The whole coral pricing has become a joke

[Nano sapiens]

Maybe it's an age thing as I'm 56 but it's how I choose to live my life and hopefully grow the hobby.

I think there are fewer and fewer reefers with this attitude. I started back in the mid 80's with a home-built reef tank and I can relate. Personally, I don't sell frags/polyps out of principle since I consider this my hobby and not my business, but I do like to give them away to aspiring reef keepers.

The cost of the fancy named corals doesn't bother me much and I actually have a few that caught my eye a while back. I'm only interested in a coral if it is attractive (to me) and is a good fit for my system, not what it has been arbitrarily named by *insert name here*. Most of my coral is from other generous reefers, inexpensive vendor 'Stock' frags or the $5/$10 bin at the LFS. The vast majority of these have colored up and grown very well.

One does not need to drink the coolaid in order to have a colorful and thriving reef tank at a moderate cost. But many new reefers don't see it that way and unfortunately get lost in the commercial hype machine.

Ralph -

 

[bwhit1406]

Here is my opinion on the matter

I think alot of this depends on where you live. Places with more reefers tend to have lower prices and a better community for new reefers. Lots of nice frags for awesome prices when people trim their tanks and LFS 's price frags to be more competitive.
If you live in a place with less density of reefers you can expect the prices to be higher because of less coral options.
The online prices are pretty crazy but people pay them. Obviously enough people pay these prices to make it worthwhile for all these sites to pop up and try to sell all the super rare ultra frags. Most of the people buying these frags propably will continue after reading this thread. They want the newest trendy piece and will pay whatever for it.
I like to look at these awesome pieces but cant afford to spend that kind of money on something that could die on you just because.
So i shop around and look for deals. I am lucky to live in a area with a great reef community.
I am pretty sure most newbies waste alot of money starting out, i know i did. Learning and reading up is part of this hobby that makes it so fun.

Sent from my LG-D851 using Tapatalk

 

[MUCHO REEF]

Mucho I agree with some of what you are saying but the greed sometimes is coming from the individuals who think they are buying an expensive frag hoping to get rich re-fraging it in a few months. I still remember some buying Beanie Baby's thinking they where going to become collector dolls or something? There are just too many that want a get rich scheme

" ......too many wanting to get rich" is indeed half of the problem my friend.

 

[j_mazzy]

Not being smart at all here, but take a wild guess at what happened?

I am assuming they went out of business; however, I am curious if they went bankrupt or moved or if they are still active in the hobby.

 

[MUCHO REEF]

CP I do remember went out of business, not sure why, but can only speculate. I ordered from them a couple of times and was always impressed. No hacking, no photoshopping, no blue pictures, no names and awesome prices. They were just good people providing a high quality at an awesome and inexpensive price.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1985654

Not sure what happened to RO.

 

[Bent]

" ......too many wanting to get rich" is indeed half of the problem my friend.

What, exactly is wrong with that?

Isn't that the entire point?

I still don't understand the confusion. I mean like every equipment company does this and everyones all "you get what you pay for."

Do it with corals and everyone's mind is blown?

 

[sde1500]

How very interesting that the place that sold corals for what some believed was a reasonable price went out of business. Almost as if they weren't charging enough. Hmm, odd.... LOL

 

[Bent]

RN here too!

 

[MUCHO REEF]

therinx, ecotanker and z3speed4me, here are two more very insightful and informative threads for you guys and anyone new to reefing should read. Very long yet very very educational.

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

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1941053

MUCHO

Just found the other thread. When you get the chance, you guys should read these threads in their entirety. Extremely informative and please note the dates as I remember all 3 of them back in the day.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...id=913053&highlight=disturbing+zoanthid+trend

Mooch

PS. Yes, nurses are the best. Much(o) respect for them.

 

[sde1500]

What, exactly is wrong with that?

Isn't that the entire point?

I still don't understand the confusion. I mean like every equipment company does this and everyones all "you get what you pay for."

Do it with corals and everyone's mind is blown?

You bring up a good point. Companies charge extra for sexier sumps, or sexier looking lights that offer fancy options like storms or extra controls. But not much complaints there. Charge extra for some corals that are brighter and fancier than others aaaaand you get threads like this. I don't get why people can admit that there are more colors and morphs now than 10+ years ago, then turn around and say that it's criminal that those are more expensive than what they paid all those years ago for more bland morphs. I'm still waiting for pictorial proof for some of this. They say constantly "that's not rare", but no one shows me their huge colony of stratospheres from a decade ago. Weird.

Still can't get past the irony of that place going out of business too haha. "See that's a fair price for corals". "Oh yea they also failed as a business".

 

[MUCHO REEF]

I think there are fewer and fewer reefers with this attitude. I started back in the mid 80's with a home-built reef tank and I can relate. Personally, I don't sell frags/polyps out of principle since I consider this my hobby and not my business, but I do like to give them away to aspiring reef keepers.


That's awesome, I like hearing goodwill gestures like this. I use to have two grow out tanks seperate from my display tank. I grew tons of zoas and palys attached to 2" x 2" pieces of liverock back in the day. I have actually given away more frags than I sold. I use to host weekly online contest many many years ago and gave away several each week. I too enjoyed the charitable giving of healthy and colorful frags and small colonies to the winners and newbs. I had to end the contest as some started to instantly sell for profit that which I gave freely.

The cost of the fancy named corals doesn't bother me much and I actually have a few that caught my eye a while back. I'm only interested in a coral if it is attractive (to me) and is a good fit for my system, not what it has been arbitrarily named by *insert name here*. Most of my coral is from other generous reefers, inexpensive vendor 'Stock' frags or the $5/$10 bin at the LFS. The vast majority of these have colored up and grown very well.

One does not need to drink the coolaid in order to have a colorful and thriving reef tank at a moderate cost. But many new reefers don't see it that way and unfortunately get lost in the commercial hype machine.

Ralph
-

I agree my friend, however threads such as this one have opened the eyes of many of the new reefers you've reference. Hopefully the hype machine will grind to a stop.

MOOCH

 

[MUCHO REEF]

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.

rant over

Back to the topic

 

[CrayolaViolence]

One thing you have to consider, many of the corals that come from the red sea region as well as other places, are inaccessible right now due to wars and government instability. Hence why purple tangs have gone from 50.00 each to 250.00. You just can't get them out of the red sea area unless you have a lucky smuggler.
I personally do think corals have gone over the top too. I understand the economics of it all etc (I used to breed and show dogs) but we don't even have coral shows where people compete (do we) for best coral of a specific species? I wish there were more local people into corals in my area. My LRS is reasonable on most items and sometimes I score something really good, but over all it's expensive. I've also been there when he's unpacked a fresh shipment and pulled out a brain coral all ready rotting away that cost him whole sale 300 bucks. (Talking about a whole brain coral here big as a basket ball). But at the same time I see him buy people's tanks who are getting out of the hobby, pay a few hundred bucks for the set up and corals and break put, turn around and sell it for 5x the amount, often more depending on what was in it.
If there were more people around me willing to trade and or sell decently it would be great. I found one guy at the last frag show who had really good prices. It seemed like a lot of others had jumped the money train. I would have bought more but finances didn't allow for it.

 

[CrayolaViolence]

P.s. If you think about it, it's not just corals though. Look at the price for equipment. Lights even. Really. Seriously. You damn well know they don't have $500 invested in that 1K light but by damn they'll sell it for 1K because they A) have great advertising and B) know you need them.

 

[EMeyer]

so.... no harm, no foul....what's the problem again? How is your life in any way diminished by what OTHER people choose to do with their money?

The willingness of a few to spend very large amounts of money on frags affects frag prices for everyone.

There is a fine debate to be had over pricing, but its incorrect to claim this only affects the buyer and seller. It affects everyone in the market. And just like any other market, the community is free to debate what prices are reasonable. Thats all I see in this thread.

 

[SeattleReefer]

The willingness of a few to spend very large amounts of money on frags affects frag prices for everyone.

There is a fine debate to be had over pricing, but its incorrect to claim this only affects the buyer and seller. It affects everyone in the market. And just like any other marker, the community is free to debate what prices are reasonable. Thats all I see in this thread.

interesting...

so you are saying that the existence of a Ferrari priced at $1,000,000 somehow raises the price of a Kia.

And the existence of $20,000 Koi Goldfish somehow increases the price of feeder goldfish?

How does that work?

In reality the exact opposite is true. Look at big screen TV's for example. When they first first came out they cost $20k and only the rich early adopters could afford them. The profits generated from those early sales of a $20,000 TV were reinvested in better methods of production and soon prices fell until today when almost everyone can afford one.

Contrary to your misguided view of economics as a fixed pie that must be evenly shared (or redistributed- it's only fair!) in the real world these high coral prices mean that the sellers generate profits which can be used to increase supply, which brings prices down for everybody.

If a seller sells a bounce mushroom for $1000 thats a HUGE incentive to produce more. The next one may sell for $950- and the one after that for $800. Eventually the pool of buyers willing to pay more than you are is satisfied and you could own a bounce mushroom yourself for a price you are willing to pay.

Now this is alot of words which can be easily summarized in one graph. It's a shame that more people are not familiar with it because if they were this thread would not be as long as it is.

 

[EMeyer]

Your post is based on a simple fallacy. Ferraris and Kias are different cars. Manufactured and branded products.

Corals are commodities harvested from nature. The car analogy breaks down right there. There arent actually different "brands" or "manufacturers".

So yeah, what one buyer pays for water affects the price another retailer charges me for water.

I recommend that when you encounter someone who disagrees with you, rather than assuming they dont understand something that you in your wisdom do, and trying to explain it to them... instead, assume they hold a different position on some fundamental issue and try to understand that position yourself. Not every disagreement arise because one side is uninformed.

 

[SeattleReefer]

Your post is based on a simple fallacy. Ferraris and Kias are different cars. Manufactured and branded products.

Corals are commodities harvested from nature. The car analogy breaks down right there. There (sic) arent actually different "brands" or "manufacturers".

So yeah, what one buyer pays for water affects the price another retailer charges me for water.

I recommend that when you encounter someone who disagrees with you, rather than assuming they dont understand something that you in your wisdom do, and trying to explain it to them... instead, assume they hold a different position on some fundamental issue and try to understand that position yourself. Not every disagreement arise because one side is uninformed.

rebuttal:

Here's an example of a manufactured and branded product:

Here's the manufacturer's description:
The Platinum Percula is a magnificent white variation of the Percula Clownfish. ORA developed the Platinum Percula through years of selectively breeding our famous Picasso Clownfish. These striking fish do not exhibit any of the original striping characteristic of the species, they are typically continuously white from head to tail. As Platinums mature, they will develop beautiful black fins that really stand out against the white body and orange face.

ORA also breeds two other solid-colored cousins of the Platinum Percula "“ the completely orange Naked Ocellaris and the all black Midnight Clownfish.

.

 

[CrayolaViolence]

But is it really a branded product? Or a particular breed? Like in dogs. They all had founders for the breed but people have gone one (sometimes thousands of years later) to continue that particular breed. Newer breeds, such as labs, goldens, some spaniels and setters, once purchased are bred or not bred depending on the owner and the agreement between buyer and breeder. But as for a brand name? They have kennel names and the kennels the dogs come from can have certain looks (enough so they can be recognize) but again, with the fish, are you saying no one else is allowed to breed those colors? Who's going to stop them? Especially when it's a natural mutation that has simply been proliferated.

 

[itz frank]

But is it really a branded product? Or a particular breed? /QUOTE]


Actually, this is a perfect example. Because you could purchase nike's and pay a premium or get a similar product from china town.
I'm sure you're aware of what branded means. You're literally paying for ORA not ORA that Joe tank raised.

This entire argument has had a strong hold of "protect the newbie". If the newbie is paying $1,500 for a polyp then what?

Why isn't there a thread like this over real estate, milk, or gas?

Costs are based on supply and demand. Period. What would then happen if a $1,500 polyp was $5... Is that the $5 polyp would be $.01. And we would be having the same conversation that we are now about how ridiculous it is that there is a $5 polyp.

Someone just needs to close this thread. It is just going to go on forever or perhaps move it to the lounge. Because this isn't helping anyone. It's just rambling and arguing.


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