Questionable Unique Corals Experience

[jonbar1]

I want to start by saying I've bought corals online from dozens of vendors over the years and have never had a bad experience. I'm also no stranger to all the different lighting options out there and am very familiar with all of them and how they affect how a coral looks and especially how it looks in a photo. Fortunately I've also always been a bit of an equipment hoarder and still have all my old PCs, T5s, and MH setups from the years before I moved to LED.

Anyhow, my latest must have tank addition was a nice blue Rhodactis mushroom for my newly upgraded softie tank. Over the last year or two I've seen Unique Corals post some impressive colonies and specimens, but with money being way too tight at the time to spend a hundred bucks or more on a single coral I missed my chances of getting one. I thought my luck changed when I saw the second photo in their post https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sometimes-pictures-are-better-than-words.203726/ recently.

I checked their site every day for a week hoping I didn't miss it and even e-mailed them without a response about getting a nice blue one if I missed it. Sure enough, it finally posted and as soon as I saw it I bought it confident with their reputation and what I thought were good representations of other corals on their site. It shipped promptly with great communication after I placed my order and arrived extremely healthy. In the bag it was barely closed up and the mouth wasn't gaping or spewing guts like mushrooms can when stressed from shipping. When placed in the tank, I was impressed by how quickly it settled and spread out looking like it had been in there for months when it had only been 15 minutes or so.

Everything matched the WYSIWYG photo including the baby polyp and hole in the rock, but unfortunately one thing was WAY off, the color. I tried looking from the top down instead of the side of the tank under all my different lights and different brands of MH bulbs trying to get close to the color pictured to no avail. I checked their site for lighting information when I saw something even more unsettling, another "Persian Rug" Rhodactis that matched the coloration of mine and looks like it was on the same original rock. You can see it here: http://uniquecorals.com/coral/soft-...rsian-rug-indonesian-1-speciemen-wysiwyg.html

Not wanting to sound like a scammer or photosphop accuser I posted a message on their site asking for lighting advice to get it to look like it does in their photo but still haven't gotten a response so I thought I would present my situation here.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Please remember that comments need to be kept between the buyer and seller only. Thanks!

 

[uniquecorals]

I want to start by saying I've bought corals online from dozens of vendors over the years and have never had a bad experience. I'm also no stranger to all the different lighting options out there and am very familiar with all of them and how they affect how a coral looks and especially how it looks in a photo. Fortunately I've also always been a bit of an equipment hoarder and still have all my old PCs, T5s, and MH setups from the years before I moved to LED.

Anyhow, my latest must have tank addition was a nice blue Rhodactis mushroom for my newly upgraded softie tank. Over the last year or two I've seen Unique Corals post some impressive colonies and specimens, but with money being way too tight at the time to spend a hundred bucks or more on a single coral I missed my chances of getting one. I thought my luck changed when I saw the second photo in their post https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/sometimes-pictures-are-better-than-words.203726/ recently.

I checked their site every day for a week hoping I didn't miss it and even e-mailed them without a response about getting a nice blue one if I missed it. Sure enough, it finally posted and as soon as I saw it I bought it confident with their reputation and what I thought were good representations of other corals on their site. It shipped promptly with great communication after I placed my order and arrived extremely healthy. In the bag it was barely closed up and the mouth wasn't gaping or spewing guts like mushrooms can when stressed from shipping. When placed in the tank, I was impressed by how quickly it settled and spread out looking like it had been in there for months when it had only been 15 minutes or so.

Everything matched the WYSIWYG photo including the baby polyp and hole in the rock, but unfortunately one thing was WAY off, the color. I tried looking from the top down instead of the side of the tank under all my different lights and different brands of MH bulbs trying to get close to the color pictured to no avail. I checked their site for lighting information when I saw something even more unsettling, another "Persian Rug" Rhodactis that matched the coloration of mine and looks like it was on the same original rock. You can see it here: http://uniquecorals.com/coral/soft-...rsian-rug-indonesian-1-speciemen-wysiwyg.html

Not wanting to sound like a scammer or photosphop accuser I posted a message on their site asking for lighting advice to get it to look like it does in their photo but still haven't gotten a response so I thought I would present my situation here.

 

[uniquecorals]

Hi jonbar,

Thanks for purchasing your corals from us! I'm very sorry that we apparently missed your email to us...Not sure where it went, but we occasionally miss a few. As you may know from following us here on R2R, customer service is pretty much our primary mission, so it's a big fail when we miss a message. In the future, here is my personal email: [email protected] and our phone number 818-570-0848. Feel free to reach out to us whenever you have an issue or question. All of our great corals mean nothing if the service is no good.

As far as your issue is concerned, we're a little perplexed ourselves...As you're aware from our reputation, writings, and the testimonials of the many satisfied UC customers, Joe and I are about as far removed from the "Photoshop Abuse" thing as we can be. I, in particular, have been known to rant on and on about unethical practices, so you're definitely preaching to the choir here! As far as the color being off, as you know, there are a myriad of factors that can contribute to the different appearance of a coral in reality and in a website photo. The common excuse of "it got roughed up in shipping" is certainly possible, provided the color of the coral is not so far off base as to be a gross mis representation. That being said, lighting, angles, water chemistry, SHIPPIN (yup- I said it), etc. can all contribute to a coral looking different than it does in a picture. Like I said, we take great pains to assure accuracy of our photos, and it borders on obsession...Again, our "body of work" is all we have to fall back on, as well as our integrity. If you received a coral that looked off color, I can only accept your word that it looked different than what was shown on the site...Which sucks, but I can't really offer any other explanation except the usual ones, lol. What I CAN assure you is that our pics are not intentionally manipulated to "juice" the color. We will correct images if they are off from the way the coral actually looks (even if editing the pic means making it look LESS colorful to be accurate). We never have- and never will- send a fellow reefer a coral that we wouldn't feel comfortable placing in our own tanks.

As for you seeing what apparently is the same coral in a different listing on our site, I can only offer the following explanation: Someone on our end simply screwed up. We probably grabbed the wrong image from our files (as you can imagine, we have thousands of pics in our system), and apparently inadvertently matched it to the wrong coral after it was already used. In other words, human error. We goofed. Screwed up. We...were human. It shouldn't happen, but it does. No conspiracies, men on the grassy knoll, attempts to mislead...Just a flat out screwup. We sincerely regret that we gave the impression that somehow you were being given a bait-and-switch or something, which is absolutely the LAST thing we'd ever do!

These were the two pics that we have for these corals- you can see they are significantly different...Two different corals, and it looks like we simply matched up the wrong pics...

At least, as you pointed out, you DID receive the correct coral- just apparently not in as colorful a manner as it looked in the photo..Hopefully, the coral will color up in time and exceed your expectations, as it should. In the mean time, we're happy that it arrived healthy...and VERY happy you took the time to let us know what happened. Seems like everything that could go wrong with this situation.

As a token of goodwill, and since we want you to be 100% satisfied, we'd like to offer you a credit for the $78.00 you paid for the coral. Just give me a call and we can get that squared away!

Thanks again, and please accept our sincere apologies for any confusion/disappointment this may have caused you. Feel free to contact us at any time to discuss this further.

Warm Regards,

Scott Fellman and Joseph Caparata, Owners
Unique Corals

 

[jonbar1]

I appreciate the response and I apologize if my post came off as negative, it wasn't supposed to.

A credit is not necessary and I would not feel right accepting it, but thank you. I would only like to know the lighting it is under for the photo so I can recreate this look in my own care.

 

[uniquecorals]

I appreciate the response and I apologize if my post came off as negative, it wasn't supposed to.

A credit is not necessary and I would not feel right accepting it, but thank you. I would only like to know the lighting it is under for the photo so I can recreate this look in my own care.

LOL, no problem... No offense taken at all. I completely understand/appreciate your position! We typically shoot under a combination of blue and daylight T5 bulbs. Once in a while, we'll shoot "in situ" with the coral under halides or LED, but this one was most likely shot under T5. And as for the credit..Tough, dude...I already sent it and you'll just have to get something, LOL

Thanks again for your feedback! Greatly appreciated.

Scott Fellman, Co-Owner
Unique Corals