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.
HammerLover, I find it amazing but validating that the polyp pimping ( aka price gouging ) has stretched its greedy hands all the way to Philippines, Manila.
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1304962&highlight=Pimpin+Aint+Easy
To even hear someone say that mushrooms are rare is just another ploy to leverage your wallet. The excuses and lies I have heard to garner a high dollar sale to a newb never ceases to amaze me.
The reasons ( excuses ) that I have heard are reaching a fevered pitch.
1. It's what the market will bear.
2. Oh it's just supply and demand. Fail.
3. The cost of reefing has gone up :lolspin:
4. It's due to the economy. Really?
5. Gas prices are higher. ( I heard this 3 years ago ), and how much is gas today?
6. It's just a cycle, you have to wait till it cycles downward again. Wow, for coral?
7. The high prices are due to advancement it reef technology. But that should lower cost.
8. These sky high prices are good for reefing. So why are so many forums dead all over the web. Why have so many reefers I know informed me this is why they are leaving or have left?
9. The hobby is growing faster than the supply. Now I have a headache.
10. There's a limited supply of corals. No, there isn't.
11. Corals grow so slow, at least the rare ultra ones do and that's why they are so expensive. Really?
And the newest addition to this list......it's because of bleaching. Even though wild caught corals being brought to market has decreased over the years due to maricultured corals supplementing the market. Plus, everyone now has a frag tank.
The eyes of many have now seen the collective game that is perpetrated under the guise of all the excuses listed above. Please do not allow yourselves to be "CAUGHT UP" with the lies and the hype. Lets delve into this a bit deeper. Please read what my friend Anthony, a pillar of knowledge an intellect in the reefing community says of it. Just humor me and start at paragraph # 6.
"the extremes to which some folks get caught up in during the buying frenzy are, well… extreme. An artificial and grossly inflated market price then emerges. And rational thinking folks like the rest of us (insert your own joke about me being rational here) begin to doubt our own choices, if not suffer outright ridicule and berating from unoriginal reef aquarists who paid way too much for their animals and must now justify it by making us feel bad for not joining their idiocy.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-02/ac/index.php
Many have stated that the people who defend these sky high prices are usually and solely supportive because they have a lot to gain, as they are high priced sellers themselves and wish to continue to cash in on the hype. That they themselves worry about their bottom line. But is it true? Lets see how others feel.
Sparrow Hawk wrote in post # 207
"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."
See paragraph #7 in the link again below
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-02/ac/index.php
" But nor will I tolerate the same bandwagon jumpers, or anyone on the fence, hiding under a blanket defense of “market law” to justify the ridiculous prices that some of these animals are being pitched for as of late. Do you really think for a moment that the island collectors, who earn mere dollars per day or pennies per piece for other pretty, but “common,” corals, get rewarded with tens or hundreds of dollars for finding the trendy coral of the week? Please - give me a break… No! If that were the case, the only thing on importers lists and in retailers displays would be that sole coral of the week or month. Message-board bandwagon jumpers create a fallacious environment with their hype, which ignorant (as in “not-knowing”) and/or impressionable aquarists then accept as the real state of the hobby. This is hardly the case at large, yet the outspoken minority would have you cover your eyes with one hand and stick out your wallet with the other to belong to the “popular” coral club.
I could post more examples from many reefers. Polyp pimps, coral slingers, frag-a-holics and "most" all of those with tanks filled with frags will defend these prices for obvious reasons. It's all about the margins and the fight to preserve them.
But, but, but, it's not price gouging or greed, it's just supply and demand, right?
See paragrapgh # 9
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-02/ac/index.php
Things get screwy, though, by the intervention of dubious individuals with misguided business tactics… and they are usually well-connected with fellow hobbyists and potential customers (often in big online communities). These folks tend to be small-time players – trading aquarists or small business merchants – who justify their exorbitant prices with supply and demand. “Supply and demand" is an excuse that gets abused too often and shamelessly, in my opinion. If this were not true, how then would you define or even recognize the existence of price gouging? Seriously, please reread the previous sentences and give them some thought. If you believe that there is any such thing as price gouging, then we must agree on some level that using “supply and demand” to justify inflated prices is not a carte blanche excuse.
But zoanthid, mushrooms and other corals are so expensive now because they grow so slowly, right?. Really?
Here's a pic from TCU Reefer
From Geoxman.
Just imagine how filthy rich they could be if they lied and told you they were rare, told you they grow very slow, only a few on the market, just released and they are called Jimmy Crack Corns. ( I guess they didn't care )
So why are they all called rare, ultra, just released, with lineage from Peter himself and limited edition then? It's called marketing.
See the bottom of paragraph 7.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-02/ac/index.php
"It’s funny to me that such traders and sellers so freely label some animals as “ultra” this, and “rare” that without ever having been to a reef, worked as a transhipper or importer, or having any real qualifications otherwise for making such statements."
You see anyone can just slap a rare label on them and charge you whatever they want.
So many who aren't aware of the game who came into the hobby after 04/05 aren't aware that corals aren't aren't collected from the ocean floor as single polyps on a round or square plug. Got this picture from stagcrazy.
From Kreeger
Melev
But aren't the named ones rare? The green, red and orange polyps at the bottom of my picture below were all cut off by me and given away over 15 years ago. They are being sold as rare today, with a name, and they are very expensive. Shame, and I still gave them away. I was offered thousands for these blue palys and believe me, I grew well over a thousand of them. You can see them across the room and from outside. No name, no tiny specks and no hype. They were strategically given away to those whom I knew would never sell them.
These grew so fast in my tank they I had to remove them all.
Those who claim all of the reasons listed above to justify these prices, "most" weren't in the hobby or here in 04/05 when it all began, ( and no, that was not a slap ). Those of us speaking against these prices were. No one, I mean I don't recall a single person listing any of these reasons when these prices skyrocketed. Ironically, it was at the same time that everyone started naming them.
So how cheap were these zoas and shrooms in 2003. Click and see.
Note the dates to the left and note the prices.......I've sold frags all over the country and never used a single name. We just sent a picture. There were no per polyps sales. Going rate, 15 polyps of any color imaginable for $ 20.00.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=208268
Someone decided to start naming them all, then everyone who wanted to sell something labelled them rare, ultra, elite, new to the market, yadda yadda. There was a time when no one, no one wanted these corals as they grew so fast, they were considered a weed. SPS guys laughed at me for growing a tank full of them, that was until the game began, and they sold off all of their sticks and started buying the dreaded weeds too.
It's gotten so bad, that corals won't even sell unless they have a name attached. Stop laughing, really. Corals can and will sit until they perish if they don't have a name.
Please see post # 379 of this thread.
Reel North wrote
"I love the "exclusive, rare blah blah" that carry the massive prices. I spoke to a store that gets in some pretty awesome sps, and when I asked him the names of the new arrivals? His response floored me, and made me really question what the heck is going on here. He actually told me "I haven't named them yet. With out a name, they would only be $20 a frag. With a name they can go for $400". My jaw dropped.
The funniest is everyone goes bananas for "coral named whatever", but there's no real way to track the lineage from the first real colony. And to be honest, do you REALLY think is truly "rare". It's not. It's just rare in your town.
These things are like diamonds. If a supplier ends up with a few colonies of that coral, he will only sell pieces of 1, for a ton of $$$$.
Then he can blow out a colony at the end of the run for a megaton.
If you injection to the insanity, probably best not to buy it. It's just the free market at work."
People, I'm not making this stuff up, but wait, there's more.
Read the 5th paragraph in post # 255 in the link below. Dr. Mac's himself states this very clearly.
http://s.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1941053&page=11
"I resisted for many years but had to relent--why?--can't sell a coral to most folks unless it has a name and that is the sad fact. It happens every day--Folks look at corals and say what is the name of that coral I like it--if it does not have a designer name they will not buy it even though they like it--this is a fact."
see post # 186
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2556733&page=8
This is what and where the hobby has migrate to. If you continue to buy into these lies I shutter to think what this hobby will be like in the next 10 years.
A name alone jacks up the price.
"One time in my LFS someone was selling me mushrooms at ridiculous prices. They are just your purple average shrooms but they named it purple litophyton whatever. I was tempted to buy it since most of the corals for sale are lps, and I've been needing some softies.
Its good I went to another store and bought the same shrooms at a very cheap price without any special names, just plain purple mushrooms"
But, there are new corals being brought to market, and that's why prices are so high, right? Only a small fraction of our oceans have been explored. Of course new corals are being brought to market. That has happened every year I have been in the hobby and this trend will continue, does that justify the selling of a single polyp for $ 1,000.
Google this "$2,425 two palythoa frag sale reminds us that zoanthid collectors mean business". I heard they both died. Things have just "Gone wild".
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1920486
For those who mocked the good ol days, well, those days just look awesome to me.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-08/totm/index.php
Corals are now are being bought just to be sold as soon as a polyp appears. Knowing a name and ID is more important than actual reefing knowledge.
Just because you are willing to pay these sky high prices and see nothing wrong with them, doesn't mean everyone else feels as you do. Read all the links above and reefers against this mess. This thread is informational and directed towards newer reefers and no one is trying to change anyone's mind.
Reef Central is like the Rose Bowl, the granddaddy of them all. It provides so much more then just the fluff of names, pics and sky high prices. The knowledgeable reefers who carried the torch in these forums are fading fast. There is so much more then fluff and I guess that's what bothers so many who see what the hobby has migrated to. If you're still laughing and wondering why we continue to speak up, please, go and read the testimonials in post # 331. I truly hope things change someday soon as so many have left this great hobby due to coral sticker shock.
If you don't agree or see the point of this thread, you're entitled to your opinion. If the thread offends you or you don't agree, then respectfully my friend, just look away or make a post contrary. Nonetheless, this thread has over 20,000 views for a reason.
Mucho
