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"?

[Reefer Matt]

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 personally like to grow out coral because I like learning about them. But I know at the swaps in my area, some vendors order in coral, then flip them. I have even heard rumors of vendors discarding unsold coral, because they wouldn’t survive the trip back. I guess it depends on how vendors regard the coral. Dollars, or animals?
I think hobbyists assume the vendors are growing these coral and not just moving product. I know a lot of vendors like you do actually grow their own stock, and those are the ones I like to support.

 

[dennis romano]

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

As for the stuff no one wants, change the name to "Rare, Super Ultra" and triple the price. Sad to say but some sellers do that and make a killing.

 

[Battlecorals]

As for the stuff no one wants, change the name to "Rare, Super Ultra" and triple the price. Sad to say but some sellers do that and make a killing.

lol. yeah totally maybe something like. BC "mystery signature" super-orange-sun-nova-nebular- blister-branching-borealis digitata! i'm on it!!!

 

[Haggisman14]

The other thing you also have to keep in mind is some of the pieces that ship in these live sales "look big" in the pictures, but end up being tiny nubs.

Personally I've always enjoyed getting "smaller" frags in the 1-3" range so it can grow out naturally in my tanks based off of my light, flow, etc. I"ve gotten pieces where a single lord head "looked" big, but wasn't even the size of a dime. Or an SPS frag that looked to be a solid 1.5", ended up being the length of the sharpened pencil point.

If you offered frags like that, you could do it multiple times a year.

I mean sweet baby Jesus...look at the size of the frags from your site...

 

[Mschmidt]

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

My next box can be these.

to that end, if anyone has fast growers they want dead, I'm pretty good at killing them in my display. one day I will not be able to say that, so take advantage while the time lasts.

 

[ReefLegends]

The size of the frags play a part, also each coral. I have one local vendor who comes over and buys colonies before they do a live sale and chop them up. Having a system that works and knowing what size the coral needs to be to recover also plays a roll. Most of my torch colonies grow significantly faster when I keep them at 7-10 heads and I don't cut them till they are 18-25 heads. If I take that same torch colony down to 3 heads it takes a year to recover to 8-12 heads, when I leave them at 7-10 heads, I can cut these colonies every 4-6 months. Same with my elegance corals, I usually only cut each elegance once per year and then let them grow out again.

If a coral is selling better than others, I'll often start more tiles of each coral. I used to call myself a cheap coral vendor, now I feel like I'm mid in pricing and people want absolutely the cheapest price per coral. Ive stopped taking corals to shows and let a few vendors buy entire tiles and take the time to heal each cut. I used to try and hold onto my corals for 30-45 days after cutting, before taking them to a show but the cost vs time isn't working so Ill grow and enjoy and sell complete tiles or colonies.

In 2019, my busiest coral trade show year, I was moving 1500-2000 frags a month with 6 raceways, my display, my frag tank operation was 96x24x16" and I had 20 zen reef 45 frag racks filled in each race way. Ive lost some of my momentum since covid, I've lost more when people want to pay the same price for culture coral as a wild coral.

 

[Mschmidt]

I even have a few nubs, cuz I'm clumsy, glued to skeletons to see them encrust.

 

[ninjamyst]

Vendors usually have on average 3 duplicate frags of the same acro during a live sale. Let say they have 6 live sale a year. That's 18 frags they have to produce per colony. IMO, that's not a lot given most vendors have multiple colonies growing out at the same time in their warehouse.

 

[SamMule]

Vendors usually have on average 3 duplicate frags of the same acro during a live sale. Let say they have 6 live sale a year. That's 18 frags they have to produce per colony. IMO, that's not a lot given most vendors have multiple colonies growing out at the same time in their warehouse.

This actually makes a lot of sense. Rather than repeatedly fragging a single colony, they can be rotated. Thus, increasing the recovery time for each colony between fraggings.

 

[GlassMunky]

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

Taking 20-30 frags off a 8-12” colony ‍

Thanks for letting me know to never support your store.

Things like that statement from other vendors and then things like this post from Adam are why I’ll aways support good honest vendors like BC!

 

[twentyleagues]

Taking 20-30 frags off a 8-12” colony ‍

Thanks for letting me know to never support your store.

Things like that statement from other vendors and then things like this post from Adam are why I’ll aways support good honest vendors like BC!

Im not sure I see an issue with this. If you have say 8 10-12" colonies of whatever you are calling this acro and you cut up 1 to make x frags keep a frag to regrow and sell the rest. Why is that an issue if you are happy and your customers are happy. What not honest about it?
I will say ive not purchased from either vendor, I have no loyalty to either.

 

[Battlecorals]

Vendors usually have on average 3 duplicate frags of the same acro during a live sale. Let say they have 6 live sale a year. That's 18 frags they have to produce per colony. IMO, that's not a lot given most vendors have multiple colonies growing out at the same time in their warehouse.

Well, not necessarily if it's just wild piece. Then it's just chopped up, hastily named and photographed for live sale fodder.

 

[Troylee]

The biggest problem is the customers! They all want the newest, best named corals out! It’s a designer thing I guess I really don’t know! I’d take the old skool stuff, pearlberry, upscales microcladus, short cake, palmers blue Millie, etc. over all the new designer corals.. to get the newest hottest things out you’re gonna get a snipit of a wild or mari coral that looked amazing in the photo when it arrived! You receive it most of the color is gone and then it fades away shortly after in your tank and then you post on here defeated because you can’t keep sps in your tank and you don’t know what’s going on and lost a ton of money jumping on the hype! I’ve kept sps for many years and it’s still the toughest challenge today to bring a piece into captivity life!! I feel most vendors don’t care, let’s make a quick buck while it’s hot! If we sit on it for 6 months or better like we should we’re gonna lose out on it because the next hack shop is just gonna chop it and move on! It’s a vicious circle and the hobbyist loses in the end but yet they keep on buying more and more in hopes of having the next home wrecker before everyone else and striking it rich Which is way over hyped btw! Haha…. I could go on and on but I don’t want to upset anyone.

 

[Mschmidt]

twenty 1" frags off a 10" diameter mother is 25% of the coral. if there are four sales a year and eight mothers, that means each mother is losing 25% of its size every two years. I'm a rooky in these parts, but that seems like a reasonable loss per coral. they probably take more of a beating in nature with storms and corallivores.

 

[Troylee]

twenty 1" frags off a 10" diameter mother is 25% of the coral. if there are four sales a year and eight mothers, that means each mother is losing 25% of its size every two years. I'm a rooky in these parts, but that seems like a reasonable loss per coral. they probably take more of a beating in nature with storms and corallivores.

It’s not bad but to have 1000 frags like Adam mentioned that’s how many mother colonies? It’s hard to sustain a buisness and pay for all the cost with aquacultured corals. It’s not impossible but you’ll never be the big guy or have the hottest corals out because of the hype created around the name game and the new blue be boo acropora… I feel for the vendors who are doing it right that care about their customers it’s a uphill battle but they got customers who are always happy in the end I know that much.

 

[GlassMunky]

Im not sure I see an issue with this. If you have say 8 10-12" colonies of whatever you are calling this acro and you cut up 1 to make x frags keep a frag to regrow and sell the rest. Why is that an issue if you are happy and your customers are happy. What not honest about it?
I will say ive not purchased from either vendor, I have no loyalty to either.

my issue someone cutting up an 8-12" coral into 20-30 pices.... thats less than 1" per frag.and if its a table (circle) then you might get more but then every single side of thr coral is freshcut. this is the literal definition of coral chop-shopping. Which im not down with. Adam sells coral frags that are of appropriate sizes (IMO) and still at great (better) prices than most vendors, hence why hes one of only a couple online vendors that ill support.

These are all my opinions as stated in my first post. youre allowed to feel differently.

 

[twentyleagues]

my issue someone cutting up an 8-12" coral into 20-30 pices.... thats less than 1" per frag.and if its a table (circle) then you might get more but then every single side of thr coral is freshcut. this is the literal definition of coral chop-shopping. Which im not down with. Adam sells coral frags that are of appropriate sizes (IMO) and still at great (better) prices than most vendors, hence why hes one of only a couple online vendors that ill support.

These are all my opinions as stated in my first post. youre allowed to feel differently.

Yeah I see what you are saying. As a consumer I dont buy fresh cut frags....typically. If you chop up a coral like that and give it no time to heal and start to encrust, Id say thats a chop shop and wouldnt buy either. If you grow 10 colonies of a coral and completely chop up one and let it heal thats different.

 

[TCK Corals]

Taking 20-30 frags off a 8-12” colony ‍

Thanks for letting me know to never support your store.

Things like that statement from other vendors and then things like this post from Adam are why I’ll aways support good honest vendors like BC!

20-30 frags is usually a necessity on a large round colony with hundreds of branches to prevent coral warfare or shading....

 

[Troylee]

20-30 frags is usually a necessity on a large round colony with hundreds of branches to prevent coral warfare or shading....

I’d love to see some mother colonies that size! I don’t think many vendors have them.. that would be an awesome thread with all you vendors actually showing the grow outs and mother colonies! I know it would put a lot thoughts to rest for many people and just be amazing to see! Love me some home grown corals!

 

[TCK Corals]

Chopping up a full 10 inch colony into frags would probably require an entire run to hold all of the frags. By the time a vendor got through selling them all, most would have grown back and fused into a single new colony. Ask me how i know.... (And this was done with a slower growing space invader pectinia... we would never do this with an acropora). This colony takes up about a 3 x 2 ft space