Im with you Kharn.
I would love to have a Ric garden, but just cant afford them here.
Man, makes me want to mail you some rics at half your price lol
R u in the la area
I don't get it. Aren't the Yumas coming from Indonesia? I thought corals can be shipped from Indonesia to Australia.
Most of the corals we buy here are collected from local collectors and sold to local buyers like myself, these sales tend to begin as auctions starting in the low double digits and escalating to hundreds close to a thousand and in rare case over a thousand, some auctions get quite verbally aggressive and become hidden auctions which often only adds fuel to the fire... -_-
In South Africa a Florida will set you back around 40-50$ US. They not cheap. I have purchased a rock of orange Yama with around 15 on it for 30$ so not sure what is going on with pricing. Must be a shipping issue. Florida rics being me favorite coral.
Yumas can be expensive in the states, but not as expensive as you're describing.
It sounds to me that Australia could really benefit from aquaculturing florida rics. You're saying that they are available, just really expensive. Typically florida rics reproduce pretty well, albeit a little slow, but definitely culturable by hobbyists. It might take a small investment, but I would buy a couple of expensive florida rics, and just start culturing them, fragging them, and either sell them or trade.