Why IS this happening...

nysbadmk8

nysbadmk8

Premium Member
I have noticed a trend for corals from bali aquaculture facilities to be purchased by "coral propagators" over here and then broken up and Sold as "frags" For a seemingly handsome sum. Only to lose their colors as soon as they hit your tank.

Ask me how I figured this out. Seems like the quick buck way to propagation. And dishonest.
 
From my understand of what I was told about bali sps is that they are grown at such shallow depths they are pounded by intense sun to get the colours. So intense what we can't match in our tanks or its such a shift. I have only been fooled twice to by bali. Now I leave them in the store. They usually loose the colours and are very slow growers from my experience. Just my 2 cents.
 
a lot of the hot new acros people go crazy for are fresh wilds......

If people want it/buy it than people will sell it.
 
Seems like of someone breaks up a piece and it goes into many different tanks they are are doing the hobbyist and the coral a favor. As far as the piece being too small, hmm, seems like any piece small enough to ship would be too big to ship safely in a year or so and if its going to die in your tank then a large piece will die just as fast as a small one. I don't think selling fresh cut frags from wild colonies is a good idea as far as survival goes but honestly, I think that's due to the shipping and moving stress. In the long run, wild pieces color up and survive just fine in any of the healthy systems I know of. I think most of the perceived issues with wild colonies is shipping stress. After that, most losses after a couple of months are due to sub optimal water quality in my experience.
 
dvanacker said:
a lot of the hot new acros people go crazy for are fresh wilds......

If people want it/buy it than people will sell it.
Click to expand...

Just like the original LE corals were?…

trueperc said:
From my understand of what I was told about bali sps is that they are grown at such shallow depths they are pounded by intense sun to get the colours. So intense what we can't match in our tanks or its such a shift. I have only been fooled twice to by bali. Now I leave them in the store. They usually loose the colours and are very slow growers from my experience. Just my 2 cents.
Click to expand...


It's amazing how many "Red Dragons" are being shipped into the UK as mariculture's now, but also more shallow water corals too.
Most lose colour following shipping stress, but give them a month or so and they'll be back!. You just need to light acclimate them. This applies to any of the mariculture colonies.
If you get a decent dealer with a good system, they will do the acclimation for you. Luckily, we have one or two dealers that do this for us in the UK….

Mo
 
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Dog boy Dave said:
Seems like of someone breaks up a piece and it goes into many different tanks they are are doing the hobbyist and the coral a favor. As far as the piece being too small, hmm, seems like any piece small enough to ship would be too big to ship safely in a year or so and if its going to die in your tank then a large piece will die just as fast as a small one. I don't think selling fresh cut frags from wild colonies is a good idea as far as survival goes but honestly, I think that's due to the shipping and moving stress. In the long run, wild pieces color up and survive just fine in any of the healthy systems I know of. I think most of the perceived issues with wild colonies is shipping stress. After that, most losses after a couple of months are due to sub optimal water quality in my experience.
Click to expand...

The problem is that they are fresh cutting these mari corals as soon as they get in the door, There is a local LFS here that does it, two large online/ebay dealers that do it.

The reason why they dont frag and then let it sit in their system to at least encrust is Bali mari's lose color, and lose it fast, and normally never get it back unless you have a rockstar lighting system.
 
The saltwater business is a tough one as far as making profit goes. Especially with coral sales (maintenance is a bit more lucrative). Smaller less expensive frags sell faster, quite simply. Not all stores have an extra system that they can just let frags sit in, not for sale.
 
Just like the original LE corals were?"¦
Click to expand...

Actually in the past corals like the tyrees $500 efflo, purple monster, pink lemonade and more were years in captive aquaria before becoming LE.
 
It just depends who gets their hands on them. Most retailers simply don't have the means to store and grow acropora nor the cash flow to afford to risk holding corals long term. Retailers tanks typically are VERY unstable due to the volume of corals moving in and out. So they split up the really nice ones right away to capitalize on their investment. 30 branches at $30-$60 a pop is going to net you a lot more money then you could ever get for a single mari plug. Even if you lost 25% of them.

And if you think that's unfair remember you have think of the cost of the entire order (or business to be honest) not just the 1 piece because for every nice piece you get there are plenty of corals that never sell for whatever reason, or you don't make a profit for that you need to offset. When I ran business I had 3 tiers of corals.

*Pieces I lost or broken even on* (ie died, browned, common, bad picks on my part - no interest, refunds, late to market, and so on.) *technically lost money when a value of my time was factored in

Pieces I made my margins on. (The meat of what I sold)

Pieces I could capitalize on. (This doesn't happen very often unless you are really astute and able to ride or set an upcoming trend.). A lot of times to get these piece you had to buy a lot of volume and take huge risks with "meh" inventory until you build up your relationships with your wholesalers (and sometimes this never happens with some) and even when you do they typically dangle the nice pieces in front of you as a carrot (and/or charge you up the wazoo for them) to get you to buy more volume.


As far as the naming thing. People do what they feel they need to do to sell corals the whole naming/linage thing to some people is just a bunch of a hogwash while other people hold it in very high esteem. If I showed most people 2 pieces of coral that were exactly the same from all visible stand points and one was mari, the other LE and the mari was $50 for a mini coloni and the LE was $120 for the frag, most people will choose the mari.

When I ran my business I never did that but if I were to put up a site again and I have similar pieces I would make sure to put somewhere in the text that X is a "mari, or wild" version of Y for SEO purposes and to help people avoid buying pieces similar to what they may have.

Ddvanaker most of those corals were broken up and sold to several people right away. The distribution is always smaller at first when you only have a single piece as stock and you are selling to farms who want the largest piece to start with as possible.
 
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nysbadmk8 said:
The problem is that they are fresh cutting these mari corals as soon as they get in the door, There is a local LFS here that does it, two large online/ebay dealers that do it.

The reason why they dont frag and then let it sit in their system to at least encrust is Bali mari's lose color, and lose it fast, and normally never get it back unless you have a rockstar lighting system.
Click to expand...

Fresh wild cuts are not for everyone. There are other markets available if you want proven corals that have been tried and trued. Lots of people do fine with fresh wild or aquacultured corals.
 
I rather strongly suspect that a lot of the reason for "fraggers" is that there are tons of folks that will buy a $50 single 2" stick and very few that will pay $150 for a full mini-colony of the same coral.

Personally speaking, I generally won't buy "frags", and wherever possible I buy either wild colonies or maricultured colonies that are at least 3" in circumference and a minimum of 10 branches.

That isn't because I've a lot of money to spend on corals (I don't), but my previous experience has suggested to me that larger colonies have better survivability. They also tend to stay in the LFS that I frequent for several weeks before I will buy it.

But, to each his own. I'll admit that I'm shocked that a site like "sexy corals" has any customers at all....
 
dkeller_nc said:
I rather strongly suspect that a lot of the reason for "fraggers" is that there are tons of folks that will buy a $50 single 2" stick and very few that will pay $150 for a full mini-colony of the same coral.

Personally speaking, I generally won't buy "frags", and wherever possible I buy either wild colonies or maricultured colonies that are at least 3" in circumference and a minimum of 10 branches.

That isn't because I've a lot of money to spend on corals (I don't), but my previous experience has suggested to me that larger colonies have better survivability. They also tend to stay in the LFS that I frequent for several weeks before I will buy it.

But, to each his own. I'll admit that I'm shocked that a site like "sexy corals" has any customers at all....
Click to expand...
im curious Ho long you've been keeping sps? My experience has been the complete opposite.
 
Dog boy Dave said:
Fresh wild cuts are not for everyone. There are other markets available if you want proven corals that have been tried and trued. Lots of people do fine with fresh wild or aquacultured corals.
Click to expand...

I must be doing something wrong cause I have a much higher percentage of success with aquarium grown frags than anything else. Not to say I haven't had a wild colony or frag turn out fantastic but I also have a good percentage of those rtn and/or loss color.

My point being is that I still believe that any coral purchase is a risk but that risk is much smaller with a proven aquarium grown coral/frags.
 
MammothReefer said:
. . . If I showed most people 2 pieces of coral that were exactly the same from all visible stand points and one was mari, the other LE and the mari was $50 for a mini coloni and the LE was $120 for the frag, most people will choose the mari.

When I ran my business I never did that but if I were to put up a site again and I have similar pieces I would make sure to put somewhere in the text that X is a "mari, or wild" version of Y for SEO purposes and to help people avoid buying pieces similar to what they may have.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. What do "LE" and "SEO" mean"?
 
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