The whole coral pricing has become a joke

I've always wanted zoas but now they're so damn expensive :( I can only afford those brown palin zoas or those plain green ones. The colored palys and zoas costs a fortune. I can buy 3 frogspawns equivalent to a 5 polyped zoa :(
 
It seems that most in this tread complaining about runaway inflation are talking about zoanthids, the crazy names they're given and the carnival barker like attempts to hawk them to a naive public. I don't pay much attention to zoanthid pricing but I don't seem to recall seeing some of the nutty pricing reported here. Maybe it's a regional thing?

I'm not seeing those types of things locally with most stony corals. Most are still priced fairly reasonably it seems. There are exceptions - true "rainbow" anything always command a premium it seems. But true rainbow anything is truly rare in most cases. Colorful scolys are another example - like plywood the day before a hurricane comes ashore.

But all price rises in a free market are generated by demand exceeding supply in one form or another which is fair enough. Chicanery & other devious sales tactics will not support a bubble or price mania for long, if that is what is temporarily supporting price inflation. The market gets wise to trickery quickly, especially now in the Internet age. If a group of shmucks are fooling people by calling their drab green zoas "green goblins" and getting $50 for a $5 zoa, some smart guy in Saginaw will say "Heck I'll sell 'em for $40 and still make a killing." Then another somewhere else will go to $30...$20 etc. All overheated markets tend to return to the mean eventually.

I do see overpriced (IMO) stuff for sale on on-line vendors when I compare with my excellent local coral retailers. I had always assumed they were relying on customers living in more isolated areas with no local options,'so therefore it's easier to command higher pricing. But of course these vendors have higher costs involved so the price differences are more understandable and defendable.
 
SIR PATRICK said:
Agreed and disagreed.....

We are not forced- at least thse of us that know better...

But we are definititely influences- those tha dont know better...those that havnt seen this thread as well as many others that have been posted here and other big sites...

so untill EVERYONE knows- the term "GOUGING" will be used.....its what it is.

There are more new reefers daily than there are long term reefers (ehhhemm.....5 years plus) I said long term....from the begining- who know whats happened with inflation from the source.

The new reefers will think that more than $5/polyp is cheap and $1k/polyp is normal, unless those that know better state their claim here and wherever else, to make it common knowledge....thats what a few of us are here for- and even fewer have the common knowledge over- but for LFS sake- dont share.....they got bills to pay and employees families to feed....

Hence said inflation over the past bunch of years....and all those who didnt know better- but read this thread so far.....not to mention many other threads....

I am sure there are links to proof to follow.
Click to expand...

Sir you wrote a lot of what I was about to type. All you can do is put the info out there and hope it enlightens somrone.
 
I wasn't going to post on this as I find you end up with the same 4 or 5 guys who just arnt willing to give up their point but here goes anyways


I've been in the hobby since finding nemo came out, have been thoroughly involved in the hobby from working at lfs to starting and hosting clubs


Anyone else remember years ago we all including me complained that you couldn't get nice stuff that we all knew was out there , we all said " I'd be willing to pay more for x if it's nice"

Well I particularly remember buying large zoa rocks at the lfs for $80-300 well those deals are still there you can buy wild colonies just the same as you could years ago those deals are still around the big diff I notice today is there's now the Extra nice available to us , sure it's a lot more expensive but we no longer have to dream about it , years ago it was skimmers .....to overpriced for what their built out of , leds? Yup we all complained at the prices of that new thing as well lol

I collected zoanthids when they didnt really have names , over the years I've never stopped and today I pay the higher prices for the stuff I like , not blindly but I research my buy i don't compare apples to oranges but simply is "x" worth it to me

Some stuff drops in prices as the years go but others don't , you could buy hallucinations at around 250 a polyp 5 yrs ago but still today isn't much a diff so for that piece I simply wasn't waiting 5 more years I sucked up the cost on one decided to me it was worth it and bought one

I'll say this

Go through the zoanthids photo thread you notice 5yrs ago or longer we just didn't have the same section we do now , the proofs in the pics these just didn't come around back then , which brings me back to the we all complained about quality then when quality came with a price we also complain about that too lol

Realistically the hobby isn't much diff today as it was back then I spend about the same monthly , my enjoyment is about the same and I see new people come and go all the time

Years ago guys buying dry rock throwing it in water for a day selling as live rock .....these things don't go away and never will it's a research your purchases kind of world and at the end of the day every basket has a rotten apples you can't really blame collectors if you want to blame anyone blame the lack of regulation in the hobby as a whole in a world now dedicated to communication no one really understands what the next guys talking about lol
 
reefwars said:
I wasn't going to post on this as I find you end up with the same 4 or 5 guys who just arnt willing to give up their point but here goes anyways


I've been in the hobby since finding nemo came out, have been thoroughly involved in the hobby from working at lfs to starting and hosting clubs


Anyone else remember years ago we all including me complained that you couldn't get nice stuff that we all knew was out there , we all said " I'd be willing to pay more for x if it's nice"

Well I particularly remember buying large zoa rocks at the lfs for $80-300 well those deals are still there you can buy wild colonies just the same as you could years ago those deals are still around the big diff I notice today is there's now the Extra nice available to us , sure it's a lot more expensive but we no longer have to dream about it , years ago it was skimmers .....to overpriced for what their built out of , leds? Yup we all complained at the prices of that new thing as well lol

I collected zoanthids when they didnt really have names , over the years I've never stopped and today I pay the higher prices for the stuff I like , not blindly but I research my buy i don't compare apples to oranges but simply is "x" worth it to me

Some stuff drops in prices as the years go but others don't , you could buy hallucinations at around 250 a polyp 5 yrs ago but still today isn't much a diff so for that piece I simply wasn't waiting 5 more years I sucked up the cost on one decided to me it was worth it and bought one

I'll say this

Go through the zoanthids photo thread you notice 5yrs ago or longer we just didn't have the same section we do now , the proofs in the pics these just didn't come around back then , which brings me back to the we all complained about quality then when quality came with a price we also complain about that too lol

Realistically the hobby isn't much diff today as it was back then I spend about the same monthly , my enjoyment is about the same and I see new people come and go all the time

Years ago guys buying dry rock throwing it in water for a day selling as live rock .....these things don't go away and never will it's a research your purchases kind of world and at the end of the day every basket has a rotten apples you can't really blame collectors if you want to blame anyone blame the lack of regulation in the hobby as a whole in a world now dedicated to communication no one really understands what the next guys talking about lol
Click to expand...

Yup, some of the points I made, including the introduction to Blue LEDs!
 
Reeferz412 said:
Just a side note... landing cost from the supplier is to blame. Ten years ago you can get chunks of acans and chalices for dirt cheap. Before the name game existed. Zoas were considered pests. Now that this hobby has exploded in popularity, suppliers/collectors have caught on and are now charging a lot more for their product. So now the wholesaler that sells to the retailer has to worry about freight costs and livestock cost. Let's not mention DOAs... So by the time it hits the retail stores, you have to pay what you pay due to how much the retailer paid the wholesaler, and how much the wholesaler had to pay the collector/supplier. Just some food for thought.
Click to expand...

So true, zoanthids and mushrooms are all I have ever kept. 20 years ago no one I knew kept zoanthids and wouldn't dare place one in their tanks. Why? Because they grew like weeds, they were like xenia and most couldn't believe I had them, tons of them. Then it happened, the naming started, then came the lies, then the sky high prices, then they were all rare and people started emptying their tanks for zoas and palys.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2316723

Mooch
 
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organism said:
I wonder how many people talking about "supply and demand" in these threads have ever taken enough economics courses to know what those words mean. Looks to be somewhere around 0% with the amount I'm seeing that term misused. The coral industry is not supply and demand, the supply is common and the demand is manufactured. It would be like if diamonds were everywhere but everyone was buying them only from HypeMaster Deluxe Diamonds for 50x more strictly because their diamonds are photographed better.

What the coral industry is actually like is a car dealer getting a ton of junked $3,000 Volvos, painting them up like Mazuratis and then passing them off as such for $300,000. There is a term for that and it isn't supply and demand: it's called defrauding consumers.
Click to expand...


Sir, I'm glad you showed up. No one defines it better than you. The pricing excuses are endless now and bleaching is the new addition to that list.
 
QUOTE

The whole coral pricing has become a joke

rant alert

I get that people want to make money on corals but it's gotten to the point it's more about greed than making money. The zoa trend is probably the most comical of all. When I see 15-100 per polyp, I start wondering who in the hell is buying this? You can't even get a good colony of anything anymore because everyone wants to cut everything into small pieces and charge what they use to for large versions. I saw this "Nuke" green torch for 300 dollars. I paid 300 for our Huskie and she's a hell of a lot more entertaining than a torch coral. lol. Don't even get me into the renaming of corals. "Incredible Hulk Zoa" "Darth Maul zoa" "24k Torch" Give me a break. Last rant. The 40 dollar PURPLE HAZE mushrooms. These should have a street value less than a damsel. I had so many purple mushrooms in my tank I couldn't even see the other corals. They grow like weeds. I guess it all comes down what people are willing to pay for it. This hobby has a lot of people with more money than smarts, no offense, I'm one of them most of the time.




QUOTE

CONSPICILLUM

I'm all about solutions for issues that cause complaint.

If someone threw enough money at this to become the primary US buyer from most major direct sources of marine fish and corals, is that a viable possibility?

Instead of allowing the main few big distributors to buy up all the "good stuff"; is it within the scope of viability to monopolize the industry and regulate prices downward from the top down?

I'd seriously consider putting together a business model and funding such a project.



EDJFA said:
I didn't read this whole thread, so I'm going to throw this out there. Apologies if it's already been discussed.

Our local reef club, St. Louis Area Saltwater Hobbyists (SLASH), has a program for it's members called the Coral Donation Program. There are some rules to the program, but the basics are that everyone who becomes a paid member gets CDP points. Those points are used to "adopt" corals that have been donated by the club members. In return, they are required to donate back a certain number of corals.

From that point it becomes a bartering system. Every coral donation you make earns you a point. Unless it's a new coral to the program which earns you three points, I think. You can then use those points to get corals from other members when they donate them to the program. It's a trading system like others have mentioned, but it's tracked extensively through the club.

The list of corals in the program are extensive. Lots of SPS, zoas, and softies. It's pretty rare for someone to post on our RC page that they're looking for a certain coral and that they've got CDP points and NOT get the coral they're looking for.

What makes the program work is that the members are invested in the program. Sure, we still buy corals from the LFS, but once you have corals to frag and donate, that become more of an impulse buy or simply a choice to support your favorite LFS.

Oh, and the person who donates the most corals to the program annually is crowned Reefer of the Year and wins a prize package at our annual Frag Swap event. Usually it's $$ at a LFS and some other stuff.

As my tank is still a work in progress, I haven't been a very active participant in the program. But, when I look at purchasing a new coral, one of the things I look for is whether or not it's on the list of already donated corals. If I'm going to spend money on a coral, having an awareness of what is or isn't in the program already makes me feel a little better about spending the money, knowing that purchase might be also buying me other corals down the road.

If all of the reef clubs across the country adopted a program like that, I can't help but think it would drive prices down across the board.
Click to expand...



Best ideas I have read to come out of this thread. What do you think?

MUCHO
 
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Tweaked said:
Yup, some of the points I made, including the introduction to Blue LEDs!
Click to expand...

One thing I find funny or odd I guess is that not one person has shown an example of the things they use to get for cheaper lol they've mentioned zoas as a whole but no pics showing the polyps they would get back then or shown that it has indeed gotten more expensive for the same items .....at this pony isn't just one persons opionion?? all I've seen is talk about the names and expensive polyps yet no one has shown the actual price increase in the same polyps that they mention have changed?
 
organism said:
I wonder how many people talking about "supply and demand" in these threads have ever taken enough economics courses to know what those words mean. Looks to be somewhere around 0% with the amount I'm seeing that term misused. The coral industry is not supply and demand, the supply is common and the demand is manufactured. It would be like if diamonds were everywhere but everyone was buying them only from HypeMaster Deluxe Diamonds for 50x more strictly because their diamonds are photographed better.

What the coral industry is actually like is a car dealer getting a ton of junked $3,000 Volvos, painting them up like Mazuratis and then passing them off as such for $300,000. There is a term for that and it isn't supply and demand: it's called defrauding consumers.
Click to expand...


I have a background in Economics and it in some ways pays the bills. Every industry is supply and demand. And nothing you say will change my mind of that. It is interesting you used diamonds as an example. A rock that is actually quite readily available, easy to make synthetically, but marketed extremely well and a massive amount of the supply controlled by a single supplier.

I'm curious why you'd say that it isn't supply and demand where there is clearly supply, corals (common or not), and demand, us as buyers.


reefwars said:
One thing I find funny or odd I guess is that not one person has shown an example of the things they use to get for cheaper lol they've mentioned zoas as a whole but no pics showing the polyps they would get back then or shown that it has indeed gotten more expensive for the same items .....at this pony isn't just one persons opionion?? all I've seen is talk about the names and expensive polyps yet no one has shown the actual price increase in the same polyps that they mention have changed?
Click to expand...


I think that would go a long way towards the cause for sure. I alluded to it in a previous post, but not sure the best approach for that. Were large colonies of what we know today as Rastas or Sunny D's or utter chaos or as you mentioned hallucinations sold for a few bucks before? I'd love to see them.

The topic has morphed a bit maybe, or maybe I'm focusing on a poor part of it. But when we talk about gouging, maybe we should start with this. What do you think is a reasonable price for zoas, since that seems to be the focus coral for this?
 
Sparrow Hawk said:
I find this thread enlightening and I am glad to see this topic drawing so much attention. I hope that more people in this hobby will take a stand and refuse to pay these absurd prices. It isn't supply and demand but purely greed. It almost seems like people buy these simply so they can say "look at me! look at me! or they buy them so that they too can "get rich quick". People that stand to gain from the price gouging will defend this topic to the death.
Click to expand...

I agree my friend and it's great to see so many voicing their opinions against these sky high prices and the greed that accompanies it. What once was a hobby is now a money making venture under the guise of supply and demand while reefing, giving and sharing has been left behind. All we can do is put the information out there for other newbs to be enlightened as well.

MUCHO
 
When I read the posts of corals for sale in our LFS at our local forum around 4-5 years ago, the corals that time especially zoas were pretty cheap. Same too with Xenia, mushrooms and green star polyps m but now, everything is sky high except for GSP. They kept on insisting that mushrooms are rare, this zoa is not common bla bla bla while years ago they are just really really cheap. :(
 
sde1500 said:
an interesting read

https://************.com/2014/12/05...ptoseris-frags-shows-power-intensive-culture/

Edit: or not... hmm, um google Mind Blowing Corals' Leptoseris, first link.
I feel it gives a good perspective to this discussion.
Click to expand...

I've found the site mindblowingcorals.com and they sell one polyp zoas at $30 each :sad2:

Even a 3 polyp clove is expensive

And a single green shroom is $20

But the prices there were still much cheaper than cornbred though :lolspin:
 
WOW !!!! I agree, it does provide a perfect and excellent perspective and very relevant to this discussion and the title of this thread.

Mooch
 
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