Boycott the Boogers

[Dugless]

What’s with the booger sized frags from vendors nowadays? 1/4” frags with ten polyps or less and still asking $200+? I just browsed an in progress live sale and I don’t think there is one frag over 1/2”, and this is hundreds of listed frags. We wouldn’t put up with this from fellow reefers so why do we from the vendors?

 

[AZMSGT]

You don’t have to put up with it. Just don’t buy it.

 

[Dugless]

You don’t have to put up with it. Just don’t buy it.

Trust me, I don’t, anymore. I’ve done the 1/2” boogers and some were still in frag status months to a year later. The health/success seems very much compromised when trying with such small pieces that I couldn’t justify supporting the trend.

 

[X-37B]

Its all about $'s anymore. It seems it is the direction the online hobby has moved towards imo.
Many local lfs sell nubs too. There is just more money in it if you can generate large amounts of nubs and people will buy them.
Trading between local reefers, frags are larger, and less $'s it seems. Some even give them away and they are not "sub micron" frags either.
If you want the latest greatest you will pay for it.

 

[ycnibrc]

U get better size buying from hobbyist still those rare one then not too many around.

 

[jwshiver]

1" frags are a thing of the past. LFS and other hobbyist are the only ones left selling 1" frags. No joke, I received a frag from a well known online vendor that was half the size of my pinky fingernail. Vendors need to be honest about the size of the frags they are selling. We let them get away with it by continuing to buy from them.

 

[Waters]

The smaller the frag, the more frags they have available to sell. As long as they sell, they will continue to bring in more money than they would otherwise.

 

[FugeTown]

Yea but you gotta admit those were some top shelf nice looking boogers , I’ve seen a video about top shelf and they are definitely a more high end coral company. You’ll find specimens that are hard to find elsewhere. I’m on board with you though I won’t spend $200 on a 1/2” frag well unless it’s an OG Bounce or jelly bean chalice

 

[BestMomEver]

I agree. I’ve ordered frags from one of the major retailers and the frags were so small I could hardly tell what they were. My LFSs are better but my friends are the best!

 

[shred5]

Its because that is where the color is. Allot of sps only show color in the tips where the new growth is.... If you saw the rest of the coral you would not buy. It is another way of selling a brown ugly coral...

 

[Elegance Coral]

We, the buyers, set the size and price. It's not the industry that's to blame. And I blame them for almost everything. LOL.
If a dealer has a 1 inch stick of a hot new coral, maybe he can get $100 bucks for it. If he cuts it into 1/4 inch little boogers, he may be able to get $100 for each of them. Naturally, he's going to sell 1/4" little boogers. We can't blame them. They have a light bill to pay. When we stop buying 1/4" little boogers, they'll stop trying to sell them.

Peace
EC

 

[Graffiti Spot]

Everyone paid their light bills just fine before booger’s were being sold so it’s not like stores have to sell booger’s to make it. People buy the booger’s now because it’s the only size nice corals come in. Can’t really blame all hobbiests when it started with just a few rare pieces that were booger sized and now everyone’s doing it. They are taking advantage of you ask me. But everyone’s got their own opinion.

 

[EMeyer]

I dunno, my perspective is that the price is the problem, not so much the size.

When I'm buying a coral, I really just need enough of it to start a colony. I'm paying for the genetic material, not the biomass. A single branch of SPS or 2-3 polyps of zoas are all I need. More is nice, but not necessary. If the coral is gonna live in my tank, it'll live despite the size. If its gonna die in my tank, it would die if I started with a whole colony.

The prices being charged are not defensible though. The marginal cost of production for a frag is very very low, in the single digit dollar amounts.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love bigger frags across the board, I'm just saying the price bothers me more than the size

 

[Graffiti Spot]

The only thing that we can put on us reefers is the “need” we think we have to get the coolest newest piece. This “need” is partly us being to involved and partly us feeling like it’s a way to profit. Both can be bad for us and I have learned to weed through a lot of stuff and actually understand which coral is rare enough to deserve a high price or a booger size. The hobby is more fun for me when I share with friends and give others good deals when I can. I understand vendors can’t do that but everything’s going the opposite direction it should imo.

 

[billrob71]

New corals out are pretty and cool however the pricing does come down, I remember Looking at red dragon frags years ago and for a 1/2 inch was $400-$500 . I can remember buying a small one and it grew like a weed and was selling them for $40 to $50 for a 3 inch piece

 

[bwomac44]

What deceptive about selling these small frags is the small plugs they’re on.
There is no sense of scale.
I bought a wysiwyg acro from a popular vendor and it looked big for the frag it was on. Turns out the plug was the smallest I’ve seen and the frag was like 1/2” maybe. There was no mention of size.
That’s pretty deceptive in my opinion and I will not be fooled again.
I have an amazing local reefer connection that I get high end 1” frags from for like $50, lower end for $20.
Glad I found this new friend!

 

[Lousybreed]

Support ORA corals. Their frags are mini-colonies. They are hardy acros too. I am a big fan of them.

 

[Jettareefer223]

Agreed.

 

[Dugless]

I can wrap my mind more easily around high end fish. The cost is justified not only by availability, but also by time invested, risk, location, expertise, etc.

I struggle with coral frags because so much of it is hype and marketing. I understand that some time is supposed to be involved, but are any of these coral actual aqua cultured frags anymore? The real time and effort with coral is QT and growout, but I find myself doubting this process more and more these days. I suspect a lot of frags are simply 1st generation cuttings under fancy photo setups. Where is the associated cost coming from?

Plus, honest photography is getting harder and harder to find. I'd love for the fad to transition away from acros and back to zoas and acans again. ;Joyful

 

[maroun.c]

Am afraid its only going to get worse. With indo ban and difficulty to get corals ow from other locations due to high demand, I believe corals will only get rarer as farming wont be able to keep up and sizes will keep getting smaller with prices getting higher.