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Elegance Corals are an Affordable Substitute to Torch Corals


Reef Builders

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Reef Builders

There’s a full-on Gold Rush going on right now with Torch corals, and that has multiplied the price into unobtainium territory for most people, ourselves included. We just can’t, in good conscience, spend hundreds of dollars for a single coral that just a year sold for a reasonable, especially when there’s a perfectly good ‘alternative’ to […]

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5 years ago you never would’ve seen the words “elegance coral” and “affordable” in the same sentence. It seemed like all of them fell victim to ECS back then too. How times have changed..

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Christopher Marks

So much has changed over the years with new importation restrictions, paired with improving propagation and husbandry in the hobby. Corals that were once cheap and abundantly imported have become scarce in captivity, yet others are still easily found. Expensive coral fads seem to start with scarcity first and foremost, but fizzles out after a few years as propagation spreads those same corals around the hobby. Torch corals were so popular and inexpensive when I started my first nano reef in 2001, but I don't remember seeing so many color variants outside of green.

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Also it's with noting SPS and acros can be considered more of a budget tank than LPS 😮

 

it seems SPS aquaculture simply is or was more popular... So when the Indo ban happened.... suddenly we didn't have enough to meet demand. 

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1 hour ago, Tamberav said:

Also it's with noting SPS and acros can be considered more of a budget tank than LPS 😮

That's just economies of scale for ya...to put booger-sized frags into emotionless economic terms.  Try cutting an LPS into boogers...

 

Darned if you do (LPS) darned if you don't.

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12 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

That's just economies of scale for ya...to put booger-sized frags into emotionless economic terms.  Try cutting an LPS into boogers...

 

Darned if you do (LPS) darned if you don't.

Nah I mean there are many cheap hardy acros available. My LFS has mini colonies of tort for 25 dollars...several inches tall and wide. I am not talking about size or the newest homewrecker....just how SPS has been aquacultured for a long time and readily available so there is many fantastic ORA whatever or old school acros that are inexpensive. 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

.just how SPS has been aquacultured for a long time and readily available so there is many fantastic ORA whatever or old school acros that are inexpensive. 

I think the local market for frags has always seemed to be more sane than the online market.  Sounds like that's what more like we're talking about. 

 

Speculators up the supply chain (anyone have details?) seem to take the really showy pieces and put them online vs selling into the coral supply chain to local stores....bigger bucks, WAY easier to hype than in person, obviously. 

 

Not one and the same with (or even very similar to) the general or local coral market though.

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ORA was always relatively reasonable, BTW, nothing compared to crazy online prices in the last decade....like by an order of magnitude.  And they weren't available except in local stores that carried their fish too.....think that's all since changed somewhat though since their rebuild, tho not sure as to the extent.

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13 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

I think the local market for frags has always seemed to be more sane than the online market.  Sounds like that's what more like we're talking about. 

 

Speculators up the supply chain (anyone have details?) seem to take the really showy pieces and put them online vs selling into the coral supply chain to local stores....bigger bucks, WAY easier to hype than in person, obviously. 

 

Not one and the same with (or even very similar to) the general or local coral market though.

Even online you can get some really nice frag packs from boom corals or battle corals...for SPS... Much nicer than a pack wwc will send of their lps/softy mix pack.

 

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4 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Even online you can get some really nice frag packs from boom corals or battle corals...for SPS... Much nicer than a pack wwc will send of their lps/softy mix pack.

 

And it's harder and harder to even find a local store to buy in.  :sad:

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19 hours ago, Reef Builders said:

There’s a full-on Gold Rush going on right now with Torch corals, and that has multiplied the price into unobtainium territory for most people, ourselves included. We just can’t, in good conscience, spend hundreds of dollars for a single coral that just a year sold for a reasonable, especially when there’s a perfectly good ‘alternative’ to […]

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Read the full article at Reef Builders

 

It's the law of supply and demand. If hobbyists are willing to pay those prices, it's on them, not the retailers, wholesalers or importers. I'm really getting tired, as an importer, of getting painted with the greed brush. Everyone had to know that the level of collection that was going on was unsustainable. Now everyone that didn't jump on the cheap Indo/Fiji coral wagon is pissed because those of us that saw it coming and were warned and stashed some colonies for a rainy day are charging what the market will bear, $500 per polyp. 4 years ago I said that the majority of corals were coming from "chop shops", nobody wanted to believe it. Now look at where we are.

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I think it's more about markets not self-regulating particularly well, there are a small subset of hobbyists who can and will pay that much. They effectively, combined with the agreed-upon (not proper but nobody is selling gold dragons for $50, it's game-theory right down to the rates the collectors charge) values set and maintained by hundreds of outlets, decide the prices themselves independently of supply or demand (since a large enough subset of people will essentially always pay nearly-any price when your market is the entire country. The supply is low and the "desire", not demand, is high. [Think jewelery or watches, it's perfectly-sustainable for those in already niche markets to further specialize and rely on fewer higher-dollar sales] speaking with your wallet only-barely worked when it was just uncle bumbo's grocer down-the-street).

 

Because of online marketplaces and the sheer difference in purchasing power, audience size, and throughput well, frankly, the old "laws" of economics have broken down almost entirely.

 

Not accusing anyone of anything here, just pointing-out/sharing a bit of my own reading on modern-economic theory. 

 

I also don't think anyone is being accused or hounded of anything, rather it's nice for knowledgeable-folks with a foot in the rich-kids-club of the hobby to come out and share some cool-alternatives for the other 99% of hobbyists.

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6 hours ago, StinkyBunny said:

I'm really getting tired, as an importer, of getting painted with the greed brush. Everyone had to know that the level of collection that was going on was unsustainable.

Folks don't know much about importers or what you do, so it would be hard for anyone to be referring to you in any specific way at all.  But I understand your feelings -- it probably doesn't feel like that from your perspective.

 

It may help, if you're concerned about what others think about importers and greed, to give them some facts to "chew on" instead.

 

Can you describe what being an importer is all about?  What you do?  How you find/buy corals?  What the costs are like for you?  How you get corals to a retailer?  Etc?
 

I'm sure it all must make sense somehow!  🙂

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13 minutes ago, JohnMzreef said:

Please share the source of cheap, abundant long tentacle plate corals. 

 

Saw a bunch at Aquashella but I got one from Aqua SD during one of their sales for less than $40.

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