Ryan,
I can understand your frustration when you try to put a good idea into action and no one seems to really "get it." I read this post a few days ago and have been thinking on it for a while. In principle it is definitely a good idea. As most have said though, putting it into practice is going to be a bit harder. I'm definitely interested in the idea, and the spirit behind it, so I'm going to try to keep this post to including ways that I think you might improve the plan. And I’d be more than happy to give this a try to see how it all works out. If it burns me, it won’t put me in the poor house… and if it works like a charm then I’ll have a ton of stuff to trade out after a little more growing.
1. For me, the most obvious problem with the grow out idea is the actual growing part. Different zoas grow at different rates and the same zoas will grow at different rates in different people's tanks. I personally seem to have trouble getting much growth out of a lot of them except for one or two of the types that I have (which almost grow too quickly). Subsequently, I would be nervous about buying a nice frag, putting it in my tank, and then having to meet a quota of a certain number of frags in a defined amount of time. If coming up short only happens to one or two people, then it's probably not a big problem, but if everyone in the group comes up short you're going to have more demand than supply and arguments over who gets what frags are bound to break out. I think it is a little optimistic to expect to have 11 frags (assuming a group of 10) grow from 1 in six months unless it starts out as a relatively large colony anyway.
Solution: Since keeping the number of people per group smaller might be easier to manage anyway (and easier to fill a grow-out quota), you might think about reducing the number of people per group and just running multiple groups if there is enough interest. It might also be easier to find 5 people with zoas that you definitely want and don't already have than it would be to find 10. This would reduce the benefit a little bit, but would probably be a little more realistic. With smaller groups you might be able to get away with shortening the grow-out time too if everything is doing well. Also, you could just participate in multiple groups if you wanted more frags. Plus, I’m not sensing an overwhelming amount of “let’s do this right now,†so you might just try it out with a few people who think it sounds good to iron out the kinks for a larger scale trade.
Another Solution (or maybe just a good idea in general): Make a plan, ahead of time, for shortages of particular zoas. This could be done by making a list, for each coral, in the order that the frags will be given out. So, if you have a group of 10, make a random list of the 10 people in the group for each frag. Then, if there are only 8 frags of a certain zoa, only the top 8 people on the list will get the frag. If this is randomized or done so that each person is near the top of the list for their most wanted zoas out of the bunch, it would be a fair way of dealing with slower growing zoas. Those who get shafted for certain zoas might also be put on a list for the first frags yielded from the traded zoas. Of course, changing the size of frags is always an option as well, but sometimes frags can be so small that it takes forever to get the frag “going†again.
2. I actually liked version 1 better where the corals were dipped and put all in one place to be grown out. This is "putting all of your eggs in one basket" but it prevents individuals from being singled out if they fail, for whatever reason, to yield enough frags at the end. If all of the zoas are in one tank and one makes 30 polyps but another only grows 5, then it was the zoas and not the husbandry of the person's tank that limited the growth. Thus, no blaming or finger pointing at individuals who might not meet the requirement. Assuming that you are buying frags or small colonies to put in, the layout for each person will not be all that ridiculous of a loss if anything really bad happens (like the frag tank crashing or a pest getting in). Going into it, this would be a risk you would have to be willing to accept for the benefit of saving a lot of money on a wide range of zoas. Having a centralized holding tank also makes it more difficult to withdrawal yourself (and your frag) from the group for no good reason. Similarly, if people move away within the six months, their colony could stay local, be distributed on schedule, and then that person's frags could just be shipped to them or they could come back to pick them up.
Solution: You're probably not going to make everyone happy with this one, but having them out of sight would certainly make it easier to be patient with the grow-out process (which is at the center of this plan) and you might be able to decide as a group, to continue grow-out past the six months if a number of the colonies are lagging and everyone would like to get a few more polyps per frag.
3. Once you layout the rules for the proposal and set the dates, everyone should get a copy of all of the information about how the proposal/grow-out/trade goes down. In those rules, you should also set a criterion by which those rules and dates might be changed…3/4 majority, unanimous decision, whatever, but have it layed out and agreed upon before hand.
I know for the most part that our club is pretty layed back with rules and procedures, but for something like this it would be a really good idea to be a bit more formal with the procedure. If these frags are going to really be rare, were going to be talking about a significant amount of money involved in these things and people seem to change tune quickly when you start talking money. There should also be contact information on the proposal for everyone in the trading circle and so that everyone stays informed and can get info or find people when needed.
4. Since the initial frags will probably all be of different sizes, you should plan that the person who donates gets back a frag/colony of equal size to the one they donated + the equivalent of a frag similar in size to those distributed. You may have intended to say this in the proposal, but that isn’t exactly how it came out. What I’m trying to get at here is that ideally you want people to donate pretty large starter colonies with plenty of room to grow out because the more polyps you start with the faster you will get sizeable frags. You want to make sure you don’t penalize someone for donating a frag with more polyps and that they at least get back the number of polyps that they originally donated.
Ok, well, that’s my $5… this response is almost as long as my thesis was :lol:
I'm glad you're at least thinking of ways to benefit the group and I hope that this helped.
. I wont forget my peeps when I start to get some growth. Most of the nicer corals are going to be obtained in very small quantity (1-2 polyps), so waiting is the hardest part.
