Why Do We Continue To Buy Frags?

[OrionN]

Mmmnmm

I am willing to run an experiment. Send me a list of 6-7 readily available acros that you think are 99% bulletproof and I will buy them. I will put them in my tank and keep you informed of my tank parameters and how they are growing. If after 3mos, 6 mos, and a year at least 80% of them are thriving, I will stand corrected and admit I am wrong.

This does not proof anything and is a waste of time. All it does is to to show what YOU can do.
A reasonable study would be tracking WC and captive frags/colonies of various Reefers over a period of time.
It is common sense that captive frags do better. What you believe is common sense is absolutely not.

 

[mfrumkin]

Mmmnmm

This does not proof anything and is a waste of time. All it does is to to show what YOU can do.
A reasonable study would be tracking WC and captive frags/colonies of various Reefers over a period of time.
It is common sense that captive frags do better. What you believe is common sense is absolutely not.

Why is it common sense that captive frags do better than larger captive corals. Again, I am not comparing aquaculture vs. mariculture vs. wild caught. Please explain why a zoa 3 polyp frag will do better than my 50+ polyp frag also tank raised of the same species. You and others keep claiming frags are healthier but no one can say why?

My offer was in direct response to that Reef Guy stating that there are acros that are 99% bulletproof and implying that I am too incompetent to grow them. It is not a waste of time because if that Reef Guy is right and I am wrong I will have some beautiful acros in my tank in the next year. I will also admit that I am wrong, something nobody on this forum ever does.

 

[OrionN]

Captive grown frags will do just as well if not better than larger captive raise corals. Certainly transport a small frag is a lot easier than large colonies. But this is not what we are talking about.

You want to buy large colonies for cheap. It is just not possible if you want to buy captive large colonies. Corals take time to grow. The larger the corals, the more expensive it is, of course. I you want a 100 polyps colonies, any sensible seller will sell them for at least 10X the price of a 10 polyps frag of the same species. If the colony is especially beautiful one, where there are plenty of people who want to buy 1 polyp because they don't have money, then of course a 100 polyps colony will cost more than 100X the one polyp frag, perhaps much more than 100X.

The only way any reefer can get cheap large colonies, is wild caught colonies.

 

[mfrumkin]

I

Captive grown frags will do just as well if not better than larger captive raise corals. Certainly transport a small frag is a lot easier than large colonies. But this is not what we are talking about.

You want to buy large colonies for cheap. His is just not possible if you want to buy captive large colonies. Corals take time to grow. The larger the corals, the more expensive it is, of course. I you want a 100 polyps colonies, any sensible seller will sell them for at least 10X the price of a 10 polyps frag of the same species. If the colony is especially beautiful one, where there are plenty of perople who want to buy 1 polyp because they don't have money, then of course a 100 polyps colony will cost more than 100X the one polyp frag, perhaps much more than 100X.

The only way any reefer can get cheap large colonies, is wild caught colonies.

I don't know why you think I want to buy large corals for cheap. I don't think I ever said that.

 

[Eve]

...Every post you make is so harsh. Why so rude all the time?

I was going to say the same, so rude. There are better ways to say things.

 

[OrionN]

I guess you are a lot wealthier than most reefers. It is already expensive to spend 25-50 (or more) for small frags of some of the most beautiful SPS corals. Most of us cannot sink several thousand on one. I rather spend 1000.00 on 30 corals frags then 2000 on 2 to 4 colonies of tank raise large coral colonies.
Growing the coral in our tank, it looks a lot more natural than trying to fit a large colonies on the rock structure.
It took me 3 years to grow a Red Goniopora from .5X.5 inch, 20 polyps or so coral frag to a 3X3X3 inches colonies. I would not sell this colony for 500.00. If you really want to get a beautiful, captive raise Goniopora this size you got to pay big bucks for it because it take a lot of time, a lot of expensive real estates and the supports, water change, electricity to grow these. If you want a large Goniopora colony, there is not a lot of choice except getting a wild collect Goniopora (for most of us, except for you of course)
In addition, we all got to make a living. If someone make it their profession to grow corals to make a living, you just got to allow them to "make a living". If you don't want to buy small, by all mean, sink a lot of money and get large captive raise colony. Even with some of the fastest growing SPS, to get a reasonable colony of about 3X3 inches, it is going to take a year or two at optimal condition, which mean a lot of money into support the tank.

 

[mfrumkin]

I was going to say the same, so rude. There are better ways to say things.

In what way have I been rude? Certainly not my intention.

 

[OrionN]

.........
Basic retail economics: Let's assume a retail vendor frags 3,000 pieces a month that equals 12,000 pieces a quarter. They have to turn their inventory 4 times a year. At an average sales price of let's say $40 that is $480,000 a quarter, close to $2,000,000 a year. .......

This is totally out of wack. There is no vendor who sell 3,000 frag a month. If they frag 3000 frag a month, they will just throw away most of them and take a huge loss. Maybe this is why your view on this is so different than a lot of people here. There isn't that many reefer out there. Also, when something first come out, there is a demand from wealthy reefers who pay a huge amount for something new. Once the coral or fish have been propagated for a while, the price will drastically down due to just every day reefer who view keeping as a hobby, and will sell them for a lot cheaper.
Take a Lighting Maroon clown. I don't know how many thousand of dollars for that first wild caught one. The first deformed maroon clowns sold for many thousand of dollars, (was it 6000 or 15000?) but now we can get one for 30.00 at Petco.

 

[Eve]

In what way have I been rude? Certainly not my intention.

Lol No it was not you! It was someone else. He quoted another person who was rude.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

You got to admit, $600 frags don’t look like $20 frags. Not a lot looks like a JF home wrecker.

My tank is small and real estate is expensive. If I can only have space for 5-6 acros, they won’t be filled with brown/green common stuff.

You should always buy the best that you can afford. I could get by with a cheap car, but I work hard and earn more than most. I chose to drive a Porsche because I can afford it and nothing else drives like one, or looks like one. Porsche will continue to sell their cars at high prices because people like me will continue to pay them. That’s how capitalism goes. Animal kingdom is no different. The strong survive because they eat the weak.

 

[jose hernandez]

I hate frags but that is what this hobby has come to I’ve been in the hobby 12+ years I would go and buy a zoa colony 100+ plus heads for less than $60 bucks now people are charging $5 per head it’s crazy what this hobby has come to

 

[Hermie]

You got to admit, $600 frags don’t look like $20 frags. Not a lot looks like a JF home wrecker.

My tank is small and real estate is expensive. If I can only have space for 5-6 acros, they won’t be filled with brown/green common stuff.

You should always buy the best that you can afford. I could get by with a cheap car, but I work hard and earn more than most. I chose to drive a Porsche because I can afford it and nothing else drives like one, or looks like one. Porsche will continue to sell their cars at high prices because people like me will continue to pay them. That’s how capitalism goes. Animal kingdom is no different. The strong survive because they eat the weak.

Acros as a status symbol...

hahahahahahahaha

 

[LARedstickreefer]

I hate frags but that is what this hobby has come to I’ve been in the hobby 12+ years I would go and buy a zoa colony 100+ plus heads for less than $60 bucks now people are charging $5 per head it’s crazy what this hobby has come to

Prices also come down a lot. Remember Rastas? They used to sell for $20pp. Now they are like $5pp. My Rasta colony that I have now could have made a mortgage payment for me.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

Acros as a status symbol...

hahahahahahahaha

You completely missed the point. Porsche cars are only status symbols to people that don’t have one or to Dbags. They look and drive like no other car on the road.

JF home wrecker looks like nothing else out there. People pay big money for corals that look like nothing else out there. No one is shelling out big money for drab corals just because of a name.

 

[Hemmdog]

You completely missed the point. Porsche cars are only status symbols to people that don’t have one or to Dbags. They look and drive like no other car on the road.

JF home wrecker looks like nothing else out there. People pay big money for corals that look like nothing else out there. No one is shelling out big money for drab corals just because of a name.

+1

 

[HCl+NaHO=]

There were plenty of retailers and tech in the first half of the 00’s... Even online, I remember Reefer Madness had almost nothing but acro colonies. I had seaswirls, a calcium reactor, halides and PC lights, a chiller by 2001... by 2005 plenty of folks did. Give me a break.

So you corroborate that Acropora colonies at local fish stores were ubiquitous and inexpensive in the 90s and early 2000s?

I stand corrected.

I can take my schooling.

 

[LARedstickreefer]

So you corroborate that Acropora colonies at local fish stores were ubiquitous and inexpensive in the 90s and early 2000s?

I stand corrected.

I can take my schooling.

Equals satwater?

 

[mfrumkin]

I guess you are a lot wealthier than most reefers. It is already expensive to spend 25-50 (or more) for small frags of some of the most beautiful SPS corals. Most of us cannot sink several thousand on one. I rather spend 1000.00 on 30 corals frags then 2000 on 2 to 4 colonies of tank raise large coral colonies.
Growing the coral in our tank, it looks a lot more natural than trying to fit a large colonies on the rock structure.
It took me 3 years to grow a Red Goniopora from .5X.5 inch, 20 polyps or so coral frag to a 3X3X3 inches colonies. I would not sell this colony for 500.00. If you really want to get a beautiful, captive raise Goniopora this size you got to pay big bucks for it because it take a lot of time, a lot of expensive real estates and the supports, water change, electricity to grow these. If you want a large Goniopora colony, there is not a lot of choice except getting a wild collect Goniopora (for most of us, except for you of course)
In addition, we all got to make a living. If someone make it their profession to grow corals to make a living, you just got to allow them to "make a living". If you don't want to buy small, by all mean, sink a lot of money and get large captive raise colony. Even with some of the fastest growing SPS, to get a reasonable colony of about 3X3 inches, it is going to take a year or two at optimal condition, which mean a lot of money into support the tank.

C'mon now. You can't have it both ways. Either I am a cheapskate or wealthy, though I could be a wealthy cheapskate. Hmm

"It is already expensive to spend 25-50 (or more) for small frags of some of the most beautiful SPS corals."

Bingo. You just made my argument for me. You say it scarcity and I say it's price manipulation. I will refer you to this article. https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-diamonds-are-so-expensive-2015-9

 

[Ike]

I totally agree with much of what you are posting. I do question the supply and demand issue. We have been told that there s a shortage, and perhaps there is with upper end high priced designer corals, Walt Disney or whatever. But is this an artificial supply issue? Is a Walt Disney acro that is being sold for $X that much harder to grow than an acro for $40-$50? I don't know. If it is, then perhaps the price is justified. But if it a situation where you are paying Ferrari prices for a Ford because the vendors control the market, then people should rethink things. The reef guy says he buys upper-end corals and I don't doubt him. But I am guessing he is an outlier. I am guessing, (and it is only that, a guess), that the average collector/hobbyist probably DOES NOT buy upper-end corals.

This is NOT a transparent industry. As far as I can tell there are no publicly traded coral vendors that have to file disclosures. So who knows what the economics are? We know what we are told by vendors, but is that accurate? Do we even know that vendors DON'T collude to control prices and inventory?

Yeah, there are some shady vendors out there. Yes, I can assure you there has been some collusion. Anywhere there is money to be made this will happen.However, there are very rare corals in this hobby and supply and demand has very clearly dictated corals prices for years. When Tyree was growing out corals via reef farmers some of those corals were truly hard to come by. I've spent countless hours in wholesalers, and getting the good stuff is hard work and requires a tremendous amount of diligence and almost a sniper's mentality. I'm sure it's gotten far worse...

You keep making this Ferrari analogy that does nothing but make your point look less valid. Your mentality that an acro is an acro is no different from saying a car is a car. There are special corals that come into the industry and have high demand and are not affordable for most because the demand is far outpacing supply. Not a whole lot different from any number of other collectible things like a hot pair of collectible shoes or sports card. Something like Oregon Tort comes to mind as well, it's like a classic car that maintains it's value. Hell, it should probably even go up in value with how slow the thing grows. Pink Panther is another good example... If that coral were prettier people would be paying obscene amounts of money for it, as it is it's just very difficult to find even for well over $100. Then there are very pretty corals that are pretty common (Strawberry Shortcake is a good example), and there are corals that have a lot of hype that often don't stand the test of time and never really catch on. I've seen many thousands of corals, and there are several corals that have becomes staples in the hobby that I've still never seen a comparable wild colony of.

Walt Disney is now and will continue to be subjected to the rules of supply and demand. It and similar A. tenuis corals are a fading fad. Supply seems to be outpacing demand and no vendor is going to be able to keep that price artificially inflated. There are also much prettier A. tenuis IMO, which is . It's not selling for high prices like it used to, it grows fast, and they will be widely available for under $100 very soon as a result. This will be a $40-$50 frag before too long. Take a look at some preciously very expensive coral prices...

Red Dragon 2010ish was $250 and very difficult to come by. By 2013 it had dipped below $100 a frag and was fairly attainable since it was a fast grower and had been spread around in the hobby. Now you can get it for $15-$40 no problem and seemingly depending on how many people have had their colonies RTN. It still grows fast, it still likes to RTN, and it's still unlike any wild colony I've seen imported. It's pretty cool that you can get such a great coral for $20. I've seen thousands of wild colonies come through wholesalers and there are frags in the hobby that are truly rare (or at least not typically collected) corals that have become commonplace within the hobby. That's pretty amazing and is thanks to all of the hobbyists and businesses growing them out and it being such a universally liked and fast growing coral. You however seem to want to pretend that an acro is acro is an acro... It simply isn't the case!

I think you should be the one explaining to us why you would rather deplete a natural resource than purchase something captive grown and sustainable and grow your own colony...

 

[mfrumkin]

This is totally out of wack. There is no vendor who sell 3,000 frag a month. If they frag 3000 frag a month, they will just throw away most of them and take a huge loss. Maybe this is why your view on this is so different than a lot of people here. There isn't that many reefer out there. Also, when something first come out, there is a demand from wealthy reefers who pay a huge amount for something new. Once the coral or fish have been propagated for a while, the price will drastically down due to just every day reefer who view keeping as a hobby, and will sell them for a lot cheaper.
Take a Lighting Maroon clown. I don't know how many thousand of dollars for that first wild caught one. The first deformed maroon clowns sold for many thousand of dollars, (was it 6000 or 15000?) but now we can get one for 30.00 at Petco.

I encourage you to actually read my posts prior to responding. Acro76 posted "we make thousands of frags a month and only lose a small percentage." So if they are creating an inventory on a monthly basis and not selling it they will soon be out of business. So I take them at their word, they make 1,000s of frags a month. Maybe it's only 2,000 or maybe it is as many as 7,000. I can only conjecture. I can tell you that if overhead is as high as many on this board says it is they cannot hold onto inventory for a long period. So traditionally a retail specialty business should turn inventory 3.5-4x a year. Let's say that online numbers are different and you only need a 3X turn to be profitable. That still means they are still selling a minimum of 24,000 pieces a year. If you google coral sales online the 1st 2 pages list 15 vendors. If we multiply that by 24,000 we come up with 360,000 corals per year being sold. So where is the shortage?

Oh right, Indonesia. Now let's consider who that ban actually hurts. First and least, the hobbyist. Yes, we may have to pay more but let's face it, that's a first world problem. So big deal.

Second and most importantly, the Indonesian workers who made their living harvesting corals. I read that 10,000 people lost their jobs, and there is a trickle down, for every one worker there are 2-3 people behind them supplying goods and services who see a diminished income. Is there any sort of lobbying effort to get the Indonesian government to remove or modify the ban? Beats me. But there should be.

Now, who gained from the Indonesian ban? The retailers. Because we are told that everything is scarce and we must now pay higher prices.

I swear if I were 20 years younger I'd find a partner to bankroll and start an aquafarm. Within 10 years I'd be able to disrupt the market.