Mr.corals coral.

[mrbigshot]

i don't mid having multiple plugged frags per bag as long as there's water in there. i got a few "superglue volcanoes" in my pack. good news is the dead ones i ground the frag plugs clean and mounted some ric's on there.

speaking of frag plugs where can i get more like those? i like that you can pack those in there, the ocean wonders plugs I'm using wont allow another right next to it.

 

most wholesalers will drop a supplier if the survival rate is less than 90%. hell 90% would have been great for me, unfortunately its 75% at best. Ive always had good luck holding frags for 2-3 weeks before subjecting them to shipping. it doesn't cost anything but space to let them heal properly.

 

sorry for the rant but i have to frag up some aoi's so they have time to heal up.

[pismo_reefer]

its looking kind of grim to be honest. but i remain optimistic

 

Did they come with a heatpack/icepack/etc?

Just curious....

 

[organism]

most wholesalers will drop a supplier if the survival rate is less than 90%.

 

Yup, anything under 90% is usually an immediate drop, 5% is the industry standard and that's for wholesale where you don't have chances to let things sit around and heal. Responsible shops should be somewhere in the 2% range, over 10% is pure negligence and 20-60% is just... appalling. You have to put in some serious effort to kill that much stuff.

[JamesReef]

You know, and this is just my 2 cents, but it's really disappointing that a 20-60% mortality rate is considered even remotely acceptable in the hobby at this point. If a hobbyist was selling frags where any regularly died they'd be burned at the stake. You can afford to let corals heal for a few weeks after being fragged and still sell them cheap, it's not hard to do to make sure they actually live.

 

Knowingly killing tons of corals for a quick buck is about as unethical as it gets, and that is a messed up choice to make in a hobby where everyone else cares about keeping stuff alive. It's disrespectful to hobbyists, and it's disrespectful to other living things that share the planet with us. I wasn't going to chime in but those frags were chopped and shipped. And we ALL know it. Sponsor or not that is ****ed up, and this hobby's fallen a long way if them being sold cheap is a good excuse on that one.

 

This pretty much sums it up.

[mrcoral.com]

That week we had issue shipping because of the weather. We had very warm weather and some areas were cold so we could not use heat packs. Anyone who had a issue that Pm me I took care of. We shipped about 60 of these packs and had a few that ended up with problems. There were some issues with some zoas melted. Also, Japanese zoas need to be shaded or they will melt!! They are tough!! We are giving everything now at least 2 weeks on healing and now with the weather being warm around the country we have had no shipping issues. Mrcoral is here for you and will always take care of you. Any issues or concerns you can always call us at the store we are here to help 301-695-5777.

[JamesReef]

...We are giving everything now at least 2 weeks on healing...

 

If that has been the primary reason behind the mortality rates that seem to be popping up way too much lately then this is a positive change of business and I'm sure it will be very well appreciated by the community.

[reeftankguy]

Anyone who had a issue that Pm me I took care of.

 

I PM'ed you and never recieved a reply... It said something to the affect of " The White Widows and Fruitloops never opened and melted away, but the rest looked great so far..."

 

You did make mention in another thread where other Reefers that bought the same pack had the same DOA's and that next time we ordered to say something about the DOA's and you would take care of us...

 

And the rest are doing great as I type this and have new heads on all 6 Frags... So thats a good thing

[chucktdbm321]

just to throw it out there that i ordered the lucky 16 pack from mr. coral and not one melted. Yes, some of the bags were leaky but every single one i have is open and looks awesome some of them have already TRIPLED in polyps. THEY ARE GREAT GUYS I KNOW THEM. Ive been to there store several times and im always pleased with their knowledge and their care for customers. If you need pics because you just think there is no way i can post them

[swigen]

just to throw it out there that i ordered the lucky 16 pack from mr. coral and not one melted. Yes, some of the bags were leaky but every single one i have is open and looks awesome some of them have already TRIPLED in polyps. THEY ARE GREAT GUYS I KNOW THEM. Ive been to there store several times and im always pleased with their knowledge and their care for customers. If you need pics because you just think there is no way i can post them

 

I too ordered the lucky 16 pack. Just like others have already expressed, the frags looked very fresh and the glue job very sloppy. One clove frag never opened and melted and one zoa frag has slowly melted to nothing. Overall, I was mostly dissapointed. Not because I lost two frags but because the zoas and palys I recieved looked very much different from the pictures on the frag pack post. In fact I cannot definitively match over half of them to the post pictures. Also, it seems that a couple morphs were replaced by duplicates of a lookalike. For example, the "orange monster" frag looks identical to the "EZ" frag and the "blue clues" look exactly the same as the "blue with white centers."

 

For the most part, it wasn't the "best deal of all time" that I thought it would be and I have tempered my excitement over Mr. Coral frag packs since then.

[danthenewreefman]

He did say he will take care of us, for those people that ordered the 20 pack and have several deaths...but of course we'll have to order something else...

 

I will give him one more try, being that the favia pack I got from him was GREAT!

 

So I'm hoping the zoanthids were just an honest mistake that he'll compensate for in the next order I make with him.

 

But If I'm unsatisfied next time...will def. be last $ of mine he gets

 

I honestly debated calling my credit card company to reject the $100 zoanthid charge, but i've seen several post about him "making it right" so I am willing to give it another chance, and hope/pray....

 

--Daniel

[rubadakis]

You know, and this is just my 2 cents, but it's really disappointing that a 20-60% mortality rate is considered even remotely acceptable in the hobby at this point. If a hobbyist was selling frags where any regularly died they'd be burned at the stake. You can afford to let corals heal for a few weeks after being fragged and still sell them cheap, it's not hard to do to make sure they actually live.

 

Knowingly killing tons of corals for a quick buck is about as unethical as it gets, and that is a messed up choice to make in a hobby where everyone else cares about keeping stuff alive. It's disrespectful to hobbyists, and it's disrespectful to other living things that share the planet with us. I wasn't going to chime in but those frags were chopped and shipped. And we ALL know it. Sponsor or not that is ****ed up, and this hobby's fallen a long way if them being sold cheap is a good excuse on that one.

 

+1 Agree 100%

[danthenewreefman]

+1 Agree 100%

 

I have to agree with that too, thoughtless/careless harvesting of coral leading to high death rates is only going to accelerate the complete outlawing of coral collection.

 

the more we kill, the more we collect, the faster we deplete the environment, the faster it will be stopped.

 

I bet coral prices are going to be CRAZY expensive 100 years from now when collecting is illegal and has been for a long time. We'll only have tank grown specimens to choose from.

[mrcoral.com]

We gave all the zoas a week to heal. Most cases that would be enough. 90% of the packages had no issues. The 10% that did we are trying to figure out why. We had a few on the West Coast saying the packaging was cold. We could not ship with heat because it was baking here.

 

So to be safe we are holding on corals for 2 weeks no matter what just to be safe.

 

Thanks guys for comments guys always looking to improve.

[yel01z06]

I have ordered several times from Mr. Coral with no major problems. And as for the stuff dying ,yes it sucks and we all do not like to c that happen but the dealings i have had with them has been very good i have talked to many of the guys that work there and i do not believe they are trying to get over on anyone and are probably just as upset over the loss of the corals as everyone else. I have had one piece of SPS not make it through the transportation process but on my next order they gave me another frag with no problems at all.

[7digits]

I won't buy there again. Reefhotspot has much healthier stuff.

[RyanR1212]

I won't buy there again. Reefhotspot has much healthier stuff.

 

that place looks as expensive as sack

[Gerber77]

that place looks as expensive as sack

 

Ive been to their location and I must say that I was not impressed one bit, granted it was a friday afternoon but their selection was minimal and was very high for anything remotely nice.

[GiantBen]

I am willing to give it another chance, and hope/pray....

 

Sounds like a sound plan.

 

From everything I have seen/read in multiple posts, I have the impression that his zoa packs are suspicious, but the others are okay.

[IronSnake]

I've bought 3 packs from MrCoral and out of them, I've only had issues with 4 zoas not making it. I didn't bothered to write an email to Sonny about it because I didn't know what died because they never opened it, or were covered with superglue to the extreme.

 

That being said, I considered the price of the pack with free shipping to be a great deal, so I just purchased his latest 20-pack. I also have purchased some of his LPS, they've been solid for me. I haven't lost a single one.

 

Maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones? I am curious to see how many of the zoas I might lose from this 20 pack. For sure superglueing the zoas directly (without any live rock underneath) pisses them off, just like with mushrooms.

[coolwaters]

O.o

 

this thread just became lively.

last thing i wanted was this thread to be negative to anyone.

 

at night it gets really cold which probably the main reason most of the coral didnt make it.

 

hopefully the weather would be even over at his place and mine so the survival rate would be better.

[SpankythePyro]

I've only ever picked up zoas from Mr.Coral and taken then directly home and put them in my tank. They've all opened up right away.

 

I have however while dipping found a nudi. This I expect from any dealer/merchant/or hobbyist which is why I always inspect and and every coral I get, dip, and make sure nothing is on them.

 

Also got an acan pack, shipped. Two looked like they had tissue recession but after a day of feeding 2x a day they are inflated now and looking better. They were fairly fresh cut though, or atleast they didn't heal/grow much. All were wonderfully sized though.

[7digits]

At $20 for one polyp, it should not melt. Everything I got from mr. Coral was tiny. Expected 4 polyps on the paly as it was wysiwyg and got one. The only good thing was the acan echinata. Which is nice, but 1 out of 5 is not a good ratio.

[Spilo26]

I ordered his large zoa pack and over half of it melted away. I sent him pics of it and Mr. Coral said my next order would make up for my losses. I just ordered his new larger pack, and all I can say is I hope it's worth it. If Im disappointed with this order as well I think ill take my orders elsewhere. 20 percent survival on an order is abysmal.

[DrCooper]

I got the a japanese zoas frag pack from them which consisted of 8 frags. I already had one of the frags, but decided to place the order because it seemed like a good deal for 7 different frags. Initially 4 opened and 4 did not. Long story short, the 7 different zoas melted and the one that I already had is the only remaining frag. I've been talking and reading about a lot of people who get livestock from mr coral that die off. WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH HIS STUFF?

 

Same pack I ordered and they ALL melted except 2 which are the same 2 frags (go figure)

[guia x]

I got the japanese zoa pack too and only three survived. The rest never opened and just melted away. Some of them actually came off the plugs and I had to glue them on rubble. Out of the three I had to glue, only one survived.

 

Well, Mr. Coral said he would replace them to my next order. So I ordered the SPS pack with the pastel acros and I emailed him the night before to remind him about the replacements and I never got a response. The pack came without the zoas. The worst thing is that the two of the 10 acros started RTN a few hours after I put them in the tank and another one after a day. All of them came in pretty much bleached. The millis are all doing well now and coloring up. A couple are still bleached but with some polyp extension. Funny thing is I probably would not have ordered the pack if I didn't need the replacement zoas.

 

Anyway, that's my latest experience with these packs. Some how there is always something that doesn't survive but I guess I could say that about alot of my orders from online sources, especially with buying zoas. They seem pretty helpful when you talk to them in person and when making a sale. I guess you just have to think that you get what you pay for with these packs. Most of the stuff I ordered from the website have all come in good shape for the most part, except for the one time that I found monti eating nudis on a monti that I ordered. Atleast I found it before I placed it inside my tank and they took care of me and replaced it with something else. So it is not all bad. Nobody can beat their prices for sure but I'll probably won't get in on another pack again.