What does ULTRA mean

[Tired]

Ah, yeah, there goes the marketing. Maybe the terms ought to change to "fluorescent" for the whatever deepwaters, and keep "ultra" for the many-color ones? If people could consistently decide that an ultra RFA is one with enough different colors, and then not go ridiculous with prices, the term would be perfectly fine.

 

[jkcoral]

Ah, yeah, there goes the marketing. Maybe the terms ought to change to "fluorescent" for the whatever deepwaters, and keep "ultra" for the many-color ones? If people could consistently decide that an ultra RFA is one with enough different colors, and then not go ridiculous with prices, the term would be perfectly fine.

Another funny thing about RFAs prices is that RFAs aren’t rare, like at all. They are all over the FL Keys, even in ankle deep water.

The only ones that are “actually rare” are the splatters/two faces/chimeras, with bullseyes/certain zebra/pinstripes also being rarer than “common” ultras.

A red skirt splatter RFA being listed for $150 is one thing, but a basic red/blue or green/yellow “ultra” being sold for $80-$100 is robbery as far as I’m concerned haha

Edit: here’s a good example, this RFA should be like $20 at most. https://topshelfaquatics.com/product/ultra-rock-flower-anemone-wysiwyg-anemone-frag-16/

 

[Tired]

Yeah, prices on RFAs seem to have skyrocketed. SaltCritters used to have much more reasonable prices on them, I think partly because their RFAs are captive-bred? They haven't outright said that, but they sell a lot of little ones, often in mixes of pattern and coloration that don't fall into what seems like the dozenish relatively common patterns. They do still have pretty good prices during big sales, at least, and some interesting green splattery types that pop up now and then.

Some hobbyist or another ought to get on intentionally breeding RFAs (it doesn't seem to be hugely difficult?) and trying to provide them at good prices. I bet a nice big breeding-group bin could churn out a bunch. And, heck- why not start on trying to selectively breed them? If longfin clowns can be a thing, why not long-frill RFAs? No welfare concerns to worry about on an animal with no brain.

 

[jkcoral]

Yeah, prices on RFAs seem to have skyrocketed. SaltCritters used to have much more reasonable prices on them, I think partly because their RFAs are captive-bred? They haven't outright said that, but they sell a lot of little ones, often in mixes of pattern and coloration that don't fall into what seems like the dozenish relatively common patterns. They do still have pretty good prices during big sales, at least, and some interesting green splattery types that pop up now and then.

Some hobbyist or another ought to get on intentionally breeding RFAs (it doesn't seem to be hugely difficult?) and trying to provide them at good prices. I bet a nice big breeding-group bin could churn out a bunch. And, heck- why not start on trying to selectively breed them? If longfin clowns can be a thing, why not long-frill RFAs? No welfare concerns to worry about on an animal with no brain.

Yeah, prices have kinda ballooned recently. I think it’s, in part, due to more interest in RFAs among reefers lately. There was a small boom in popularity about a decade ago that eventually fell out of fad, and it seems that there might be another “resurgence” in their popularity currently.

I’ve had RFAs since what feels like the Stone Age of reefing. Over time I’ve had plenty of spawning events. They generally occur around the solstices, but I’ve also been able to “encourage” or “trigger” spawning around these times by doing a water change that causes a ~2 degree change in water temperature. To date, my largest litter of baby nems was somewhere around 60-70. However very few survive to grow to the size of a dime. My most successful batch of babies saw 6 or 7 babies live to become the size of a quarter out of an original ~65. So while they will breed in captivity, the yield rates aren’t too great.

I happen to know one of the few divers who collects RFAs through a good friend. They collect them in one of a few “honey holes” where many cool ultras are found, and they are paid between $4-$6 per nem by the wholesaler. The wholesaler then sells a typical ultra RFA to a vendor or LFS for between $10-$12 per nem. So when a vendor is selling a “basic” ultra RFA for $75 you can really get a sense of how extreme the markup is. And an interesting bit of info, almost all of the vendors that are known for selling RFAs get them all from one of like 2 main suppliers. So basically, almost all of them come from the same place, one of the couple of wholesalers that source them from one of the handful of divers haha.

 

[Tired]

Oh, that would explain it. I thought maybe it was somehow from Covid, but hobby nonsense makes more sense. Guess I'm not buying any more until the balloon deflates, except maybe during a really big sale.

I've had mine spawn a couple of times, but I seem to have all males, so nothing has resulted yet. I wonder if there's any tricks that could easily be used to increase the survival rate of the babies? If not for the fact that I'm trying not to get into <i>more</i> projects, I might take a whack at it.

Oh, that's interesting. Guess that's why KP Aquatics' prices have stayed lower, since they're catching those themself and don't seem to be prone to the huge markups that some places do on popular corals.
One of these days, I should look into how much trouble it would be to get a license to collect marine critters in Florida. A trip there would be fun for snorkeling and all, and a couple of rock flower nems would be a really cool souvenir. I wouldn't expect to find any ultras, I'm sure those are hard to find, but the non-ultras can be pretty too.

 

[ScubaFish802]

Anything similar to that can be substituted as well - master, ultra, super, people also love the word 'gold' that is bound to add a few extra bucks lol
Don't forget about dragons either, anything dragon related is the same

 

[KrisReef]

I was looking at an online sellers naming convention and Ultra = $50-$100 price tag, and "Super Ultra" was much, much more.

Unlimited
Licnese
To
Raise
Acquisition
Prices.

You can't blame the business person from seeking to maximize profits in their business dealings. They have to pay all kinds of taxes and insurance and wages and freight, and utility bills that keep going up to feed the green transition from petroleum energy into electronic economy. The government is designing a society where people who don't comply will be shunned, blocked, unfriended, and then have their electricity shut off so they can just freeze quietly in the cold until they cease to exist to exist. We shouldn't worry about how much a coral costs as much as who is in charge of giving us freedom to collect corals for the hobby, ime.