Wondering, how many captive colonies a vendor would have to have on hand, to produce say 500-1000 fresh cut frags every few weeks for a "live sale"?

[Battlecorals]

I was chatting with a friend yesterday he asked about one of my corals that hasn't been available for a long time. I explained that I've been looking at a literal dormant blob for almost two years of said piece, and this got me thinking.

Regarding the title title of this thread, I think if I tried to do this, my aqua-cultured collection would probably be obliterated by the fourth or fifth cycle and shut down on me, or worse. Captive coral just does not grow or recover that fast period.

In my experience, the more you frag sps colonies the more they hate you. lol. This is probably why I generally don't show off my stock much. The constant abuse doesn't really leave much to be impressed by, but this is the brutal reality of aquaculture.

The solution of course is simply to buy wild colonies and frag them up, as I'm sure many vendors big and small do. For live sales that is.

any thoughts on this?

 

[Mikuchar]

I was chatting with a friend yesterday he asked about one of my corals that hasn't been available for a long time. I explained that I've been looking at a literal dormant blob for almost two years of said piece, and this got me thinking.

Regarding the title title of this thread, I think if I tried to do this, my aqua-cultured collection would probably be obliterated by the fourth or fifth cycle and shut down on me, or worse. Captive coral just does not grow or recover that fast period.

In my experience, the more you frag sps colonies the more they hate you. lol. This is probably why I generally don't show off my stock much. The constant abuse doesn't really leave much to be impressed by, but this is the brutal reality of aquaculture.

The solution of course is simply to buy wild colonies and frag them up, as I'm sure many vendors big and small do. For live sales that is.

any thoughts on this?

Aren't wild colonies a bit more fragile to begin with?

 

[Reefer Matt]

They may also just flip them. Order wholesale, sell retail. No growout necessary.

 

[Jasonak]

You would have to narrow down your collection or up your space, 20 colonies of Lasermelon 20 colonies of BC unicorn or what ever the number would be I would think would take up a truck load of space. You have sooooo much variety way more than any other vendor. They may have a dozen top shelf corals and bring in new ones here and there but they have allot of the staples the PC rainbow ,aussie golds etc

Do you mind sharing how many colonies of each do you keep?

 

[Battlecorals]

You would have to narrow down your collection or up your space, 20 colonies of Lasermelon 20 colonies of BC unicorn or what ever the number would be I would think would take up a truck load of space. You have sooooo much variety way more than any other vendor. They may have a dozen top shelf corals and bring in new ones here and there but they have allot of the staples the PC rainbow ,aussie golds etc

Do you mind sharing how many colonies of each do you keep?

As many as I can. This is probably the only real trick I have to keeping a reasonably steady supply.

Of course the stuff no one wants always grows the fastest! Lol

 

[Jasonak]

Of course the stuff no one wants always grows the fastest! Lol

True that! Ive gave away so much coral this year,,,well last year now
But its all good, coral karma

 

[Battlecorals]

True that! Ive gave away so much coral this year,,,well last year now
But its all good, coral karma

Im to the point that when the digitata covers have the rack, I just take it out and pressure wash it. lol.

 

[KrisReef]

They taught us about this in biology class. The concept was call "Spontaneous Generation."

YOu put a bunch of coral plugs in the dark with plenty of amino acids and proper dKh and wait 10 days and the frag plugs will start growing frags.

I'm pretty sure that's how some of these sales cycles are maintained.

 

[Jasonak]

Maybe just start gluing your finger nail clippings to frags plugs see if you can grow some clones,, like Micheal Keaton in multiplicity , with half a dozen Adams running around you could have a live sale weekly

 

[TCK Corals]

I was chatting with a friend yesterday he asked about one of my corals that hasn't been available for a long time. I explained that I've been looking at a literal dormant blob for almost two years of said piece, and this got me thinking.

Regarding the title title of this thread, I think if I tried to do this, my aqua-cultured collection would probably be obliterated by the fourth or fifth cycle and shut down on me, or worse. Captive coral just does not grow or recover that fast period.

In my experience, the more you frag sps colonies the more they hate you. lol. This is probably why I generally don't show off my stock much. The constant abuse doesn't really leave much to be impressed by, but this is the brutal reality of aquaculture.

The solution of course is simply to buy wild colonies and frag them up, as I'm sure many vendors big and small do. For live sales that is.

any thoughts on this?

Having several to a dozen larger growout colonies of the same coral (not wild/maricultured pieces). Also allowing the corals to grow to a certain size… taking 20-30 solid sized frags off of a 8-12” colony that was grown in the system from a frag is a lot less stressful to the coral than doing the same on a 4 inch mini colony or something that wasn’t grown in the system it’s known its entire life. The biggest issue with this becomes space… the colony that the frags came from will have grown back within a few months. While that happens the same process from a duplicate growout

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

One would think that you could see some of these farms from the space station! I can’t follow them but I suspect that there’s only a few cuts of “a” stock being sold on those sales and most is probably like your digitata. I also feel that there’s a lot of hacking and flipping going on. Why I only buy from a select few…. and wouldn’t be caught dead at a live sale. I think I thought about it once….but $25 for a box and $75 for shipping or whatever doesn’t make sense to me. I’m pretty sure a $300 battle box would blow the doors off a $300 live sale purchase. Purely opinion though.

 

[leepink23]

when I went to top shelf and saw their huge aquaculture I was shocked they had so many massive colonies for aquaculture. It was insane. That said I love your corals!!!

 

[RiptideAquaculture]

I was chatting with a friend yesterday he asked about one of my corals that hasn't been available for a long time. I explained that I've been looking at a literal dormant blob for almost two years of said piece, and this got me thinking.

Regarding the title title of this thread, I think if I tried to do this, my aqua-cultured collection would probably be obliterated by the fourth or fifth cycle and shut down on me, or worse. Captive coral just does not grow or recover that fast period.

In my experience, the more you frag sps colonies the more they hate you. lol. This is probably why I generally don't show off my stock much. The constant abuse doesn't really leave much to be impressed by, but this is the brutal reality of aquaculture.

The solution of course is simply to buy wild colonies and frag them up, as I'm sure many vendors big and small do. For live sales that is.

any thoughts on this?

Ha! A trick question! We are only allowed 4 Live sales in a calendar! But the pressure to cut the corner so to say is definitely there! The biggest downside to chopping mariculture's up hucking them out the door would be, the colors get so much nicer when they have been in the tank for 6 months or longer and they generally don't seem to be as forgiving during shipping. Im more curious how customers feel about buying that sort of product. It's definitely going to change colors in their tank. My hot take on customers who are doing acro dominated tanks, generally aren't intentionally looking for risk without the promise of reward.

 

[100gallonreefer]

Im to the point that when the digitata covers have the rack, I just take it out and pressure wash it. lol.

Same here. When my nuclear candy cane or Leng si Monti mature they go into calcium reactor

 

[100gallonreefer]

I was chatting with a friend yesterday he asked about one of my corals that hasn't been available for a long time. I explained that I've been looking at a literal dormant blob for almost two years of said piece, and this got me thinking.

Regarding the title title of this thread, I think if I tried to do this, my aqua-cultured collection would probably be obliterated by the fourth or fifth cycle and shut down on me, or worse. Captive coral just does not grow or recover that fast period.

In my experience, the more you frag sps colonies the more they hate you. lol. This is probably why I generally don't show off my stock much. The constant abuse doesn't really leave much to be impressed by, but this is the brutal reality of aquaculture.

The solution of course is simply to buy wild colonies and frag them up, as I'm sure many vendors big and small do. For live sales that is.

any thoughts on this?

I agree. I’ve seen what my corals have done over the years. All have a break in period before they grow at whatever pace it may be. None grow at stratospheric pace immediately. Som are faster than others but never enough for mass frags

 

[acro-ed]

It would appear that many retailers have a reasonable mix of tank grown stuff they’ve been growing and maricultured/wild import stuff they’re chop-shopping that probably needs longer in their system, but hey, it’s a business.

I think for truly tank grown stuff it could be measured in (1”)frags/gallon/year. The best I ever did when I was trying for volume and still having growth exceed sales was about 3 frags/gallon/year, but I’m sure guys like Adam are doing well better than that.

-Ed

 

[crazyfishmom]

No idea… shipping 20 Fraga a week would be too much for me!

 

[Battlecorals]

They may also just flip them. Order wholesale, sell retail. No growout necessary.

Right. That seems to be the typical fare for some of these offer recurring “live sales”.

Is that cool now? Or maybe some people don’t realize that’s what’s going on?

 

[100gallonreefer]

Right. That seems to be the typical fare for some of these offer recurring “live sales”.

Is that cool now? Or maybe some people don’t realize that’s what’s going on?

It’s not cool if you don’t realize it and think they’ve been in captivity for a long period

 

[Reefing102]

Right. That seems to be the typical fare for some of these offer recurring “live sales”.

Is that cool now? Or maybe some people don’t realize that’s what’s going on?

I think a lot don’t realize it or don’t think in depth about it. Others likely don’t care and want the “cheap” coral. Others realize it but still buy because the color is what they want or they realize it and buy it on speculation that the “special name” will grow in popularity/rarity and be able to make a quick buck