Should a Propagated coral cost more?

[Alti]

I think the propagated ones may cost more, but in the initial stages to get the uneducated wild hunt and incredibly gruesome shipping methods of essentially dumping corals in bags without any protection and having a little over 60% survival rate, the propagated ones should cost less. just for the pure sake of discouraging wildcaught ones.

So you expect the poor farmers like me who already struggle to compete with wild caught to take a loss on our product just to discourage wild collection. Please let me know if you are willing to go to work every day and end up paying your boss money at the end of the week. It just doesnt make any sense. Its not like any of us are making any money to begin with.

You cant expect the few growers out there to change the coral market by losing all of their money. If hobbiests would support aquaculture and pay a few dollars more on each coral, the small contribution made by each person would add up to an astronomical ammount. Doesnt that make a bit more sense to you?

 

[memorisa]

So you expect the poor farmers like me who already struggle to compete with wild caught to take a loss on our product just to discourage wild collection. Please let me know if you are willing to go to work every day and end up paying your boss money at the end of the week. It just doesnt make any sense. Its not like any of us are making any money to begin with.

You cant expect the few growers out there to change the coral market by losing all of their money. If hobbiests would support aquaculture and pay a few dollars more on each coral, the small contribution made by each person would add up to an astronomical ammount. Doesnt that make a bit more sense to you?

I totally agree with you, and if I was livin in the states I would be more than happy to pay a little extra to help farmers like you, I would even come to your farm and do errands/take care of ur tanks.
I was afraid I would be misunderstood. I was tryting to give an example from my country - turkey. The lfs xharge %300 profit on top of the prices they pay, and usually they buy from middle men.
It is sad but true, people that frag are a handful I don't know of one person that would be considered a farmer in you guys' standards.
I have been writing articles about fragging to online and printed mags as well as being active and promoting fragging and sharing on turkish forums.
I even go to people's houses to show them how I frag and teach them how to do it.

What I meant for selling cheaper was based on turkish prices where before I knew better had paid 100$ for a mandarin and 200$ for a mini colony of green palythoas.
People that sell here, not lfs, hobbyists, usually go to wholesalers purchase them for 40% of the market price and mark it up another 300%. The only thing they do is break up the colony to mini frags.
But that has been going down since me and some other handfuls have been flooding the markewt with cheap but premium frags.

I so wish the fragging community was maybe 15% of what it is in USA. I am yet to hear about a local frag swap. Hopefully in a few years time but fraggers will become/grow into farmers and hobbyists will become more educated and lfs will be replaced by some of those hobbyists instead of greedy profit seeking guys that have no clue about marine hobby that are only in the business for the money.


Sorry for the rant, hope its a little more clear

 

[TritonsGarden]

we dont have people making a living off of fragging and aquaculturing

Profit margin is very small and then only if you can cut corners and be very efficient. Too much risk, time, overhead, sweat, blood, and tears.

LFS boomed like weeds and they claim to import their own

Profit margin is higher. Import wild colonies, cut up, mark up, and sell. Quick turnover if you have good quality livestock. We do a limited amount of this to subsidize our aquaculture or else we would be out of business.

Jack

 

[brandyrb]

I voted yes to paying more for propagated corals. As far as sps are concerned, the wild colonies I've seen have less color and take a while to adjust to an aquarium. They are more sensitive. If something goes wrong in my tank, the wild colonies are my first indicator. Captive grown sps corals tend to keep their color better (although it varies by tank) and are more hardy.

As far as pests are concerned, both propagated and wild corals will come with them. I don't care for the gorilla crabs I've seen in a lot small wild colonies or red bugs and AEFW that you have to worry about with propagated corals. I'm sure wild sps could carry these too.

I don't agree with some of the crazy prices I've seen though. $300 for a couple polyps of zoas, $300-$400 for a small piece of chalice, $250 and up for acans??? There are some over priced sps too, but I have been guilty of falling for those frags depending on what they are. The most I've paid for a sps frag is $120 and it was a small tyree purple monster frag, but I lost it. I wouldn't pay that again though!

 

[DaveJ]

Reading through some of this thread I have to say I am constantly amazed with how little some people understand the hobby, its economics and just economics in general.

Price has nothing to do with source or method of creation, it is strictly a market based value on the end product. Once that value is established by the market, then companies or individuals will decide if they can actually make money producing it based on their costs. Staying in business is up to them selling enough or producing cheap enough to maintain a profit based on the dynamic prices of coral/fish that the public is willing to spend. Bantering on about startup costs, cost of production, making a reasonable profit etc really are red herrings, because the fact is a business won't stay in business long if it can't make money. Justifying it or even having to demonstrate that these things factor into a companies pricing just ignores the problem that many people in this hobby think that everyone is getting rich at the expense of the average hobbyist or that there are millions to be made... that just demonstrates the ignorance of these people since while there is money to be made, its not nearly as profitable as some may think.

What's unfortunate is you see a lot of moral and political viewpoints enter into this question and the responses. Those should be reserved for the industry itself or the question of should we even be in this hobby. After all, anyone who truly believes that the coral reefs are dying and that populations are in danger, should either not be in the hobby to begin with or should strictly buy aquaculturred/farmed products exclusively. What someone charges or doesn't charge has no bearing on the ethics of the business or the hobby, its simply the price someone thinks they can charge for their product based on what consumers are willing to spend. You as the consumer have a choice to buy or not to buy.... complaining about prices etc is akin to using a squirt gun to put out a house fire and just as effective.

So to the question at hand... Should propagated coral cost more than wild caught??

My response is, it doesn't make a difference because in the end the consumer dictates the price by their choice of buying or not buying a specific coral. If people are willing to buy aquacultured products, they must be willing to pay the price for it, otherwise no one will get into the business and if no one gets into the business, then aquaculture will die as a viable industry and we go back to wild imports because people want to be in this hobby and always will.

 

[JR's Reef]

Yes but I allways seem to sell them for less than I paid for them.