Back in the day...

[polyppal]

Like many people here, I've been keeping marine tanks for many years. Talking to a friend/owner of a LFS, we reminisced about just how different some aspects of this hobby used to be (10-15 years ago)… What are some of the big changes you've seen around the hobby over the course of many years? Ill start:

When building a new reef tank (after a several year saltwater break), I was shocked to see how expensive fish had become! I remember in the early 2000s when you could buy Angelfish/Tangs/Anthias for half (or less) than what they cost now! As little as 5-6 years ago, you could get Blotchy Anthias for like $99! I remember buying a Copperband butterfly for $30 and Full size Lions were like $20-30 all day!

Or live rock! Remember -real- live rock!?!?!

 

[Gtinnel]

In the early 2000's I had several saltwater tanks with a few corals, but none that I would call a reef tank. I was then out of the hobby for about 15 years and when I started looking at fish for my current tank I though stores were insane for how much they wanted for a yellow tang. I remember my lfs always had them for about $25...of course that was almost 20 years ago.

 

[sunken3]

Like many people here, I've been keeping marine tanks for many years. Talking to a friend/owner of a LFS, we reminisced about just how different some aspects of this hobby used to be (10-15 years ago)… What are some of the big changes you've seen around the hobby over the course of many years? Ill start:

When building a new reef tank (after a several year saltwater break), I was shocked to see how expensive fish had become! I remember in the early 2000s when you could buy Angelfish/Tangs/Anthias for half (or less) than what they cost now! As little as 5-6 years ago, you could get Blotchy Anthias for like $99! I remember buying a Copperband butterfly for $30 and Full size Lions were like $20-30 all day!

Or live rock! Remember -real- live rock!?!?!

yes.. a lot of the big name places are giving fancy names to corals as well and selling $30 items for $300 - all because they can snap pretty pictures. Greed is killing this hobby (but maybe saving more fish and corals from amateur death..)

 

[polyppal]

yes.. a lot of the big name places are giving fancy names to corals as well and selling $30 items for $300 - all because they can snap pretty pictures. Greed is killing this hobby (but maybe saving more fish and corals from amateur death..)

Whats interesting (from a marketing/business perspective) is the fact that coral frag prices should have PLUMMETED over the years! As the market has been saturated by people selling frags!

I guess that is reflected to some extent in local reef club sales or craigslist. We have a few awesome super-hobbyist in Colorado who sell high end frags for 20-30$...

 

[sunken3]

Like many people here, I've been keeping marine tanks for many years. Talking to a friend/owner of a LFS, we reminisced about just how different some aspects of this hobby used to be (10-15 years ago)… What are some of the big changes you've seen around the hobby over the course of many years? Ill start:

When building a new reef tank (after a several year saltwater break), I was shocked to see how expensive fish had become! I remember in the early 2000s when you could buy Angelfish/Tangs/Anthias for half (or less) than what they cost now! As little as 5-6 years ago, you could get Blotchy Anthias for like $99! I remember buying a Copperband butterfly for $30 and Full size Lions were like $20-30 all day!

Or live rock! Remember -real- live rock!?!?!

yes - i used to get the rock flown in wet in boxes... still with tons of sea life still attached.. many corals were sold the size of baseballs or softballs for $30

 

[sunken3]

Whats interesting (from a marketing/business perspective) is the fact that coral frag prices should have PLUMMETED over the years! As the market has been saturated by people selling frags!

I guess that is reflected to some extent in local reef club sales or craigslist. We have a few awesome super-hobbyist in Colorado who sell high end frags for 20-30$...

thats good of them!

i guess if i could sell you all frags for $300 i would too

 

[polyppal]

thats good of them!

i guess if i could sell you all frags for $300 i would too

lol right, cant blame 'em for trying!

 

[sunken3]

lol right, cant blame 'em for trying!

oh they dont try.. they do! several places sell corals for over $1000.. look at some of the zoa per head prices... crazy!

 

[ZoWhat]

Circa 2007
Yellow tang $19
Purple tang $39
Hippo tang $39
Clownfish $9
Premium LR $4/lbs

 

[sunken3]

look at the prices for an Achilles Tang!

 

[ZoWhat]

oh they dont try.. they do! several places sell corals for over $1000.. look at some of the zoa per head prices... crazy!

You mean the weekly R2R Vendor Moneygrab... cough cough... I mean "Live Sale"... where $30/polyp zoanthids are a BARGAIN!

At that pricing, my 6ft 180g is worth
2.4 million dollars... lol

.

 

[polyppal]

Circa 2007
Yellow tang $19
Purple tang $39
Hippo tang $39
Clownfish $9
Premium LR $4/lbs

I remember when we were outraged to pay $6.99 for premium cherry tonga branch LR!
Lol the fake tonga branch that looks like crap costs like TRIPLE that now!

 

[polyppal]

You mean the weekly R2R Moneygrab... cough cough... I mean "Live Sales"... where $30/polyp zoanthids are a BARGAIN!

At that pricing, my 6ft 180g is worth 2.4 million dollars... lol

.

This is one of the main reasons I tell new people to get involved in their local reefing communities. I've prob got $1200+ worth of sps in a frag tank that I paid $300 for locally. Besides fish, I buy very little livestock online

 

[George81]

The price of coral really shocked me. I remember getting full sized colonies for cheaper than what little nubs are being sold for today.
also no live rock. there used to be tanks full of rock and picking nice pieces of Fiji or Tonga....in the early 2000s I remember Fiji was like 6$ and tonga was 8.99$

 

[Tigahboy]

Vanuatu LR was my jam back in the day. The shift away from real live rock is definitely a big contrast from reefing back in the day but the fake live rock is at least more eco friendly. I think we had some crazy coral trends back in the day too tho (remember when acans first hit the scene and ppl were charging hundreds per polyp??).

 

[polyppal]

Remember Sea Apples? I used to have a sweet Sea Apple biocube, and I dont think ive seen one now in person for 10 years or more lol

 

[don_chuwish]

I only go back 8 years, but the three big things are:
1. LED lighting is huge, so much progress
2. DC pumps - quiet and so controllable
3. Apex - Neptune has really come a long way over what ReefKeeper used to offer

 

[polyppal]

Yeah I used to run reefkeepers, and was surprised how much Apex put it to shame...

DC pumps are great! Minus my skimmer my current setup runs all DC and the sound difference is amazing

 

[X-37B]

Well in the late 80's I made my sump, skimmer, stand, and various other needed equipment.
Now their is so much to chose from it can be confusing for new reefers.
That goes for information too.
You can walk into a well stocked store and walk out with a complete setup if you have the cash, lol.

They dont make live rock like they used to thats for sure.
I would get up at night just to see all the diversity in my tank.
Nothing like today.

I still run halides, lol.

Oh and who would run their alk at these levels now!
I run alk at 7 now, lol.

 

[reefinatl]

I was in for a few years in 08-12 and I'm just getting back into it now. Acan and Duncan prices have come way down. The elegance coral issues seem to have been resolved. I think the prices on torches is insane but hey they have cool names now so that makes them worth it.

Holy poop the prices of some of the mushrooms. Some of them look like a cheap st. Thomas mushroom that grows like a weed, just under insane levels of blue to bring out the fluorescence.

Absolutely plan to go with local club sources frags. As previously stated you can find premium stuff much cheaper.

This hyper blue LED lighting trend is not my thing at all. I'm sticking with some 250w14k phoenix bulbs.

Everyone can do what makes them happy buy I feel like many people now have neat looking frags for Instagram and Facebook likes but I'd bet their tank is underwhelming in person.

If there is one thing I'm really happy about it is the increase in CB Fish and Aquacultured or dry rock. I miss the prices and diversity of fijian etc. but I think deep down we all know that pulling tons of reef rock out of the ocean is a bad idea and I'm happy Fiji and others ended it.