Mammoth ,
You are my idol. the amont of sweet corals you by blow my mind. I need to learn your Jedi mind trick to use on my wife. just coming home with them isn't working now a days lol.
Thanks I think. I only bought the 1 piece not all of them haha, but I will tell you the trick! Credits! Always keep like 1$ of credits and then when your wife/gf asks.. Oh no I didn't pay for it I was using a credit I had.
In a bad way, i don't want any ocean pests do they hold color if they do you are doing something right in your tank!
It's like anything depends on the species for me, some hold colour some don't, but you can get pests from anybody. I don't know how many times I found red bugs, aefw, or monti nudis on pieces from frag swaps over the years. I find that if you give them a little more light then you would give the captive piece they tend to hold colour at least in my experience. Granted I've had captive corals I could never colour up either. I guess it just depends a lot on how lucky you get with placement compared to the tolerance of that specific piece. They also don't bother to mariculture very many brown pieces so chances are even if you buy some cheapie brown out you could get some colour back at some point.. Granted there are some pieces that I have and are brown, and will always be brown but I bought for the growth structure or just because I thought it looked nice either way. The brown pieces make the nicely coloured ones pop!
ehh too each his own, def. not my cup of tea. I get the most enjoyment out of watching my reef grow in from smaller frags. Placing large colonies all over the place for an "insta reef" type look just isnt for me I guess. I have never purchased a large wild or Mari piece and don't see myself doing so anytime soon.
Ha, I see where you are coming from I'm from Socal to. I used to be a big fan of the "SoCal" Reef tank.. 10,000$ of the rarest little captive sticks that never grow more then 2"-3" because we can never stop hacking them up to sell them to buy the next one, or trade with our friends!
I'm somewhere in between I really dig and am more proud of the stuff I've grown up from little nubs then anything else.. However, I don't really consider Mari pieces colonies either. 2 Branches encrusted on plug is not a colony as far as I'm considered. It is however a cheap way to get really nice pieces that often mimic there very expensive "named" counter parts..and I like have a little meat on the bone so when I do frag stuff for friends or trade I still big enough to grow back quickly.. When it comes to wild, I do buy a fair bit of wild always but that's just because I'm always keeping my figures cross trying find something a little different or unique. The one other reason I like to buy maris (and I know this is going to sound like a pitch) is because I feel on some level it's a better way to do things then straight wild (which I'm not totally against) but it gives the people of these islands a better way to sustainable harvest and make a living via a renewable natural resource, with minimal impact. Sure it's not full blown captive raised believe that all things need to be captive raised. I think mari's are a good comprise as long as they are just taking wild pieces gluing them to plugs and calling them maricultured (which I sometimes wonder about from some sources)
