bought a new blasto... did i pay too much...?

[flipteg]

i recently got into blastomussas from seeing pictures of the coral on here... i bought one tonight... the rock it came on was about 5 x 2 inches... i can see about 10 heads of different sizes from very small, to a large one about an inch across... it was really fluffy and nice looking at the petshop... i just put it in my tank and it's still trying to inflate itself... the piece was $90... the "received" date on the tag at the petshop says August 31, 2005... seems like no one is interested at this coral for the price... i can see how people can pass up on a blasto, as i have been passing up this same piece since October 2005... but i was thinking that in the 5 months the coral has been in the petshop, someone in the whole of Atlanta has got to have noticed it since it... i was just wondering how come blastomussas are expensive and are they worth $90...? obviously, it is to me ...

i looked at Liveaquaria last night and the search says "out of season"... MarineDepotLive doesn't even yield any search results for blastomussa...

 

[tomenugen]

Blasto were a hot item about 6-8 months ago. Died off slowly due to the amount coming in. Give it a month or so and the prices will again be high. As always, the more colorful variation (anything other then red and green) will command high price. $90 is actually a good price. Remember to keep in low flow and low light.

 

[Julio]

Keep in mind that the price on Blastos are getting higher everyday as they are now on an annual quota from where they are collected.

 

[klese]

They are very expensive for only a few polyps, till this day I have yet to get my hands on one.

 

[flipteg]

i went to another petshop today and i saw a really good looking blasto... the sides are red/orange and the center is light green... but the petshop was asking $150 for it and it only had 4 heads :eek1: ... i tried haggling and they wouldn't even come down on the price at all...

 

[Julio]

well part of that is that the collectors are having to fulfil other quotas as well such as yellow polyps, so they are tellingthe wholesalers that inoder to get Blasto they have to get a certain amount of polyps and the wholesalers do the same to the store, so in terrms the price keeps going up and up.

 

[Zoalander]

$150 for 4 polyps of any blasto is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much.

 

[xdusty6920]

$90 for ten heads is a fair price. i dont think thier price will start going up again and heres why.
- blastos will reproduce pretty quickly if kept in the right conditions.
-the market has been flooded with them for several months now.
-blastos will die with no apparent cause. this turns alot of people away from blastos when it happens to them and prevents people from getting them to begin with.
-with so many small colonys and frags floating around we've seen just about all we're going to see in the way of blasto morphs. how can you raise prices on a coral youve seen so many times?
i just feel they will become more of a staple in lps then they have been. more so like frogspawn, or bubble coral instead of some sky high priced rarety.

 

[YogiBear]

Yeah but Xdustry6920, they are a lot less common in nature than frogspawns/bubbles etc so that factors into it as well. While demand may be lagging now due to supply, once the 'newly' disovered collection sites are spent, Blassos will likely climb in price again. From everything I have read, they are uncommon and scattered in distribution at best.

 

[YogiBear]

Plus they are really cool corals. Personally, I find the merletis much hardier than the wellsos (which is what you got flipteg). I think to have sucess with the wellsos, you need to feed them. The merletis seen to do just fine on their own with no food.

 

[tomenugen]

yogi is right. the collection area are well spent. like i mention before, give it a few months and the price on blasto welsi will rise.

also, they do not reproduce fast even if given the perfect environment and do no die for no apparent reason. i have had some blastos in my tank for over 2 years with no problem and rarely produce more then a few polyps. lords and chalice/echino (aka-watermelon will drop in price very soon) on the other hand grows like weed, that was why the market got flooded.

 

[David Grigor]

Just about any color morph of wellsi ( at least in Mn ) will go for $90 especially if 10+ heads and depending on the coloration $90 could be a steal.....

I don't think you paid too much even without seeing a specific pic.

 

[xdusty6920]

ive had blastos for a long time. way before most had ever even heard of them. way before any crazy had ever started over them. and yes they will occasionally start to recede without any apparent reason. ive seen tons of post on people stating this and have experienced it myself. i have perfect params and a completely fish and preditor free tank.
secondly i can say that i have some morphs that have gone from 3 polyps to 15 polyps in a years time. all of my colonys put off at least 5-6 polyps per year. id say thats a pretty decent growth rate.
im not a noob. i give my opinion based on my experience and for you to say "nope thats not true" is alittle rude. your entire post is very "all knowing" and is kinda laughable. there isnt any "i think..." or "in my opinion". instead you say "this will happen" "that will not happen" "your wrong" they do not"

 

[flipteg]

just an update... i finally had a chance to get a picture of my $90 blastomussa... there's about 9 of the big ones and i can see atleast 5 baby ones... there's also about 3-4 really small babies... so small that i can't really make out any of the shape yet... i just know they're there because their mouths glow under the moon lighting... the reason why that one polyp on the top left is so deformed is because there is a row of 3 or4 babies lining up its right side... the bottom part that is being covered by the flower pot is actually a bare skeleton... it appears that there once was a big polyp there that died... the skeleton is covered with coralline algae now... it doesn't look like it happened recently... tell me what you think...!

 

[Bas Arentz]

i like the caulastrea and the mushrooms more than that blasto, i think it's to expensive for that color, but in europe the prices can't be compared i suppose.

 

[Mrs.kbmdale]

I haven't caught the blasto "craze" ye, ( or the lord one for that matter) but anyway, at least it looks healthy, with some babies. I don't partiularly like the color, but I am staying away from anything with dark coloring.

Now, that candycane on the other hand, would look just awesome in my tank! IF you ever decide to get rid of or frag that gorgeous thing, let me know!!

Brianna:rollface:

 

[gibbswagon]

yeah that candy cane was nice

 

[oddballs]

im gonna have to side w xdusty in that blastos do recede for NO obvious reason .me and my fiancee own a lfs in tulsa and we get a descent amount of blastos in and yes they do recede at times in tanks with great conditions that house healthy acros and other so called touchy corals with no problems?the other thing is how do some of you guys on this site get youf info from ive never heard anything about blastos getting scarce in the wild at collection sites. the people i buy most of my stuff from give me a lot of details about collection areas and other specs includng where and how deep some of the corals come from.i asked a couple of weeks back a question to the person i deal with(who just happens to be a marine biologist) how deep the blastos are coming from and he said from 20 to 40 feet down and some were from deeper than that . that is one of the reasons that blastos cost a little more than than some of the other lps but the real reason they are so costly is the owners of the retail shops or online make them that way!just my opinion .

 

[gfk]

I have about the same coloration and i paid like 45 for it. for 90 bucks you should have a bright red with green center or something. i love your candy canes, where do you live? lol

 

[pondfrog]

Your candy canes are a great color-- one can rarely find that bold of a color pattern-- congrats!!

That is a decent price for 9 healthy heads of blasto BTW,