Did i get scammed by the online reef store?

[Lbrdsoxfan]

Was it a WYSIWYG? The power of lights and filters…

And Photoshop...

 

[Matt's anemone]

Dear ThomasReef,

I work at dreamcorals and sorry if you are not happy with the torch. We take our pictures under a full blue light with an orange filter.
If you are not happy with the coral it is possible to send it back and get a refund. If you can send us a e-mail through the website we would be happy to help you.

If you want we have another one in stock currently. This photo was taken on my phone with an orange filter. So no editing.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Here is my take. "blue light" - "orange filter" - "white light" are all subjective.

If I sold coral (I don't have any desire). I would provide at least two photos. Subjective or not, the "blue" light photo with the light that the coral grows under, not some crazy actinic used for show. I would also provide a "white" light photo. Maybe I wouldn't sell very many coral, but I would sleep well.

At least DreamCorals is willing to work with the OP here. It would be nice of accurate photos that depict the coral in a typical settings were used for sales though...

 

[Matt's anemone]

Here is my take. "blue light" - "orange filter" - "white light" are all subjective.

If I sold coral (I don't have any desire). I would provide at least two photos. Subjective or not, the "blue" light photo with the light that the coral grows under, not some crazy actinic used for show. I would also provide a "white" light photo. Maybe I wouldn't sell very many coral, but I would sleep well.

At least DreamCorals is willing to work with the OP here. It would be nice of accurate photos that depict the coral in a typical settings were used for sales though...

We agree with this statement. We only provide blue light pictures on the website currently. (Made under Radeon XR30 G5 100% blue 5% Cool White) However we are available to send extra pictures or video's of your desired corals. Especially with the more high end corals or the more expensive ones!
Feel free to contact us whenever you feel like it.

 

[VintageReefer]

Dear ThomasReef,

I work at dreamcorals and sorry if you are not happy with the torch. We take our pictures under a full blue light with an orange filter.
If you are not happy with the coral it is possible to send it back and get a refund. If you can send us a e-mail through the website we would be happy to help you.

If you want we have another one in stock currently. This photo was taken on my phone with an orange filter. So no editing.

Props to Dream Corals for stepping up to make things right.

To the OP - a cell phone pic with orange lens and no editing is going to give a pic that is very very close to in person real life viewing. That new one they posted looks like it would be what you actually are looking for

 

[KrisReef]

I hate happy endings.

All the coral on line is impossible to know what it will look like in my tank. Same thing at the LFS, and LED’s are the leading cause for the difference, not vendors.

 

[Matt's anemone]

Here are some pictures so you can see the difference. On the right the normal Banana Torch and on the left the INDO banana torch. You can clearly see the difference in colour. INDO has a lot more green in it and than the normal ones.

Please contact us and I am sure we can come to a solution

 

[KrisReef]

I was going to order one of these but the vendor is in the EU. To far away!

 

[Matt's anemone]

I was going to order one of these but the vendor is in the EU. To far away!

Sadly we also currently only deliver inside the EU. But im sure you're able to find what you need maybe even on this forum

 

[KrisReef]

Sadly we also currently only deliver inside the EU. But im sure you're able to find what you need maybe even on this forum

But your establishment has great customer service and support that should be rewarded, imo.

 

[ReeferZ1227]

Thats a straight up botttom tier sub $50 indo torch. The picture materially misrepresents the product. The purpose of the photo is to be representative of whst youre buying. Vendors should use lenses and filters to reduce the heavy blue light washing out the photo, not to change how the product actually looks under typical blues or AB+.

What vendor is this? Does reef2reef maintain a vendor wall of shame? This is 100% fraudulent. I sell local small frags, for $50 more you would have got an actual holy grail.

 

[Aquariumaddictuk]

There's a vendor in UK who WAS great a couple years ago but has gone down the heavily filtered route.
I bought a "mastergrade rainbow micromussa" off him earlier in the year in a flash sale & it in no way resembled pictures.

 

[Fish Fan]

Here is my take. "blue light" - "orange filter" - "white light" are all subjective.

If I sold coral (I don't have any desire). I would provide at least two photos. Subjective or not, the "blue" light photo with the light that the coral grows under, not some crazy actinic used for show. I would also provide a "white" light photo. Maybe I wouldn't sell very many coral, but I would sleep well.

At least DreamCorals is willing to work with the OP here. It would be nice of accurate photos that depict the coral in a typical settings were used for sales though...

I couldn't agree more. I noticed that Tidal Gardens often includes three or sometimes four pictures of each WYSIWYG frag under a variety of lighting, and I wish that more online venders would do the same.

 

[tautog83]

Im not saying that vendors shouldnt be responsible but i mean take some ownership as well . When you see eggcrate that looks like that in a pic you should already know whats up. I mean look at about 90 % of the tenuis pics for sale, its so obvious. So you pay $200 for a tenuis that under normal lighting is just so so. However if you take some pics 6 minutes before the lights go out it makes you feel like you got a good deal. I mean tons of people run their tanks very blue so it works for them but i feel like it some of it has to be awareness on us. Imagine if you thought the coral was really nice looking under a more balanced spectrum it would just be that much better under a more actinic spectrum (not all) . It was like 6 or 7 years that battlecorals would post random frag packs for sale on this site and i always appreciated them because you got to see what the corals actually looked like. It was a good way to make a list of the frags i wanted in the future .

 

[spsick]

I think you got the coral pictured. Their picture was top-down and may have had more intense blue lighting than you. And of course filtering and editing to make it look as colorful as possible.

 

[hart24601]

Quite frankly more people should start doing credit card disputes or PayPal transactions interventions when they get coral that doesn’t match the photos due to gel filters and cranking saturation.

I feel this trend of selling with fake photos is severely hurting the hobby.

Of course there are some good vendors, and huge props to them.

$250 for a single frag and thousand dollar orders are not uncommon in this hobby for totally doctored photos. Imagine buying pretty much anything else for that price (rare houseplant, exotic dog or cat, heck even Amazon items) and it arrived so different, it just wouldn't be tolerated and shouldn’t be tolerated in this hobby either.

I just bought a dishwasher online. The photo was stainless steel exterior. Imagine if it arrived bright pink and the excuse is well your lighting is different and we use filters. Yes that sounds ludicrous but it’s what is happening in the hobby for amounts greater than a dishwasher.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Quite frankly more people should start doing credit card disputes or PayPal transactions interventions when they get coral that doesn’t match the photos due to gel filters and cranking saturation.

The problem is that nothing is ever going to match a photo. People's expectations are insane... so the problem is on both sides.

To that end, even going to frag swap, the coral is not going to look like that in your tank unless you run pure actinic for a few hours just to see what you saw when you bought it.

 

[hart24601]

The problem is that nothing is ever going to match a photo. People's expectations are insane... so the problem is on both sides.

To that end, even going to frag swap, the coral is not going to look like that in your tank unless you run pure actinic for a few hours just to see what you saw when you bought it.

Sure but at least they can match it with blues only if they wanted at a frag swap - the online vendors saturation and distortion are impossible to replicate. I don’t think it is at all unreasonable to expect something you spend money on to have a realistic representation in a photo nor should the blame be on consumers who ‘should know better’ as some feel.

Many people, heck most, run quite blue heavy and actinic only before night so they do see the colors if they were sold with a true photo.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Sure but at least they can match it with blues only if they wanted at a frag swap - the online vendors saturation and distortion are impossible to replicate. I don’t think it is at all unreasonable to expect something you spend money on to have a realistic representation in a photo nor should the blame be on consumers who ‘should know better’ as some feel.

Many people, heck most, run quite blue heavy and actinic only before night so they do see the colors if they were sold with a true photo.

I am not arguing that vendors should not try to provide realistic photos... see my post above. At the same time, (very) often peoples expectations are insanely unrealistic.

 

[VintageReefer]

The problem is that nothing is ever going to match a photo. People's expectations are insane... so the problem is on both sides.

To that end, even going to frag swap, the coral is not going to look like that in your tank unless you run pure actinic for a few hours just to see what you saw when you bought it.

I get what your saying but I somewhat disagree.

I just bought this from @Joker Corals a week ago

Listing photo

In my tank 24 hours later (bottom left, can’t miss it)

Day spectrum

Blues only

I would say that’s pretty darn close given that we have different lighting and cameras. Regardless they showed me their pics. I bought it and put it in the tank. And it looks nearly identical to their provided pics. It’s not a different color. It’s not dull. It’s just like their photo and I had an expectation when I bought it and when it arrived my expectations were met, possibly exceeded. They are an honest vendor.

AND - I asked for a white light photo, they happily sent it - unedited - look at the egg crate. The skin tone. These guys aren’t manipulating images and trying to make it something it isn’t. They provided accurate photos openly and honestly - this is the coral and this is how it looks - if you like it then you like it. If not, no feelings hurt and a disappointed customer avoided