new Tyree LE... tenuis??

meh in the 8 or so years i've been on rc. I can't even count how many times I've seen this same thread it's not changing anytime soon.
 
The coral is a nice Blue, but going from $40 a frag to $100 a frag with Tyree calling it LE is marketing hype if there are not set parameters in what qualifies a coral to become LE?

Dog Boy Dave, how old is your Purple Monster colony? Beautiful. I have a frag that has doubled in 2 years and encrusted 2" and hope to some day have a colony like yours!

Many say not to buy if you do not like the price, is this enough? The prices of coral are going up across the boards with air shipping rates going up, but the biggest contributor is the guys who sell $100 plus dollar tiny frags as all the people in the coral delivery chain think they should make more and raise the prices and cut the coral into smaller and smaller frags.

I agree that a wild colony that was brought in three months ago is about as LE as a Ford Pickup truck for sure! Whats up Steve?
 
pciscott said:
The coral is a nice Blue, but going from $40 a frag to $100 a frag with Tyree calling it LE is marketing hype if there are not set parameters in what qualifies a coral to become LE?

Dog Boy Dave, how old is your Purple Monster colony? Beautiful.

Many say not to buy if you do not like the price, is this enough? The prices of coral are going up across the boards with air shipping rates going up, but the biggest contributor is the guys who sell $100 plus dollar tiny frags as all the people in the coral delivery chain think they should make more and raise the prices and cut the coral into smaller and smaller frags.
QUOTE]

I think I got it in 07 as a one inch frag. I paid a high price for that frag and was happy to get it. My point is that there are a few corals in the hobby that demand and deserve a high price. There are others that are pure hype.

From personal perspective, I have some of the nicest pieces on plugs that I have ever seen. Some of them have been growing our for longer than a year. When i put them up for sale I always charge less than i paid for the parents. Even so, I always get PM's trying to lo ball my prices. Even if there are other corals available on the for sale forum for ten or fifteen dollars each for fresh cut pieces I still get lo-balled via pm;s for mine. Many people want to pay the same for a six month old small colony as they do a fresh frag. I think a lot of it is simple greed.

I am one of the ones that says if you dont like the price go look elsewhere for the corals. There are plenty of inexpensive corals available. Often you get what you pay for. Red bugs and Flat worms are cheap to sell. If you do pay the big money make sure you get quality stuff. Dont buy fresh cut frags. I dont. But as long as people are stupid enough to pay those kind of prices to have the newest thing then who cares?
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I donnu man, I was looking at your last frag sale thread and I was like man he has some sweet frags, and an amazing tank.. but damn his prices are 5 years ago.. hahahah, and I get that you sell like super grown in massive mini-colonies but for most people we want the variety. I was tempted to email/pm you but I didn't want to low ball you. I'd love to get like 10 frags from you but I'm not going to spend 800-1000$ Hahah.. Maybe I missed the 10-15$ parts as you for sale thread is a bit novel like not that I'm complaining it was a good read, and I did note quite a bit of talk of freebies littered threw out it! ;)

But seriously when it comes to LE stuff, or any corals look at the piece and say "is this worth X amount of dollars to me" if the answer is yes but it. If the answer is no, don't buy it. Who cares what the name is or if it's browner then a turd. If you like pay what you think it's value is to you. If it's not worth it for the person to let it go for that little.. oh well! ;)
 
Now of days, you should never buy any corals from vendors that do not have the species available in the description. If not, it is just trying to be over hyped by some made up BS marketing name. With the changes over the recent years in this industry, there are only a handful aquacultured corals that I think are worth buying and 50% of them are from ORA. The problem is that they are way over priced and you can buy them cheaper from a hobbyist tank than from the store. I think the perfect price for any aquacultured frag that is encrusting is between $20 - $25. As supply increases, prices will get driven down to a reasonable amount.

It is really not hard to cut up maricultured acros and get them encrusting on plugs. I have also seen lots of blue tenuis do well in captivity. For Tyree to do this, it shows where his true motivation is and it is a shame.

It is a good thing that we have educated reefers out here that can share our experiences and help others make a well informed decision before buying acros.
 
Ok....so we like aquacultured best but we are only willing to pay $20 or $25 for them. Mean while wild corals will sell like hot cakes for $80.

-scratches head-

I don't know how Daves coral prices are 5 years ago when the price of corals hasn't gone down in the last five years.

You want ORA direct...$50-$70 dollars at most stores. You read that Dave sells his frags for less than what he paid for his .....what more can you want. I guess it's just to have your cake and eat it too.

Look I'm not saying every aquacultured coral demands a high price...but if you paid $50 for a frag...nothing wrong with selling a frag of that coral for $30 or $40.
 
dvanacker said:
Ok....so we like aquacultured best but we are only willing to pay $20 or $25 for them. Mean while wild corals will sell like hot cakes for $80.

-scratches head-

I don't know how Daves coral prices are 5 years ago when the price of corals hasn't gone down in the last five years.

You want ORA direct...$50-$70 dollars at most stores. You read that Dave sells his frags for less than what he paid for his .....what more can you want. I guess it's just to have your cake and eat it too.

Look I'm not saying every aquacultured coral demands a high price...but if you paid $50 for a frag...nothing wrong with selling a frag of that coral for $30 or $40.
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I disagree, prices of frags have gone down a ton (from individuals) You'll find a ton of people selling amazing frags here, or on other forums in the 25-40 range. Dave is asking almost double that, some times 3x for most of the stuff in his thread. I also sold ORA for way cheaper then that back in the day, but whatever. I'm not trying to start a mess here was just given Dave a hard time. I'm very envious of his tank, and like I said if you look at his frags they are bigger then what most people claim as colonies. Heck if you look at some of his pics of his frag racks the frags have grown back into each other and turned into colonies!! hahaha :)
 
I don't disagree and I understand about the ORA direct thing...

The math doesn't add up at all. If it matters, I am picking up a pearlberry mini colony from a local hobbyist today. He grew out a large colony in his system from a mini colony and now he has to make room. The coral that I am picking up is 3 - 4 times the size of ORA's mini colonies and is cheaper than what they sell as their wholesale price, before the shipping charge.

The market is just messed up right now. Like I said, increase the supply of aquacultured frags, increase the available substitutes and you will see the prices start to drop.

dvanacker said:
Ok....so we like aquacultured best but we are only willing to pay $20 or $25 for them. Mean while wild corals will sell like hot cakes for $80.

-scratches head-

I don't know how Daves coral prices are 5 years ago when the price of corals hasn't gone down in the last five years.

You want ORA direct...$50-$70 dollars at most stores. You read that Dave sells his frags for less than what he paid for his .....what more can you want. I guess it's just to have your cake and eat it too.

Look I'm not saying every aquacultured coral demands a high price...but if you paid $50 for a frag...nothing wrong with selling a frag of that coral for $30 or $40.
Click to expand...
 
The messed up part is that some people would want to pay less for an aquacultured coral than a wild one. That makes no sense to me. The price of wild corals has surely not gone down...so why do we expect the price of aquacultured to go down? ORA hasnt lowered their prices....

The catch is a lot of people grow these corals out...some would like to recoup some costs and others are happy to give them away for free or cheap (which is a personal choice). But I don't think we can EXPECT everyone who paid $60 for a frag to grow it out and sell it cheaply.

Personally I think people like to propagate this idea.....because its what they want. If you don't like the price...don't buy it. But don't complain either.
 
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Hey, you see this happen all the time from internet sources and local frag swaps. TONS of misrepresented "LE" named corals that are nothing but a snare trap for noobs. Even intermediaries are often fooled or are willing to overlook the TRUE differences between look alikes. Its sad but if you want a lamborghini but only have the cash for a fiero, you can have a car that looks just like it, right? My feeling is as long as someone doesnt mirepresent what they have, then asking higher prices is their right. After all, they likely paid higher prices too, not to mention took the time, money and above all, skill, to grow it out. Shipping sucks too, I feel I would want a few more bucks to go through the hassle of packing and going to the post office.

So in the end, to echo others and add my own thoughts, if you dont like the prices dont buy it! Also, if you are asking high prices ya better be able to provide lineage to bolster that price. And my personal opinion based soley on economics, ORA can and should be less expensive than the same frags being sold be a hobbyist. It is their buisiness to grow and sell coral, they have shipping lanes setup with cost reduction due to volume and likely low overhead relatively speaking for the scale of their facilities. Simple as buying a swingset at Walmart is cheaper than building one yourself...

Oh, I also agree that posting a picture of the fresh off the plane mother colony and 1 month later calling it an LE is bordering on a scam! sad
 
what i want to know is since when does a wild coral start selling at say 100$ a frag then go tyree 4 days later then its 500$
tyree LE used to be something.
now it might as well say im wild, dont hold my color, and overcharged
 
The only thing that sets price is supply and demand. If we want the prices to go up, increase demand because when you are talking about a commodity that grows, supply is always going up.
 
acroholicreefer said:
The only thing that sets price is supply and demand. If we want the prices to go up, increase demand because when you are talking about a commodity that grows, supply is always going up.
Click to expand...

I don't agree. THe rules of supply and demand just don't seem to apply here.....when you take into consideration that the guy who sold you the large pearlberry for less than a frag could have easily gotten more for it had he wanted to.
 
Really, guys it's not that complex. Wild corals are cheaper as it costs the least to pay people a couple bucks a day in some 2nd/3rd world country (if that) to collect them. Maricultured, require that extra layer of labour, however the biggest cost on these is still transit. Aqua Cultured stuff here state side costs the most. It's a slow process to grow corals, and it's very expensive to run and maintain tanks, as well as high risk. Ask ORA how much stock they lost during the hurricanes years back, they had to go back out to people to repopulate some of there key lines and it takes them ages to get a coral up to production levels.

The reason why frags from hobbyist typically are the cheapest is because we don't have overhead, we have tanks because we enjoy them. If we don't sell our frags it's doesn't matter we still pay our rent, we eat, and we still keep our tanks. Ya we charge small amounts but typically it's to help cover the cost of running our tank but more so it's just because it's fun to make a little back, trade, or get a little extra cash in our pocket to spend on more corals.

Why LE? Because even though it's CHEAP to bring in Wild Corals, we all know a percent of the time they shift colour, or die. Very rarely do the best of the best trickle down into the hands of a general hobbyist, or not even the best of the best. More so the unique. When they do what are the chances they end up with a hobbyist that can not only keep them alive but get the coral to flourish? So yes, when somebody successfully is able to take a wild coral, and "tame it" that isn't your run of the mill coral. Those corals tend to get named. Do some vendor/people abuse this principle for marketing purposes of course. That's reality. Not every vendor is a hobbyist first, some of them are in it for the $$$, and have no other means of a career. (Shocking!!!)

It's our job as consumers to weed threw the BS, but wait why do we as consumers allow such atrocity to happen? Why are all these corals being dubbed LE, and priced as they are? Because we treat our reef tanks like Baseball cards. We all want our tanks to be different yet the same. We want that unique piece that nobody else has, but also that really awesome coral that other guy has. If we were all just happy with Green Slimers, Orange Caps, and Xenia (aka LE 10 years ago). Then it wouldn't matter but since we all post pics of our tanks online and all seek the approval of not just ourselves for our tanks but our peers. We all want something a little different, a little more expensive, and a little unique so when you do post that pic somebody goes "OMG IS THAT A NEWEST LATEST GREATEST ZOMMG!" and you can reply with "Yah but right now it's just a little brown puddle, it's no big deal."
 
dvanacker said:
I don't agree. THe rules of supply and demand just don't seem to apply here.....when you take into consideration that the guy who sold you the large pearlberry for less than a frag could have easily gotten more for it had he wanted to.
Click to expand...

Supply and demand only apply if the person if looking to maximize his profit. Many hobbyist don't care about making money off there reef and are happy to just get a couple bucks for there troubles and so they don't feel like they are being taking advantage of (ie giving stuff away).
 
dvanacker said:
If you don't like the price...don't buy it. But don't complain either.
Click to expand...

that about sums it up...

too many people dont do their homework and research, and too many people mislabel their corals... I used to do this, i will admit... i now dont refer to any of my corals as a "name brand" anymore, unless i know for a fact where they came from... ie ORA, cuz they are still on the plug, but if im jus told that by someone i am buying a peice from, i dont jus take their word for it... the "ORA" rose milli, will jus be called a red milli... thats it... I cant even be sure my "red planet" is actually a red planet, so i am very reluctant to refer to it as that... one thing i do know for sure, is that its nice lol... thats about it ;)

of course im probably not even expereinced enough to chime in here, but there's my 2 cents anyhow... lol
 
MammothReefer said:
Supply and demand only apply if the person if looking to maximize his profit. Many hobbyist don't care about making money off there reef and are happy to just get a couple bucks for there troubles and so they don't feel like they are being taking advantage of (ie giving stuff away).
Click to expand...

That was my point yes. I will add that very few hobbyists selling frags from their display tanks are "making money", even if they are selling frags for more than 20 dollars.

I spent a thousand bucks just setting up my puny little frag tank (I wouldnt want to tell people how much money I have sunk into this hobby and the on going costs). To have someone come over and ask for a frag of a coral that I had to pay $60 (and spend years growing out) and expect it for $20, well don't we all wish.

Anyway this has very little to do with LE.
 
MammothReefer said:
meh in the 8 or so years i've been on rc. I can't even count how many times I've seen this same thread it's not changing anytime soon.
Click to expand...

You've been on rc for a little over 5 years, in 2014 it'll be 8 :)

The thing is this thread isn't about prices at all, I think you guys are reading a bit too much into it. It doesn't matter what he's charging for them, it's what they are that matters. Tyree's selling his name down the river by associating himself with fresh landed, chop shopped corals. It's beneath him, and it violates the trust his customer base has in his judgement.

His prices are high, but he does legitimately captive raise the corals which has built a good brand for him. The problem is the people giving him LE's keep the whole colony, and when that colony is fresh landed and chop shopped they're pretty much getting top dollar for crap frags that haven't even been grown out in captivity thanks to him putting his name on them. He's basically giving chop shopping wild corals, and some really crappy wild corals at that, his stamp of approval.
 
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