SPS Growout Contest

[Nola Bear]

UPDATE: 

List of People Interested

@Nola Bear

@pal

@Polarcollision

@dmw913

@Okinawa_Reefer

@kdcarey

@Droy008

@This guy is extra salty

@LeoB

@DaveFason

@jbb_00

@Figster

@RotaryReef

@TheBig053

 

Others who expressed “Relative” Interest (didn’t know how else to word this) 

@Cannedfish

@micoastreefing

@spectra

@tk3445

@HarryPotter

 

 

 

ORIGINAL POST:

On another forum, there is an sps growout contest sponsored by battlecorals. It sounds like a ton of fun. Everyone paid $75 (40 for shipping, 25 for Frag, and 10 for winners pot). Forty people signed up and so the winner will get a 400 gift card to battlecorals. 

 

I know that we don’t have high end sps growers for sponsors like battlecorals or reefraft, but I would still love to put tgis idea out there and see what if any traction it might get. I think this contest on nanoreef would be insanely cool. 

 

@HarryPotter made the suggestion that maybe a user had a large enough colony to Frag up, but then the winners pot would be an issue. Plus it is a lot to ask someone to ship out a ton of fragsunless they are making enough to justify the pita. 

 

What at do you all think? Interest?ideas?

[spectra]

Great idea but the logistics for just a normal member would be a PITA. Someone who does not ship corals would probably end up with some dead loss for sure.

 

I have done a few grow outs over the years with the local club they are fun! I love to see everyones progression. Some corals grew like weeds others withered and died........

[HarryPotter]

@Nola Bear with my colonies I could only do about 5 people with 1” frags without doing too much damage  

[mitten_reef]

I'm interested!  I'd love it even more if the buy-in price is closer to $50 though.

 

Maybe a vendor like @Cultivated Reef might have enough single type of acro frag for a pool of 10-20 ppl?  I'm assuming we're doing acro frags here.  I don't think the contest frag needs to be anything fancy, right?  It just have to be robust enough that a grower/vendor have many frags available in their grow-out system.  

 

Following.

[pal]

If this gets going I will join.

[Nola Bear]

3 hours ago, micoastreefing said:

I'm interested!  I'd love it even more if the buy-in price is closer to $50 though.

 

Maybe a vendor like @Cultivated Reef might have enough single type of acro frag for a pool of 10-20 ppl?  I'm assuming we're doing acro frags here.  I don't think the contest frag needs to be anything fancy, right?  It just have to be robust enough that a grower/vendor have many frags available in their grow-out system.  

 

Following.

Yeah, def acro. The thing with battlecorals doing it over “there” is that everyone wanted in because their corals are so awesome. It if it is just a super common whatever acro, I don’t think we’d get the same interest. 

 

I understand wanting to do a lower buy in, but most vendors require the 40 dollar shipping and then that wouldn’t leave much to buy the coral and build a winner pot. 

 

I was thinking @AquaSD and @wwc are probably the nicest vendors, but I don’t know if they are willing. It might be time to recruit more vendors, like Big R, Rocky Mountain, Reef Raft, Sexy Corals, etc. 

[Nola Bear]

I don’t know how any of this is done though without the advice/assistance of someone like @Christopher Marks

[MainelyReefer]

Coral dudes did this, and I bought into the zoas and acan one, I never posted the update photos and they relied on Facebook to coordinate updates and I don't Facebook. Basically beyond just the initial fulfillment of getting the corals, there's a lot of background work to ensure a fair competition.  And then people(like my buddy) said they had DOA and it turns out they didn't, after recieving the replacement he just glued them to one plug(what a bastard).  We grew out utter chaos, twizzlers, and a rainbow acan, having desirable genetics is the only reason I joined because Atleast I still have nice corals even after the competition turned out lame.  Not worth the extra $$. Boston reefers society(local forum) has A grow out every few months, they have monthly meetings though so the buy in is only the cost of a yearly membership(20$) so they are using less desirable corals and not paying shipping, and I think their prizes aren't cash but donated Reef goods.  Cool idea, difficult execution.

[Polarcollision]

I've never done one of these, def interested

[Christopher Marks]

It's definitely a neat idea @Nola Bear! You should reach out to some of our community sponsors with livestock and see if they might be interested in hosting such an event here, they help us keep the lights on, after all . It could be really fun!

 

A number of community members have hosted their own contests here in the forums over the years, maybe this one could be yours? I'm happy to offer more guidance if you're up for it  

 

Some challenges to overcome to keep it all manageable and fair, some pitfalls spectra and GraniteReefer mentioned, but I bet there's a way!

[dmw913]

@Nola Bear I'm happy to help brainstorm and coordinate if needed.  I'd also love to compete.  

 

Here's a thought - we may not need a sponsor, so to speak, if the vendor is big enough and our competition is small enough.

 

For example:  WWC has a frag of Paletta tri-color on sale right now for $36.  It's not in the WYSIWYG section and it does not show low stock or anything which leads me to believe they have several frags.  We could always call and ask.  Shipping was $30.  Add $10 prize fund and we are out the door for $76 and no one has to coordinate shipping, etc.  

 

However, if we do have a bunch of interest, they might discount a better/more valuable frag if they knew they were all flying out the door by a date certain.  

 

Just some random thoughts.  

 

 

[Okinawa_Reefer]

I’m down for this!

[Nola Bear]

I will call wwc in the morning and see if they would be interested. 

 

I think we we would need to meet a certain number to make it viable for them, but who knows...

[dmw913]

6 hours ago, Nola Bear said:

I will call wwc in the morning and see if they would be interested. 

 

I think we we would need to meet a certain number to make it viable for them, but who knows...

Thanks, Nola!  I'm ready to rummmmmmble!

 

[tk3445]

id probably be interested depending on the cost. $50 mark seems pretty reasonable.

[kdcarey]

Interested and following

[Droy008]

I'd be very interested in joining as well!

Very cool idea.

[This guy is extra salty]

I’m interested 

 

i have quite a few acroporas that are weeds

[flatlandreefer]

On 1/2/2018 at 5:29 PM, Nola Bear said:

I will call wwc in the morning and see if they would be interested. 

 

I think we we would need to meet a certain number to make it viable for them, but who knows...

 

I bet if you talked to them they could have some sort of code that you could enter at check out to indicate that you are a member of the grow out contest and they could hold all of the frags until a specific date and ship them all at once, just a thought.  I haven't had luck recently with acros in my tank otherwise I would definitely be interested. 

[HarryPotter]

On 1/3/2018 at 1:06 AM, tk3445 said:

id probably be interested depending on the cost. $50 mark seems pretty reasonable.

 

Problem is that just barely covers shipping. Try to get an estimate for a 5lb package overnight cross country. Not great. 

[flatlandreefer]

4 minutes ago, HarryPotter said:

 

Problem is that just barely covers shipping. Try to get an estimate for a 5lb package overnight cross country. Not great. 

 

I agree.  To do this contest its going to cost a lot more than $50.  Maybe a vendor would give a big discount off the competition frag if the participant met a minimum purchase amount on other livestock, like a total purchase of $150 or $200.  This would help justify shipping costs as well.

[Nola Bear]

Well, I finally got around to calling @wwc. They seemed amenable to the idea and said they would talk it over and call me back . I think we would need at least 20 people in the contest to make it work well. 

 

The Battlecorals one that I am in that just started(in diff forum) has forty folks plus standby, which equates to the winner getting essentially a 400$ battlecorals gift card. Everyone paid $80(40shipping, 30frag, & 10prize). Plus the coral that everyone got is BC Vivid Rainbow Delight, which retails on his site for ~$100. So all in all, it is a pretty sweet deal; at least I think so, and I’m not one for buying expensive frags. If you read my build threads, you know I reef on the cheap  

[Droy008]

9 hours ago, Nola Bear said:

Well, I finally got around to calling @wwc. They seemed amenable to the idea and said they would talk it over and call me back . I think we would need at least 20 people in the contest to make it work well. 

 

The Battlecorals one that I am in that just started(in diff forum) has forty folks plus standby, which equates to the winner getting essentially a 400$ battlecorals gift card. Everyone paid $80(40shipping, 30frag, & 10prize). Plus the coral that everyone got is BC Vivid Rainbow Delight, which retails on his site for ~$100. So all in all, it is a pretty sweet deal; at least I think so, and I’m not one for buying expensive frags. If you read my build threads, you know I reef on the cheap  

With the level of activity on this forum, I can't imagine it'd be too hard to get 20-30 people to join.

Just look at the creative container contest and the amount of people who've joined that.

 

[Cannedfish]

I'm pretty much in. 

[Okinawa_Reefer]

@Nola Bear maybe start a list of people in the first post so we can begin a headcount and also make sure we have enough people.