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I've had multiple friends enter back into the hobby recently after being away for 2-5 years. Their first comment was on the prices that corals go for now. We all know that bans from certain countries have effected the price of certain corals, but we also know that our hobby has advanced as a whole on our probability of keeping all corals alive. I encounter new reefers (in the hobby for less than a year) all the time that are very quick to announce how they new they are but that they also have many "high-end corals". I also see these same people on multiple forums selling less-than-healthy frags to the degree of 1/4-1/2" frags of said "high end corals". They also blue wash these corals and use filters to misrepresent their coloration.
My concerns with these markets is the same that one would have with Tulip Mania. If you aren't familiar, then Google "Tulip Mania" and there are many videos out there to explain what happened a good while ago in The Netherlands. It was the first recorded example of an economic bubble, from what I understand. The new reefers that I mentioned before are buying off of speculation. They buy exclusively with the intent to grow and resale, and the people that buy from them come from the same mind set. Buy, grow, and resell to others that are trying to do the same thing. They approach the hobby as an investment. Given the slow-growing nature of our "tulips" the process is slowed down a bit, but I wonder how long will this trend continue. At the end of the day, corals are not a technology that someone researched and made. Mother nature made them, a Filipino diver collected them, they were sent by an intentional conglomerate transportation company to a store in America, that person decided it was unique in coloration based off of their tank parameters and lighting, branded that coral as their own product, pictures were taken (a lot of them photo-shopped), then sold to the general public. Before we mention the fact that it's difficult to reproduce identical parameters, and thus coloration, folks take that IPO as a market setting for price, then resell them to others based off of that whole speculation of what they can potentially resell it for. How long until the price starts to reflect the value, which are not the same? Just a thought I've been wondering about.
I said all of that to say this; these concerns are a fantastic refection on the community of reefers. Until the hierarchy of needs is met, specifically the needs of survival for these corals, we can't even have conversations about how a market would play out for these products; coral livestock. We have figured out how to dial in our parameters and experiment in a way that scientists and manufacturers couldn't. With very few exceptions, find the best public aquariums that are ran by trained professionals that grow better looking corals than some of the best of us. Find one manufacturer that produces something that wasn't a reaction to what the community was already manually doing themselves. They are reactionary. We are active. Keep reefing and understand that the bed-rock of this community wasn't founded on speculation or growing your own profits and fame. It was founded on an infatuation for these creatures and their beauty. Find what drives your curiosity and wonder and pursue it. I'm one decade into reefing. I look forward to another decade of fun and learning with y'all rascals.
My concerns with these markets is the same that one would have with Tulip Mania. If you aren't familiar, then Google "Tulip Mania" and there are many videos out there to explain what happened a good while ago in The Netherlands. It was the first recorded example of an economic bubble, from what I understand. The new reefers that I mentioned before are buying off of speculation. They buy exclusively with the intent to grow and resale, and the people that buy from them come from the same mind set. Buy, grow, and resell to others that are trying to do the same thing. They approach the hobby as an investment. Given the slow-growing nature of our "tulips" the process is slowed down a bit, but I wonder how long will this trend continue. At the end of the day, corals are not a technology that someone researched and made. Mother nature made them, a Filipino diver collected them, they were sent by an intentional conglomerate transportation company to a store in America, that person decided it was unique in coloration based off of their tank parameters and lighting, branded that coral as their own product, pictures were taken (a lot of them photo-shopped), then sold to the general public. Before we mention the fact that it's difficult to reproduce identical parameters, and thus coloration, folks take that IPO as a market setting for price, then resell them to others based off of that whole speculation of what they can potentially resell it for. How long until the price starts to reflect the value, which are not the same? Just a thought I've been wondering about.
I said all of that to say this; these concerns are a fantastic refection on the community of reefers. Until the hierarchy of needs is met, specifically the needs of survival for these corals, we can't even have conversations about how a market would play out for these products; coral livestock. We have figured out how to dial in our parameters and experiment in a way that scientists and manufacturers couldn't. With very few exceptions, find the best public aquariums that are ran by trained professionals that grow better looking corals than some of the best of us. Find one manufacturer that produces something that wasn't a reaction to what the community was already manually doing themselves. They are reactionary. We are active. Keep reefing and understand that the bed-rock of this community wasn't founded on speculation or growing your own profits and fame. It was founded on an infatuation for these creatures and their beauty. Find what drives your curiosity and wonder and pursue it. I'm one decade into reefing. I look forward to another decade of fun and learning with y'all rascals.