frags isn't doing any help for new hobbyists.

Do Jason Fox frags have aiptasia? Do fruits and vegetables you buy at your local store have e. coli? There are practices and common sense rules that should be in place for all coral sellers and propagators and "Farmers," but because people know they can make a quicker buck, they take shortcuts. We know these shortcuts are taken, because why not? Make more money for the sellers. But the real problem is that the customer base is enabling it.

I don’t know if any studies that say freshly cut frags are more likely to die than fully encrusted frags. That’s just something that’s been said so much that people think it’s true.

As far as personal experience, I’d say I’ve had the same amount of luck from fully encrusted frags as I have with freshly cut frags.

And I don’t trust Jason Fox, cornbred or any other vendor to not have pests. I trust large vendors even less since they have so much stock rotating through their systems. They may not do it intentionally, but any number of pests can sneak through anyone’s quarantine process. Protect yourself.

 

[NS Mike D]

Hello,

Your right nobody is owed, but every person has the same equal right to enjoy Mother Nature. I won’t get into the rest of it because the debate will never end. But in My post for research purposes only I’d love to see those case studies.

this is a hobby, not mother nature. We take these animals out of nature and try to coax them into our artificial environment trying to play mother nature knowing very well that we will kill a percent for our selfish pleasure. If you want to enjoy reefs in mother nature, then you will need lots of money to afford the travel and snorkel/scuba costs.

It's totally misguided to blame the high cost on premium corals as the reason the poor and needy cant have reef tanks when affordable corals are readily available, and when the lights and other equipment needed to run a reef tank dwarf the cost of affordable corals

If you truly believe you know under privileged kids with medical issues that can benefit from a reef tank, start a thread, explain the situation and seek donations. I assure you the community will rally around you, send gear and live stock and it will happen.

 

[erk]

I imagine one of the biggest reasons people prefer to buy frags over colonies is because how do you fit a bunch of colonies into a JBJ 29 or an IM Nuvo? Some people aren't looking to have a reef, some are looking to just collect. Others might think that a reef needs to have 30-40 different corals in the space of a ten gallon aquarium. Those smaller tanks really aren't big enough for more than 1 mature colony.

I want a reef with a handful of large colonies growing tightly packed together. But that is also difficult if I buy full colonies. Large colonies don't really fit into an existing rockwork. They come with their own. Also not as natural looking for a couple large colonies to grow into each other.

I also avoid colonies because they grew in one type of environment, lighting, flow, etc and my tank might be so different it either kills the colony or I'll get strange growth. Really kills the aesthetic seeing a coral that grew in one direction them suddenly grows at a weird angle.

Then there is the whole sustainability issue. Australia, thankfully, has a very good plan in place for sustainable coral/fish harvesting. Meaning they can only take a certain amount of each coral off the reef and have to thoroughly document it. I believe only two companies are allowed to harvest as well. So the price will be understandably higher to support these practices. I imagine Indonesia and others might enact similar practices to save their ecosystems, so expect to pay hefty prices on theirs when they become available again. This will mean frag prices will probably increase as well.

This isn't a cheap hobby. Then again, most hobbies aren't cheap. Hobbies are for people with excess disposable income. Would say time as well, but automation means you need less time to keep a successful reef tank. With how much growth the US economy has had over the last five to six years, there are a lot of people with excess disposable income. Lots more demand and things go up. Honestly, I prefer this because eventually there will be an economic slump and if it is big enough you will see a very large exit from the reef hobby. With that exit will be a lot of companies that go out of business. Then it will be difficult to find anyone selling corals.

So take it slow, enjoy yourself. Those frags will be colonies before long if you do things right. Frags also have a better profit margin, so you are helping the LFS make money which goes to growth and hopefully make it possible for them to weather economic downturns.

 

[Sarah24!]

this is a hobby, not mother nature. We take these animals out of nature and try to coax them into our artificial environment trying to play mother nature knowing very well that we will kill a percent for our selfish pleasure. If you want to enjoy reefs in mother nature, then you will need lots of money to afford the travel and snorkel/scuba costs.

It's totally misguided to blame the high cost on premium corals as the reason the poor and needy cant have reef tanks when affordable corals are readily available, and when the lights and other equipment needed to run a reef tank dwarf the cost of affordable corals

If you truly believe you know under privileged kids with medical issues that can benefit from a reef tank, start a thread, explain the situation and seek donations. I assure you the community will rally around you, send gear and live stock and it will happen.

Hello,

Lets start with the first paragraph and I’m speaking professionally (on said issues not you per say), but these corals had no issues until, humans (society, pick a country ) started with pick an option, crashing into them, waste, over harvesting, now has put them on the red list. This was all do to humans, not to mention releasing non reef creatures in a reef. Sadly we won’t stop until they are extinct just like other species. Climate change has also diminished them and it’s again mostly do to humans. There are several scientific papers to prove this.

In terms of cost to go see aka barrier reef or the reef in Belize, and others, price is no different than what people do for typical honeymoons etc. if it was so expensive then why are they some of the top tourist attractions? Yes flying from Boise to Australia and visiting the reef is actually cheaper than even my 240 gallon set up (dollar wise). Yet some can get nano tanks or all in one tanks for 650 roughly, but that’s not including water, rock, sand supplies and then corals. Then when they want coral, or don’t have a lfs how many corals do you see for 30 dollars. (Probably a few but let’s add shipping now it’s 100). But the prices of lights and corals, equipment, supplies Are not cheap. This probably goes with dogs, horses, pick a pet. But still you said “we kill for selfish pleasure”. Hate to say, if you think we kill just corals for selfish pleasure, add fish, cats dogs, animals we have made extinct aka some rhinos, soon tigers. So maybe again society problem with money and greed is the root cause. If a rhinos horn wasn’t ivory and worth 20,000, people would probably not have killed them off. The same will happen with fish and corals we will keep raising the price, and eventually we will run out of them.

How is it misguided that I say poor and needy can’t have a tank? Let’s see a decent reef tank that grows all corals softies lps and sps, get going under a 1,000, including stocking the entire tank. Let’s make it even more fair let’s say they want a walt Disney, home wrecker some special zoas. Now to be fair I have lots of no name cheap corals and my tank to me is gorgeous. So could they do the same yes, but hey are still 35 each min at my lfs. So can you show me how one starts a tank on a min wage job and you may not live in Idaho but I do. Yes my profession pays more but min wage here is 7.25 and guess what a high wage here is 10 dollars an hour. Idaho ranked 48/50 for the worst in pay as of 2019. The main person at my lfs who has worked there for 7 years still doesn’t make over 10. I’d say this is more of a society probelm, because sadly anything under 32,000 in Idaho is considered poverty. Yet house prices, gas prices, are similar to Portland and Seattle markets, except they have much higher min wage.

How about this come work in the trauma center I do, and see for yourself. Let’s visit the cancer center here with kiddos and see what happens. 99% or the tanks we have in places are individually owned, and that person usually hires the lfs to maintain it. Yes they want them all, but as usual there is no money in the budget. Yet we all know hospitals make insane profits. I have asked Ecotech and hydra to donate lights, I was laughed at off the phone. I have found three so far that have actually followed through. Not to mention how long it takes, and the amount of paper work and department heads one has to go Through. You make it sound super easy and it’s very hard actually. People always say the community will rally around, those in need. Come see people who are in the er constantly and can’t get a place to stay or even a shelter. There is one shelter for males and three for females. Sadly males get very very little support, and 90% it’s well go find s job. Some that does apply to but others really do need assistance. The average for a person to get ss disability takes 4-5 tries with appeals, (including one who had no legs). Still think the rising prices are not s probelm, i am curious to see what you see daily.

But do to the fact corals and fish are mainly produced by Mother Nature why charge money? We saw what money did to Tigers and rhinos, and you don’t see the symbolism here?

 

[Sailfinguy21]

I agree that costs are really high.. but i started only a 1-2 years ago so all ive really seen are frags.. But some of the frags are just too much money.

My most expensive coral and i have 42 differrnt types, is a orange setosa i spent 65$ on and a bubble coral i spent 65$ on. Everything else was like 50 40 30 25 ect.

The bubble coral was about half the size of my fist so pretty large. I also have a pearl bubble coral about the size of my fist and it was only 40$. But ive also been guilty of spending 40$ on nubs.

I think some of these venders do need to make coral sizes a little larger.. Its robbery how some of these frags are pinky nail sized and go for huge amounts of money. Like basic corals like green stylo and a damicornis they are 25 to 30$ and mine are as big as my pinky nail.. its frustrating.

Some local shops chsrge crazy prices for zoas.. like 20 30 40 per polyp.. lol.. I simply dont buy them.. Another local shop the guy had some meteor shower and green cypgastrea i wanted.. his were about the size of my thumb nail or a quarter and he wanted 65$...


But recently i discovered a local shop that has really good sized frags for cheap.. I got s purple and teal colored cyphastrea for 30$ each and they were the size of two silver dollars. I got a red plating monti for 30$ and its fist sized. Some of his other corals are kinda high priced though like his orange setosa was 75$ for s nickle sized frag.


I think the problem with coral prices is most all of them are grown now.. and it takes month and months and months to get these corals to get into big colonies to frag.. so think about that for a second.

But some corals grow really fast and these same shops and companies charge a premium for them... Also alot of shops dont frag themselves.. they buy from ora and so forth so they have to raise prices to make a profit themselves.

 

[anthony.forbes27]

I’m going to say cost is the reason. I’m just starting out with corals, and losing a $20 frag is a lot better than a $150 colony. I have a 125 gallon and these frags look like nothing whenI buy them. However, if they can last, I’ll start investing in bigger amounts

 

[Bouncingsoul39]

You weren’t buying acros colonies 15+ years ago from your LFS

Why do you say that? Fifteen years ago the LFS I managed sold a variety of large Acro colonies both wild and mariculture regularly.

 

[ScottR]

Where I live, we have no way of ordering corals online. And we laugh when we see what the game is like in the US. A five headed Scoly for $2000 for example!

Most of what we buy is decently priced and of good size. This acro was about $50. If I chopped it up and fragged it, I could probably sell each frag for $50 online. But I’ll just give away frags for free to friends. That’s how it should be, right?

 

[EmptyWallet]

In Australia, at least until recently we had the opposite problem - generally wild caught colonies (Aussie only as it's illegal to import corals) and no frags. The wild caught prices are pretty reasonable (as the hobby isn't widespread here) and may make some of you feel ill after seeing what you guys have to pay (but that is offset by the ridiculous 'Australia tax' we pay on equipment, easily +33% on ecotech/kessil/etc even after currency conversion).

In the past few months that has rapidly changed and now most of the LFS's are about 25% frags and 75% wild caught. The availability of frags (which I think come from customers and staff not any farm or the like) has opened up the doors to a much greater selection (finally can get some of those designer Zoas which someone must have smuggled in ;)) and for us enviro conscious types, access to corals that weren't 'stolen' from nature.

 

[Opus]

I'm afraid the hobby is in for more of a shock. With moratoriums on collecting from more and more reefs around the world, and now even limitations on aquaculture, tank raised corals will be what fills the supply chain. Supply & demand will rule. Unfortunately, that mostly prices me out of the market.

I agree 100% with this. There is no way home grown corals can keep up with the current demand. Prices will get even higher and force a lot of people out of the hobby or at least limit them to just a few corals. Even with aquaculture, the diversity will be small if they are not allowed to collect stock from the wild.

I do get it when people say they like to get frags and grow them out but I'm always amazed when I see full tank shots and they have so many frags crammed into their tank there is no way they will be able to grow into colonies. Also, as the OP stated, the definition of a "colony" has sure changed since I started in the hobby. I laugh out loud sometimes when people post a "colony" shot for reference to a frag they are selling.