Are coral prices getting extreme?

[RJ F.]

Sorry in advance if this is I'm the wrong section. There wasnt a general coral discussion.

So I'm fairly new to the hobby. Since I started researching say a year to year and a half ago I realized imo that corals are getting really expensive. I saw a well known place asking $45 for green star polyps. Normal frag size. I have also seen recently that torches are through the roof.

Anyway I wanted to create a poll to see how yall feel about it.

 

[mattzang]

idk, seems like you just gotta shop around. i bought some dumb stuff for more money when i was newer and didn't know what i should be paying (like $60 for a small frag of gsp and small xenia). now i just hold off for a deal or shop around.

i did see someone trying to sell a frag of gsp on offerup for $80 though, looooooool

meanwhile also on offerup a guy selling nice looking frags of somewhat common sps like garf bonsai and montis for $10-20

 

[Cassian]

pricing is fair for some, ridiculous for others, and dirt cheap for some. just depends on where you shop

 

[Gareth elliott]

Think there is a price point for just about every budget locally, well maybe not places without an lfs or reef club.
And online there are some budget frags that if save for a bulk buy to qualify for free shipping are quite inexpensive,
But any aquarium where you try to grow sessile lifeforms has a moderately high up front cost.

 

[that Reef Guy]

It depends on where you shop.

I get all my Corals at Frag Swaps.

Corals that cost $40 to $60 at Stores I have Gotten for $10 to $20 at Coral Shows.

And there are Thousands and Thousands of Corals to Choose From.

 

[that Reef Guy]

Also, There is a Ban on Most Corals being imported.

You can still get Coral from Australia but Aussie Stuff has always been more expensive and is going up due to all the Coral Import Bans.

Indonesia Banned Coral Importing.

Depending on who you talk to 80 to 90 Percent of All Imported Coral came from Indonesia.

Now we can't get those Corals.

So Logically Prices have Gone Up and Will Continue to do so.

 

[Journeyman]

It all depends. Checking out the forums and buying ior trading from other hobbyist is often the best way to go. Like most things in this hobby, patience is key. I usually overspend when I impulse buy.

 

[that Reef Guy]

Many Corals at Coral Shows are Home Grown so they are Cheaper.

Plus they do better anyways than Stuff Taken from the Ocean.

You don't have to pay $50 Shipping.

You Don't Have to Worry about it Dying in Shipping.

You Don't Have to worry about it Not Looking like a Photoshopped Picture.

You See the Coral in Person and Take it Home Same Day.

It is a No-Brainer.

Go to Frag Swaps.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/2019-frag-swap-dates-and-locations-in-order-and-updated.527573/

The Link Above will Show you where and when all Coral Shows are.

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Yes I think prices are insane. The part I don’t like is now people are pricing corals 500 bucks and up and it’s not really rare or a slow grower. Most of these money corals have tons of variants out there with slight differences, some probably being the same coral. In the past, if a coral was out there with a number of different color combos, it wasn’t really rare and people looked over them more often. It’s not often that a true one of a kind acro comes around anymore, especially one that grows slow and is worth a high price tag in that regard.
I do agree frag swaps are a great way to get cheap corals but even there it’s hard to find deals a lot of the time. Last time I went I was the only one selling 10-20 dollar acro frags and I got bombarded by people because everyone else was selling stuff with lineage for much much more.
Fishnreef is the only vendor I have seen that has a constant supply of cheap frags grown by him for sale. I haven’t bought from him but talked with him at swaps and he is doing things differently than most and catering to the newer hobbiests with great pricing.
Hopefully indo is able to start shipping again soon so there can be some new stuff and better pricing.

 

[Mical]

Another factor - Winter. During winter most of us spend more time around our tanks so in essence "we're a captive audience". The closer to summer prices generally come down. IMO

 

[PatrickMorris]

They are getting more expensive but they are also getting more colorful, in the ten years or so I’ve been in the hobby the variety has exploded and the prices do come down as people grow the corals out. A lost of the $30-50 polyps from back then are like $10 now

 

[tnyr5]

The best advice I can give is stick to the cheaper stuff and focus on artistry. One can make an insanely beautiful tank without ever spending more than $40 on any single coral. In fact, since the cheap ones are usually proven corals that have been around forever, it might actually look much nicer than if you spend big bucks to get the trendy stuff.
Also, when you are picking your color palette, pick solely based on color, not on color within a species. A $40 bright yellow leptoseris is more yellow than a $200 gold torch, for example.

 

[AdamNC]

Online auctions and hope to get lucky or live sales and hope to be fast.

 

[Seamore2001]

It really does depend on what coral you are buying and where you buy from. I have seen some silly prices for GSP and even for some "uncommon" Xenia variants. But most of the high prices are for named variants from well known growers like Fox etc.. Presumably when you buy those named variants, you're getting an exceptional piece that has uncommon brilliant color, better ability to retain those colors, and responds better to captive care than a piece fragged from a colony recently taken from the ocean.

There are still a lot of deals out there, whether from well known sellers, for instance Unique, or from local folks who are selling frags or breaking down their tanks. And of course once you've gotten a thriving population of corals in your tank(s) you can start swapping or selling frags to other folks or to your LFS.

I'd find it hard (impossible) to justify spending hundreds for a "rare" frag from a flavor-of-the-month coral like the home-wrecker, but I think there are plenty of great pieces out there that are affordable. Just because there are super-high-priced outliers out there doesn't mean everything is overpriced.

 

[jda]

I do sell some desirable stuff for a lot of money, but I give away a lot more common stuff for free. If you HAVE to pay a bunch, then you either are doing it wrong of you have to have some nice stuff.

 

[SneakyTortuga]

this hobby is not cheap by any means. its going to be a glass box you are constantly dumping cash into. now how much or how often is case by case. There are extremely expensive frags $1k+ and frags that are $5. It all comes back to how much money you want to dump into the hobby. people make budget builds with an overall tank costing $500 total. For example my first tank was a 16 gallon IM that cost maybe $800 total corals and all when i was done. in my opinion that was a budget build but then again wwc has a gold torch up for $800 at the moment.

frags can be bought for cheap but its not going to be from your high end online retail stores its going to be from other local hobbiest, LFS, garage sellers, frag swaps.

 

[jda]

I never really understood what all of the outrage is about. Here are the secrets... nobody buys a whole box of $500-1000 corals. If you want to be in the high-end game, then you buy one or two, grow them and trade for more. Also, if you are buying a high-end coral to make money or support your hobby, you have to get in before it becomes a household name, or else they are going to be going down in value. Home wrecker is a year away from being a $50 coral like WD has become, but there are frags out there that will replace it and have a year or two at $500 for a nub, but you have to get in early and choose right.

 

[Oldreefer44]

Think that there are several things at play here from my perspective:
If they keep getting paid what they ask, they will ask for more. Smart from a profit aspect.
Lots of color manipulation through lighting adjustment. I always look for the bright blue background.
At first online pricing was cheaper than most local LFS's. Now I find the opposite.
There's an auction every week. Has become normalized to the extent that you can often find the same thing on another site for less than the auction price.
Just like many brick and mortar retailers teach their customers to always wait for a sale price on stuff. Auctions are teaching reefers the same thing.
Frags just keep getting smaller
Many names for the same thing.
At this point I am just sitting back, saving money and waiting for the market to sort itself out. Maybe it will, maybe it won't.

 

[Backreefing]

Ima bargain shopper so I don’t expect to purchase a Homewrecker anytime soon . Good deals are out there , got to look first then pull the trigger.

 

[HB AL]

They are but I would say it’s mostly online vendors. I regurlaly visit 2 lfs’s and there coral prices seem to stay the same. I don’t blame them though, if I was running a coral business company I would try to make as much profit as possible too especially if people are paying those prices. I’ve purchased corals online 3 times 2 times on a live sale on r2r and most recently I bought 2 Battlecorals battle boxes(20 Acro frags) and found good value in the battle boxes. I do browse the websites of some of the companies that sponsor on here but when I see a 3/4 inch frag of a green slimmer for 40$ It makes me appreciate my lfs’s more.