Should a Propagated coral cost more?

[Marine Flora]

I see the price of some of these African, Carribbean zoos higher than propagated. Sellers get them by the sack fulls ran dump out on a table grab a hammer and frag them up throw in a tank and sell the one's that open. I would think that if you bought a colony of just say 150-200 polyps sold them for 20 a polyp somebody is making money. with ag if you go buy 50 polyps at 20 a polyp how can you speck too make money. I remember back when the naming thing started. it used to be just to like a ID thing. now look at Ebay and you will see dumbasses on there selling wild zoos with a AG are {rare}/ Le name. YOU never never see anybody on there selling just say nuks, pd's, geddons, ppe's for wild zoos.

I can't speak for all vendors out there but there are alot of risk buying wild coral. 1) not all the coral is healthy when it arrives (it may all open up at the wholesale but the stuff that dies inside the rock causes the whole colony to go south.) 2) ever consider how much time is spent for vendors to go out and fight the crowds to pick the best stuff? 3) all the time that is spent picking through parasites/pests (nudis, spiders, flatworms, mantis shrimps, sundials, aiptasia and other crap that comes on these wild colonies) I spend at least 6 hours on one shipment alone picking through to make sure our customers get some clean products ... AFTER it is cleaned then we wait at least a week to determine it is healthy to possibly frag. 4) energy consumption to run a full scale operation.. its not cheap to say the least.

it is easier to bring stuff in and chop then send but that isn't how every operation runs. hope this brings some insight on the backend of a business..

oh and yes, you should charge more for tank grown corals. =)

 

[vetteman]

I would never have seen that coming.... :hammer:

 

[Marine Flora]

hey its the topic of discussion

 

[vetteman]

in a few weeks when all the vendors start raising their tank raised stock prices to reflect the answers in this thread...the new highest posted in thread will be.... "what the heck is going on with the price of tank raised zoa's".......... :hammer:

 

[Kigs!]

maybe its just my luck or just bad husbandary, but most of the times, huge wild zoa colonies i purchase for cheap usually ends up going south, leaving me with only a few polyps. in the end, it's more worth it to buy captive raised.

 

[edwing206]

Isn't the point of fragging corals to spread them around to other reefers for an affordable price? And to save the wild corals but that is beside the point.
Sorry if this has already been said but I only have 5 min left on my laptop battery.

 

[reefboy]

I gess the only way i can put is it cost's money to grow these jewels some grow faster then others which i price occordingly but what it comes down to is its not cheap on a large scale and on a small scale most people are looking to trade the frags anyways so as a consumer ethier look for trades with other hobbyists or with vendors which most vendors do including myself or shop around you'll know who's out there thats overpricing there stuff and stick with the fair guy's so my biggest point is untill you put over 16,000 dollors into a aquaculture project(and most probly more including myself) im not sure you can really say how things should be priced but on that same point there is over pricing going on just dont buy from those there prices will drop.

 

[aquarius77]

Killer thread!

I voted yes after reading and thinking about it. Reefin is not cheap, altho i see vetmans point to some extent as well but i dont have a frag system setup to incur the extra cost either. I like things to be cheap but i also understand if you dump 40g's into a facility to grow corals, you have to pay the bills.

All that said when i break a chunk of coral and mount it i usually give it away or charge 5-15 dollars if im looking to sell. I like the frag swaps ive been to, some nice deals to be had if you look.

 

[oceanparadise1]

no way it should cost more, your growing it and the piece that your frag that grew while in your tank cost you NOTHING! no no no no no way would i pay more bc it was grown in someones tank, i would totally expect to pay less

 

[fishes2889]

no way it should cost more, your growing it and the piece that your frag that grew while in your tank cost you NOTHING! no no no no no way would i pay more bc it was grown in someones tank, i would totally expect to pay less

Cost you nothing? What about power bills, additives, water changes...it all adds up....

Some people look at it that way. When i sell, i sell it for what i paid for it.

 

[oceanparadise1]

that one coral didnt add anything to your power bill or additives or water changes u still do those things with that one coral in there or not in the tank, but i see what u mean and yea i agree sell it for what you paid for it but not more

 

[Saltysteele]

i was just thinking about this the other day on the way to my lfs. one one hand, prop's are better for the natural reefs. by making wild cost more would actually hinder people from buying them, over buying a prop. but, then you get into the prestige of owning a more expensive, wild caught. if you made the props more expensive, then the opposite

 

[fishes2889]

that one coral didnt add anything to your power bill or additives or water changes u still do those things with that one coral in there or not in the tank, but i see what u mean and yea i agree sell it for what you paid for it but not more

I'm talking a more commercial perspective. They run business's and therefore they strictly want to make profit. So presence of s high power bill drives up the price. Additives are needed by corals, for example calcium for sps, lps or iodine for ricordea or zoanthid growth. So you need to add these to keep up with the corals and therefore thats money spent and invested into the corals. Plus another thing to add is disease eradication. All the aquacultured pieces i have ever received have been disease free. Take times and money for the vendors and small time propagators to remove them from their system.

Basically i don't mind paying a little more for an aquacultured peice rather than a wild one. They have taken the time to frag, mount and take care of it until it's mounted in your tank.

 

[oceanparadise1]

very true steve! i was thinking house hold but when ur talking that level i totally agree with ya!

 

[Nate82]

it depends... propagated by fellow reefers? definitely not. we already have enough price gouging with the corals we don't need to gouge our own prices to fellow reefers propagated by businesses? most already charge more simply for the fact they're more hardy and have higher survival rates.

 

[bamachamp92]

i keep mostly sps now and every time i buy i spend a little more money and i am happy to do it to get aquacultured corals instead of wild, now when i start selling or trading them im not going to get what i bought them for each frag, ill make my money back on a few frags but thats how we get the prices down for example i have 75 dollars in a small frag of pink lemonade, if i sell the first few frags for 35 or 40 each then the next person can sell frags for 20 each and then a lot more people that cant afford some of the things that we can start to get some of the really nice stuff for a better price.

 

[oceanparadise1]

put me in line for a 40 dollar pink lemonade frag

 

[Nate82]

couldn't agree more bama

 

[ofblong]

IMHO it should cost less.

Why do you say?

Because that means we will STOP taking wild caught corals cause of el cheapo's out there that want to get whatever at as cheap a price as they can.

Most people look at things as if A is $5 but B is $4 ill buy B because its the same thing as A but cheaper. They dont look at is it wild caught/tank raised.

 

[reefboy]

maybe for the average hobbyist who buys a coral for there own purposes then goes and resells a frag fairly cheap I can see this as this is not how you make your living and its for your enjoyment so any frag sales are a bonus.As for us that do this on a large scale and have lots of time,money invested in equipment not to mention loss and additives and power we need to get more especially if its a slow grower and hard to come by but even I see prices a tad outa wack but hey dont pay it and they will lower there prices .