o2manyfish
Valuable Member
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2012
- Messages
- 1,456
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- Location
- Encino, CA
- What state or country do you live in
- California
These days you can take a 20 year old dead coral skeleton, drop it in a tank, crank up your $34 Chinese Blue LED bulbs that put out enough radiation that your dog has a 3rd tail, pull out your cellphone take a photo and post online some newly named rainbow coral that puts a bulge in everyone's filter sock.
But it's crazy. In a real aquarium if you popped that $900 nub in - it will never look like the photo. I feel pretty blessed that living in Los Angeles and having lots of friends with coral collections not limited by budget that I get to see lots of these crazy crazy corals. I have seen in person (in just the last 30 days) the $6500 Bounce Mushroom, $6000+ Chalice, a basketball sized Space Invader Pectinia, a big named frag that was bought for $1000 and it's not a 1/4 of an inch. And at least 6 Walt Disney pieces. And glancing over frag racks lined with frags - each of which could make a car payment for a nice car - Very few frags are recognizable. Purple Monster, Fox Flame, Oregon Tort - one or 2 color corals are recognizable, and your ability to replicate those colors is pretty good. But back to that rack of previously photographed rainbow pieces you close the drapes, shut down the regular lights, shut off all your pumps, stand on a stool, Perhaps before standing on the stool inhale several times very very deeply of your favorite smokable herb. Then get back up on that stool and look top down and maybe see some colors you didn't see before. Ahh... It's enough to make you laugh - And I do.
And as I have said many many times, If you take all these high priced nubs, and grew them out into a tank of full size colonies - would you be able to tell the difference when they are all grown out between $20 frags and $500+ frags. I have seen a few miniature colonies of Walt Disney - Baseball size. $500 for a 1/2" frag grows into a colony that you would pay a $150 for.
But that's enough of my ode to Scott Fellman rant (Scott's my friend so I can say that).
Here is a video from my outdoor frag tank taken yesterday in the evening. Absolutely no trick lighting of any kind. Just the evening sun. Some pretty cool colors.
Hope you don't mind the rant, and you enjoy the video.
Dave B
But it's crazy. In a real aquarium if you popped that $900 nub in - it will never look like the photo. I feel pretty blessed that living in Los Angeles and having lots of friends with coral collections not limited by budget that I get to see lots of these crazy crazy corals. I have seen in person (in just the last 30 days) the $6500 Bounce Mushroom, $6000+ Chalice, a basketball sized Space Invader Pectinia, a big named frag that was bought for $1000 and it's not a 1/4 of an inch. And at least 6 Walt Disney pieces. And glancing over frag racks lined with frags - each of which could make a car payment for a nice car - Very few frags are recognizable. Purple Monster, Fox Flame, Oregon Tort - one or 2 color corals are recognizable, and your ability to replicate those colors is pretty good. But back to that rack of previously photographed rainbow pieces you close the drapes, shut down the regular lights, shut off all your pumps, stand on a stool, Perhaps before standing on the stool inhale several times very very deeply of your favorite smokable herb. Then get back up on that stool and look top down and maybe see some colors you didn't see before. Ahh... It's enough to make you laugh - And I do.
And as I have said many many times, If you take all these high priced nubs, and grew them out into a tank of full size colonies - would you be able to tell the difference when they are all grown out between $20 frags and $500+ frags. I have seen a few miniature colonies of Walt Disney - Baseball size. $500 for a 1/2" frag grows into a colony that you would pay a $150 for.
But that's enough of my ode to Scott Fellman rant (Scott's my friend so I can say that).
Here is a video from my outdoor frag tank taken yesterday in the evening. Absolutely no trick lighting of any kind. Just the evening sun. Some pretty cool colors.
Hope you don't mind the rant, and you enjoy the video.
Dave B
