People's thoughts on maricultured sps frags

[reeferbuddy215]

I found a site uniquecorals.com and they have some awesome pieces their frags are huge but most of the corals are maricultured which I read are much more likely to die have parasites and just harder to care for which I don't want. So can anyone who maybe has some experience with them let me know if it's worth purchasing. Also my 125 gal with refugium has mostly lps but I put like 8 sps frags mostly acros and all are growing they were kinda brown now their bright blues and red but my po4 is at .30 even tho I have a 40 gal dual refugium and a dual reactor with gfo and carbon but I'm nervous to spend another $200 on corals if their gonna die or have parasites or crabs that eat sps corals lol. Thanks

 

[McMullen]

Definitely quarantine maricultured......really any frags......but definitely maricultured. UC used to have great prices, they seem to have gone up quite a bit over the last year or so. Check out TLReefs. Every now and then you'll get a real GEM through maricultured, but it's often a crap shoot what the coral color will be.

 

[Highgrade]

Most Maricultured corals are a gamble. Some can actually be really hardy and thrive quite well. I've purchased both aquacultured and maricultured from Unique corals several times and never had any issues with parasites. The Maricultured corals seem to be more sensitive to swings in parameters which can cause STN/RTN . Also the colors may change a bit and take some time to color back up.

Also Unique has a great policy if any coral dies within a certain time 10-14 days. Donna will take care of you.

 

[reeferbuddy215]

Yeah I don't have a quarantine tank just my main. Highgrade thanks for ur input cuz some of their milli colonies look pretty colorful and large for the price and hopefully I can color them up in time I just haven't seen a site that has as good on prices for how big your frags are the wysiwyg ones anyway. Last time I ordered from pacificeastaquaculter since it's only $19.99 for shipping since their In Maryland and they were mostly brown when they arrived some but they colored up fast and beautifully and I have a premium membership so I get automatic discounts but their frags were pretty small but for 15 bucks for an acropora that's a good deal long as u can take care of it properly.

 

[Reefltx]

UC is quite good. I have ordered from them a few times and the colors pretty much match what they have on their site. Now, how they will color up in your system is a different story.

 

[reeferbuddy215]

Awesome to hear were you corals maricultured or aquacultured

 

[reeferbuddy215]

And my phophates are high like .26 ppm last I checked but the sps I have now arrived plain and brownish and now 3 weeks later they colored up beautifully but ima prob give UC a try and I'd be getting colonies so that helps.

 

[Highgrade]

Yeah I don't have a quarantine tank just my main. Highgrade thanks for ur input cuz some of their milli colonies look pretty colorful and large for the price and hopefully I can color them up in time I just haven't seen a site that has as good on prices for how big your frags are the wysiwyg ones anyway. Last time I ordered from pacificeastaquaculter since it's only $19.99 for shipping since their In Maryland and they were mostly brown when they arrived some but they colored up fast and beautifully and I have a premium membership so I get automatic discounts but their frags were pretty small but for 15 bucks for an acropora that's a good deal long as u can take care of it properly.

Can't beat Uniques free shipping on orders $200+ or their FedEx overnight is $19 Unique's guarantee is great and almost every other Vendor out there cannot beat it or come close. With the exceptions of a few like WWC 10 days. Looks like Unique recently changed they're guarantee to 7 days when previously it was 10 or 14 days. Most vendors give you only 2 hours after arrival. Still 7 days is pretty darn good since they're taking all the risk on someone else's system and husbandry.

 

[2Wheelsonly]

Unique Corals are great, but with any maricultured frags I have about 25% success rate with them. I have bought alot from UC and only have about 4 corals left from them. I switched over to small aquacultured frags only.

 

[reeferbuddy215]

Yeah I'm not going to get maricultured just larger size frags that are healthy and aquacultured, cuz I'm gonna be building a frag system soon

 

[OnPointCorals Verified Sponsor]

I have made a couple orders from UC and have been satisfied. Good seller. Not sure if I have gotten maricultured sps though.

 

[reeferbuddy215]

I'm definitely gonna get some aquacultured sps frags but it's so tempting cuz sometimes they have huge colorful wysiwyg colonies for just under $100 but I don't have have a quarantine tank and it's not worth killing my entire tank or losing the coral

 

[Neil Fox]

I have a couple maricultured pieces and they are pretty cool. My LFS get's boxes from Fiji and Indonesia. I generally check them out ans see how they are doing in the store. They often come with a concrete type base on them that I cut off and remount them. I usually dip hem in Coral RX and semi quarantine them in a frag tank. I have had pretty good luck but I haven't had them shipped. I did lose a couple but that was more a result of an Alk swing.