What's the deal? (Name brand corals)

[Piper27]

Yea I said that because I like your pics! I can't tell which ones are wild or not that's why I wanted to see pics of the nice ones you got that were wild.

On a cool note I just came across my first large wild colony! Did some plumbing for a friend and he let me have first dibs. I will get pics once (or if) it gets adjusted to my tank. It's a very skinny branched deep water acro.

 

[biggles]

I was not trying to be rude. Just honest. Your tank is still young at 5 months. You asked how I think you should go about stocking your tank, well you could start by having patience and taking it slow. How long have you even been keeping SPS? What I would do is try a few pieces, give it time to see how they do than maybe add a few more. People who stock their tank with wild corals in a matter of a few months or less are asking for trouble. You could also find local reefers to trade SPS frags that have proven to be good aquarium specimens. You could also get frags of wild colonies, even frags of wild colonies tend to do better than larger pieces.

I see this over and over....in fact I just saw it on my local forum. Someone who has a tank a few months old decided to add 20 maricultured colonies and next thing you know there are threads about why they are dieing.

So...I can be quiet or I can be honest and give my best advice. I've learned many things, often the hard way and sometimes I like to share.

This is my third SPS dominant system in the last 12 years or so. 1st tank was broken down after 2.5 years due to moving cities. 2nd tank was 3.5 years until my marriage ended. I've been out of the hobby for the last few years and am just returning - thanks for the warm welcome mate. I have a tad more experience with how to successfully keep wild SPS only systems than most here due to my circumstances as do most of the aussie reefers on RC - not our choice. At no time did i indicate that others should do as i have as i don't assume to know others reefing experience and abilities. This tank was wet on Xmas eve 2012 and all corals have been added over the last 4 months - i know exactly what can and can't be added and when it can be added in regards to wild SPS but thanks for the advice anyway. :thumbsup:

Anyway enough of that, thanks for the kind words guys, appreciate them Here's a few more wild pics.

Added this little colony 2 weeks ago today - i always grab anything with fluoro yellow polyps as i've never had one fail to color up beautifully.

He's right behind the blue stag branch and turns out he's blue not purple tipped as i thought he was going to be, color is improving fast as you can see - they don't all settle this fast though.

I do frag up branches and spread them around in different flow and lighting conditions quite often as you can see. If i like something i tend to go stupid spreading it everywhere. Take the SCC for example - there are six frags in the tank lol.

The only long term problems i ever have is keeping the corals from over encrusting each other - the green stag and the SCC frag are going to clash lol. :hammer: a sharp chisel tends to end any 'turf wars' quickly and since green is my least favorite acro color it's not looking good for the stag .........

This was the small SCC branch i got very fresh from being collected, i haven't seen another for sale in the last 4 months unfortunately.

When i still had GHA issues and was running GFO the SCC had a green tinge to the branches which was lovely. Since eradicating all the excess phos and taking the GFO offline i have noticed all the SCC frags now display pure white branches - might be due to a lack of something since i'm running everything so ultra low though. I'll have to do some 'sperimenting' down the track i think lol.

 

[dvanacker]

Sorry, I miss understood I guess Piper27. I thought you wanted me to prove that I know what Im talking about by posting pictures. I see that happen from time to time.


Im sorry but this tank still looks very young. You can still see the epoxy that you used to mount them on quite few corals. I'm not doubting you have had some success (now that you give me the background) but Im sticking to my opinion.

Since I hate getting into it online this will be my last post. If you feel like I'm just blowing smoke Biggles than please feel free to ignore me.

 

[biggles]

Lol it looks young because it is mate, i have regularly updated my tank journal with new coral additions, i haven't claimed that you can have an mature grown in looking reef in the 5 months my tank has been running. I use bright white epoxy for sticking things down, i don't try to hide anything at all and i'm constantly taking frags off branches and sticking them here and there as the urge takes me or more often when i bump a coral and snap something off lol - sorry if you are of the opinion that i'm somehow doing other reefers a disservice or giving them the wrong impression somehow in sharing the pics i have. I have only ever kept very ULNS reefs with strong lighting and a skimmer and that has always worked very well for me. The only thing i am doing different this time is using 2 part instead of kalk and not running a DSB.
Btw, if i had the cool choices you guys have in regards to beautiful and well proven aquacultured SPS i would not be buying any wild corals. Highly likely that i'd end up in jail for robbing banks to pay for some of them though lol. I don't want to get into it either and we all have different viewpoints on reefing so feel free to blow smoke or anything else my way (frags from your beautiful reef tank would be good) :beer:

 

[dvanacker]

sorry if you are of the opinion that i'm somehow doing other reefers a disservice

Maybe not purposefully but when someone comes on here and posts a 5 month tank with lots of new wild colonies newbies get the wrong idea. That this is possible and easily manageable. It may be possible but it is very difficult even to someone of your experience of 12yrs.

Im not saying you can't attempt to do what you doing, your obviously not new to the hobby, I'm just saying it may give people a certain idea. IMO SPS (and corals in general) should be taken slow, but again IMO. Even though we may not agree on what you should do I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from. (or maybe not)

Cheers mate :beer:

Oh and I think some of the prices we are starting to see on the new school of named frags is ridiculous. Especially since many of them are just a wild colony in captivity a short time before being fragged and those tend to go for the highest dollar. Luckily you can make friends and get some great classic aquaculture stuff (or the classifieds on your local forum or RC here) for reasonable prices. I try to stay away from new expensive releases till I see a few people able to grow it. It's happened in the past where I have an eye on a frag for a year or two before I actually get it. When I see someone succesfully grow a coral, than I bug them for a frag of it

 

[NeilFox]

Tank looks great Biggles! The comment was out of line. As I said earlier, we cannot get frags to speak of unless someone frags a colony and gives you some. It would appear that pests can com from anywhere.

As far as planting loads of colonies and making it look like a mature reef that isn't possible. They need to orient themselves properly and grow. Biggles has a really nice thread and a well thought out setup. He has documented his progress and isn't trying to say he grew the corals. They are very nice and colourful. My tank is the same age and placing colonies to make them look natural is a real challenge.

All frags came from wild colonies in the not so distant past. It is common also for wild specimens to be fragged, dipped and grown out by dealers. Most places won't give you a Certificate of Authenticity or Pedigree when you by something like this. Not to mention that coral would have already passed the background checks by making it to be a marketable frag.

 

[biggles]

Maybe not purposefully but when someone comes on here and posts a 5 month tank with lots of new wild colonies newbies get the wrong idea. That this is possible and easily manageable. It may be possible but it is very difficult even to someone of your experience of 12yrs.

Im not saying you can't attempt to do what you doing, your obviously not new to the hobby, I'm just saying it may give people a certain idea. IMO SPS (and corals in general) should be taken slow, but again IMO. Even though we may not agree on what you should do I'm sure you can see where I'm coming from. (or maybe not)

Cheers mate :beer:

Oh and I think some of the prices we are starting to see on the new school of named frags is ridiculous. Especially since many of them are just a wild colony in captivity a short time before being fragged and those tend to go for the highest dollar. Luckily you can make friends and get some great classic aquaculture stuff (or the classifieds on your local forum or RC here) for reasonable prices. I try to stay away from new expensive releases till I see a few people able to grow it. It's happened in the past where I have an eye on a frag for a year or two before I actually get it. When I see someone succesfully grow a coral, than I bug them for a frag of it

I do now see where you're coming from mate and see your point. When i first came on here months ago i was espousing how easy SPS were but i realised that espousing such an opinion was indeed going to do more harm than good as was pointed out by a few more experienced reefers. I have since pulled my head in and have basically kept my opinions to myself in regards to how to best keep SPS. Even though i sounded like a total wanker i'm really not deep down lol.
I have a real bug to add fish so i'm actually looking forward to seeing how things go running low phos and nitrates, i will be the first to put up my hand and say heavy feeding and filtration is the way to go and hope to see the results some of you guys are getting :thumbsup:

Sorry BigKahuna, i forgot to answer your SPS price question. The average branch or 3-4" colony goes for $40-. I paid $45- for that SCC branch and wouldn't hesitate to drop $100- on the same acro now that i know how beautiful it is, i have it in low, medium and high light and it's stunning pink wherever i put it. It grows fastest in high light and flow for me. I have bought a couple of broken off branch tips that were for sale $5- each but they were still 3" long and multi branched - i really do try to buy small pieces lol. The most expensive coral was a purple monti for $65-
The corals that are ridiculous prices here are LPS - everything like scolleys, acans etc that you guys get from Aus were once similar prices are now 3 to 4 times the price hence why i haven't bought any so far. Seriously if you could walk out with 3 new acro pieces or one bleeding apple flubber button what would you guys do lol........

Thanks for the kind words NeilFox As i said, i think dvanacker was replying to 'wanker' biggles rather than the new improved version and i hope we can simply start again - nothing more than a misunderstanding as i see it. :thumbsup: I'm glad to hear from someone who is in the same boat in regards to accessing aquacultured frags, do you realise how broke you and i would be if we suddenly moved to the US NeilFox :lmao:

 

[Piper27]

Since I have quickly grown tired of the "look at this pricy rare le frag pack I bought" I was hoping this thread would spark good discussion on wild stuff as well as give people the opportunity to show off their pics of their sweet wild corals. I am glad you guys talked that misunderstanding out . Thanks for chipping in on this thread.

Now lets see some nice pics!

I just have to add... Around here only two stores "consistently" bring in mariculture sps. Only one store has been bringing in nice wild stuff. And when they do its only a couple. So to have a new store open up in my backyard that actually orders a handful of both is nice and refreshing! Also when I say "around here" I mean Maryland, dc, northern and central Virginia and West Virginia. I am curious to see or hear how it is in the other parts of the world or us.
Fyi when a wild colony comes in around here its 200 to 300 bucks and most of the time really pale... Every now and then I get to grab a frag if it doesn't sell.

 

[franklypre]

old wild coral

better rock stack w/ all aquacultured coral

 

[biggles]

Years ago i helped out at a couple of stores when they were short so i got to see a few fresh SPS arrivals and their wholesale pricing. Most acros were priced on size and colors made no difference to the collectors - i actually talked one store owner into faxing pics of seri's and some other SPS species as they never supplied anything but acros (90% green) and Pocillopora damicornis which is like SPS aiptasia if and when it starts spawning in your tank. Considering the $40- to $45- dollar average SPS prices i see now i'm assuming the collectors are still only charging $15- to $30- a piece plus about $70- shipping per box.
Since returning to the hobby i have seen a vast improvement in both the color selection and the different SPS species being collected so i think that explains my rather rapid stocking of my tank lol - it's a bit like a kid going into a candy shop for me now compared to what i saw on offer 6 or 7 years ago and i have zero self control when it comes to SPS hunting lol.
I will point out that most of the 'wild Aus' SPS i see for sale in the US is way prettier than the stuff sent to our LFS's so at least you can take comfort in the fact that your paying top dollar for the best colors being collected - i still can't imagine handing over $200+ for an acro colony........ like not ever lol.
Btw i've had a few friends dive with a collector over the years and they all said don't ever do it because you'll cry when you see the stuff the collectors ignore when looking for the common run of the mill acros etc. They said that everything was collected in water 5-15 meters deep and was all used to very high lighting levels. Now i see 'deep water' acros on sale in the US but not here so most of that stuff is all going overseas as well i assume. I have not seen a single specimen of any of the finer and delicate acro species like the echinata's etc in the last 6 months since stalking LFS's again so i won't hesitate to drop good money on anything i am lucky enough to come across in that regard.
Hope i'm not waffling on too much but i just wanted you to get a perspective of what things are like here, we don't see the stunning stuff on sale in the US in our stores as often as i think many assume but for me even the left over browning SPS i see now is a vast improvement over the old days

Here's a pic to make up for my long post. I walked in to see these for sale a while back and asked how much - ' single sticks are $40- and the bigger multi branched pieces are $65-' obviously i bought two of the $65- bits because i can't help myself when i see beautiful colored acros I did suggest that perhaps the holding tank could do with a clean and was told i could clean it up for them any time i wanted lol

 

[BigKahuna]

Sorry BigKahuna, i forgot to answer your SPS price question. The average branch or 3-4" colony goes for $40-. I paid $45- for that SCC branch and wouldn't hesitate to drop $100- on the same acro now that i know how beautiful it is, i have it in low, medium and high light and it's stunning pink wherever i put it. It grows fastest in high light and flow for me. I have bought a couple of broken off branch tips that were for sale $5- each but they were still 3" long and multi branched - i really do try to buy small pieces lol. The most expensive coral was a purple monti for $65-
The corals that are ridiculous prices here are LPS - everything like scolleys, acans etc that you guys get from Aus were once similar prices are now 3 to 4 times the price hence why i haven't bought any so far. Seriously if you could walk out with 3 new acro pieces or one bleeding apple flubber button what would you guys do lol........

Wow, not crazy expensive but not cheap either. Thanks for the reply. I figured you being so close to the source you would be tripping over frags in the parking lot down under I don't have to bother asking if that is USD or AUD considering they are nearly in parity these days. My LFS is one of the best around, he gets big shipments of maricultured colonies almost every other Sunday and sells them for $20 a pop, regularly $35. The bonus for me is they even use the same lights, Radions, over their main SPS tank, not that the frags live in that tank for long at those prices. I posted some photos in the SPS ID section.

 

[Piper27]

Small maricultures go from 75 to 100 bucks here.

Here is the pic of my first wild colony.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2297877

 

[NeilFox]

Here is a bad quality pic of a couple wild SPS

One in the background

This guy is actually bright yellow, the deepwater in the background appears like he has a green clearcoat in real life

The pics are bad I know. The GHA is always in focus though LOL. Just thought I would add a few of some fully wild not maricultured pieces. The Acrorora sp. A. Cerialis I think, is a nice purple with pink tips. If I add more blue light to the pics it makes the pics come out even worse. I see why alot of guys on here have learned some great photography skills now. This site would be pretty bland without pics.

Biggles, you are correct, if I lived in the States I wouldn't be paying $2.00 apeice for those little colonies!:beer:

 

[NeilFox]

Might at well add this Monti in there, he was the first SPS in the tank and is growing fast, too fast. He will be a problem in the future.

 

[i Tuna]

It seems there are a ton of people that like to buy named corals online. I can see why of course, better chance of the coral doing well and you know what it's going to look like (sometimes at least). I am curious to see some pictures and would love to hear some thoughts from people who like to collect stuff that is not named, being either wild or mariculture.
Personally I have gotten ten times the satisfaction from getting wild pieces and having them become amazing and colorful over time (sometimes years). Plus most of them have become more beautiful than even some of the high dollar "rainbow" acros (in my opinion at least). I have yet to grow a wild frag and have it become anywhere near brown too. I think the "stigma" of wild or mariculture corals staying brown is a little misleading. And also I am kinda confused on how SOME of these corals vendors or hobbiests are selling for hundreds of dollars actually sell. Some of them are nothing rare at all and still demand a high price tag.
All in all I like the named corals stuff but i feel like the hobbiests that are collecting and naming their own corals are few and far between.

Anyone care to share their opinion? Or post pictures of their nice or rare wild corals?

Living in Kuwait, we don't get any name brand coral, it's simply, oh this wild / maricultured fuzzy stick looks like "insert named coral". Thankfully (for my pocket's concern), the coral we get here is relatively inexpensive compared to the amount yall pay for them in the states. A 1-2 inch frag, goes for about 10-15 USD, regardless of color / name. Colonies (about 6in x 6in), usually go for 30-90 USD (depending on the store, one specific store here charges about 60 USD higher than everyone else; the store owner has quite an ego and regularly marks up anything with a colorful fluorescence he gets.

We rarely get coral from Australia, but when we do, the same one store mentioned above ends up charging 300-400 USD for a 1in frag.

I imagine if I lived in the States and paid the prices yall do for your coral I'd end up spending all my free time infront of my tank due to a lack of funds to do anything else :lmao:

Prices of maricultured corals from the country of origin usually go for about 5-25 USD a piece (for very small colonies of about 4 inches). Prices mainly vary due to the size of a colony, the location it was collected from, and the method used to collect, and CITIES permits.

 

[NeilFox]

Small maricultures go from 75 to 100 bucks here.

Here is the pic of my first wild colony.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2297877

Looking good Piper!!!:thumbsup:

 

[Piper27]

I was hoping to see some tanks or corals that are grown out for a few years posted. Seems like davnacker had a point about how you don't see many tanks that are setup with all wild corals grown out and updated often. Maybe someone can post some pics. Even some grown out maricultures.

 

[Bello]

I was hoping to see some tanks or corals that are grown out for a few years posted. Seems like davnacker had a point about how you don't see many tanks that are setup with all wild corals grown out and updated often. Maybe someone can post some pics. Even some grown out maricultures.

Though it is certainly far nicer to have a tank grown entirely from frags, here's an example of what seems to be grown out mari's ......not my tank, but one of my favourites,
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2016977

 

[dvanacker]

Though it is certainly far nicer to have a tank grown entirely from frags, here's an example of what seems to be grown out mari's ......not my tank, but one of my favourites,
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2016977

I just scanned that thread and found this in post #61

Thanks!
I'm leaving in Ukraine and in our aqua shops we have exactly that big corals.
I'm living in Ukraine and in our aqua shops we have that big corals.(nearly 5-6 cm). Only 30% in my tank was that corals when I bought them. Rest of them was bought like frags.
But I know from experience that frags are adapting faster and growing better; unlike the big corals

Hmmm.

 

[Piper27]

Man, that's well done! Video on page 9 is pretty good too! Thanks for Sharon the link. If anyone has a link that's good post it too. Thanks for keeping it going Bello.

Note, I am not sure if all his stuff was maricultured but if it was, I saw a ton of pieces that look just as good as the named pieces you buy for 40 bucks for a 1" frag.