You know I thought long and hard before deciding to reply to this but your right some vendors are over pricing stuff maybe me included but I also think if these frags are truly cultured there worth the higher value and unless your independantly wealthy you cant make a living selling true cultured frags at ten bucks a frag but I can if im just chopping up wild stuff.
That part is not true. Matter a fact you can make even more money from cultured frags. With wild stuff you have to buy buy buy all the time new stock. Cultured frags if you run a big enough operation you only have one investment of the original purchase and then you just grow and sell grow and sell. If you have enough growing at one time you always have product to sell and your cost is far less.
In the past when I first started I used to buy high grow a few polyps and sell higher which would be the same system your talking about. I sold half as much as I do now but at 30 40 even 100 bucks per frag I was making a ton more money. And my cost was much less since I was simply selling coral I bought once and kept growing out. Other then lighting and regular tank associated cost I had no other cost.
Now with my current system I buy cases and cases each month of corals. I go through those corals and cherry pick the best ones and then sell off the rest to local stores. I take those coral and frag them up before being placed into our systems. The corals then go through a 6 month cycle that takes them down the line of tanks until they reach the
"ready for sale tanks" this ensures good growth and healthy frags. This system has me buying coral EVERY month in large quantity. More cost, less profit, but a better product and far better price for the hobby was the result.
Don’t get me wrong here. The corals are worth what ever someone is willing to pay for them and more power to anyone getting every dime they can for a coral they may or may not be trying to sell. I was just saying that if he did not want to spend a ton of cash that he just needs to keep his eyes open and he will soon see that all these "Rare" coral may not be so rare after all.
i am very happy to see that MANY vendors are dropping zoanthids prices by quite a bit.
i think this is mainly because the new Coral fad is leaning on australian acan whcih is no different then the zoas. so much in fact i'm considering importing them now to make those more afordable for the hobby as well. These things are selling for crazy prices.
