Best place to buy cheap coral.

[Uncle99]

Cheap is cheap.
You’ll get what you paid for.

Get a nice piece and grow her out. You’ll be happier.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Cheap is cheap.
You’ll get what you paid for.

Get a nice piece. You’ll be happier.

Beg to differ, you can score a LOT of cheap corals without being fleeced by vendors.

Fellow reefers are a great place to start.

 

[Uncle99]

Beg to differ, you can score a LOT of cheap corals without being fleeced by vendors.

Fellow reefers are a great place to start.

If you know your prices, you’ll know who is fooling you.
Easy to tell.

 

[zackza]

Aquarsd.com 29.99 shipping but minimum order $100

 

[doubleshot00]

Cheap is cheap.
You’ll get what you paid for.

Get a nice piece and grow her out. You’ll be happier.

Then it dies. That logic is terrible for newbs.

 

[Uncle99]

Even the most experienced reefers have corals that die.
A few of the most widely sold LPS corals have a short life expectancy in most systems.

 

[Tired]

Check the 'for sale' forum on here. Heck, check Craigslist, you might get lucky.

Coral shows can be good. Bring cash, and make an offer on multiple things- dealers, particularly hobbyists, are often happy to give you a discount if you buy multiple things and/or pay cash.

Do keep in mind /why/ a coral is cheap. You don't necessarily want blue clove polyps, for example- they're wildly invasive. Can't even be isolated on their own rock. Ugly, invasive, and heavily toxic "Texas trash" type palythoas are another you might not want to buy, no matter how cheap.

Also, one other thing- check your LFS. Both of mine have a section of $5-$10 coral frags, ones that are either unhealthy (usually trade-ins) or are things like accidental frags of a couple zoa polyps or a tip of SPS. If you have a stable tank to put them into, those bitty and/or unhappy frags have a solid chance of growing out into something nice.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Private party and local reef club

I had a fellow at my house 2 hours ago just went home with 4 colonies including mushroom and a piece of my birdsnest all for $100- Again Private party the way to go and the specimens are used to our water opposed to that from the wild and holding facilities.

 

[mrjoe]

so I try to support my local reefers as much as I can.. plus i don't have to pay the stupid shipping costs...

 

[Nick711]

Agreed. When I read that, I was thinking TSA is NOT cheap. They’re overpriced.

TSA definitely doesn't fall in the cheap place to buy coral, in my opinion lol. Join the local reef club if you have one in your area.

I ordered several LPS frags, all in the $15-29 range. They were all a good size / healthy / pest free. Maybe it was on the backend of a sale event, but seemed rather reasonable for what I received.

Maybe not “cheap”, but when you factor in the quality I felt it was a solid deal.

Of course the downside to all online vendors is the associated shipping costs. Unless you are ordering multiple frags, you may not be able to do better than local.