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The Economic State Of The Reefing Community (1 Viewer)

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Cody

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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.
 

Luman01

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Cody I couldn’t agree with you more. And to be honest a part of me last year always saw the profit in it grow sell repeat of course for me thats all a dream until I can get a stick not bleach in 1 week. Which I’m working on. I actually want sticks to grow. And thrive. But a lot of people think it’s easy to grow and sell when it’s not which those same people leave the hobby Cause the thought it was easy and profitable 😂😂😂. There’s a great thread on Reef2Reef asking about how the heck do you prove lineage on a coral? Which before I never thought about that. But I guess it’s just like a company marking up the coral cause of the brand. Which a lot of other industries do so.
 

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Nice post. I have heard stories of much lower prices back in the 90s and 00s. I suppose the prices have risen as a result of ecommerce and mesmorizing colors from actinics and photoenhancement.
 

Tenny

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Agreed.

I was in the hobby from about 2001-2007. Took a little break and got back into it probably about 2012-2013... then my interest faded a bit in 2017 but had a tank that was doing pretty well still. Once I moved out here and started fresh it renewed my interest. During the 2013-2015 my ex-wife (wife then) and I even started growing corals specifically to sell in our garage. It was a lot of work, and had things been a bit different we probably would have succeeded in making a little money, but it really wasn't nearly as profitable as people envision. The overhead is insane. It's also very labor heavy as you can imagine. Unless you are making [up] your own named corals it's very difficult. It was pretty difficult running a garage based business and having people come in that didn't have a clue on how to grow a coral. I felt like most of the time I was giving advice more than selling... even repeat customers would come back and tell me how some XYZ coral died despite me telling them where to place it in their tank etc. I even provided PAR values for the tanks and the different spots to help stuff survive as best as I could. All my water parameters were posted and my weekly test results were posted.

Anyways since coming out here I am amazed at some of the prices of corals. Especially the Euphyllia corals. I used to give away bi-color octospawns heads to friends and sell them for $5/head to others. Now I see worse examples going for $50/head private party even!

My focus right now is "high end zoa's" because I've always had great success with them over the years. A lot of named Zoa's have even been "pests" to me since they grew so well. I'm already at that point with a lot of my stuff now even and I've only had my current tank up for about a year. My biggest gripe right now is a lot of the Zoa's I've bought don't look like what the pictures portrayed them as. I'm often texting the person back asking which are which because I can't even tell! Whether it was photoshopped or just actinic lights only I don't know. Beyond that, a lot of them are "named" and when you google the name you see about 5 different looking corals. Half the Zoa's in my tank I don't have a clue what their name is, but they look great and that's why I like them.

In the end this is my hobby. I do this because I genuinely enjoy the fish tank and the corals. Sure I'll sell/trade off stuff when I have stuff overgrown. Not trying to make money, but if I'm able to reduce some of my costs great.
 
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Cody

Cody

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I read the article on r2r as well. Here's a prime example. Would y'all consider these three corals to be the same? For the record, the source for each picture is 100% trusted on the industry and my personal knowledge. No camera tricks are at play, but rather different parameters. Guess which coral it is.

WR6Pqn1.jpg


FgZTDlh.jpg


Video instead of picture.
 

decimal

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I say good luck to those trying to do better than break even selling frags. Some have gotten cheaper.. particularly acans. While you can easily find $400 frags, I see you can find 30-50 frags now. I also remember $ 4-500 ORA Picasso clowns when they first hit the market. I guess to me it looks like some headway has been made.


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I read the article on r2r as well. Here's a prime example. Would y'all consider these three corals to be the same? For the record, the source for each picture is 100% trusted on the industry and my personal knowledge. No camera tricks are at play, but rather different parameters. Guess which coral it is.

WR6Pqn1.jpg


FgZTDlh.jpg


Video instead of picture.


That video doesn’t look like the same coral?
 

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I can’t find the post right now but I’m pretty sure I saw a one polyp Zoa going for $450 and comparing it to almost $2000 on some website as if $450 is a great buy. Really? Who would pay $2000 for one polyp of any color or hard to find Zoa? Probably someone who is obsessed or someone with plenty of money to spend. Obsession can be just as blinding as alcohol is to an alcoholic. I can’t believe how many multi thousand dollar aquariums are on craigslist and other places that have only been up and running for only two or three years and are selling for half or less than half of the five figure initial investment.

I agree with Cody in that I got into this hobby because I am completely fascinated and curious of how these animals have evolved and grown into these bizarre and beautiful creatures. I mean let’s face it even our wildest and creative minds could not come up with a sea apple. I’ve only been in this hobby for a little over a year and when I first saw a live sea apple I thought the large blue body was just something the red tentacles (Corals?) were put into to display them for sale in the aquarium tank. I never realized what I was looking at until I was embarrassingly explained by the LFS employee that it was the whole animal and that the red tentacles was what the animal uses to filter feed itself into the mouth at the middle of the blue body. That’s how bizarre this creature was to me.

Sure it’s fun and great to have a new addition to your reef aquarium and to have different colors and shapes and sizes of various corals or livestock that make a great display. It is fun to arrange your reef aquarium to have a great display I have to admit, but to do this only for the latest fad or craze or to just seek praise and accolades misses the point of having a reef aquarium. If you don’t like to learn and educate yourself and push yourself beyond complacency why get involved into saltwater reef aquariums? If you really want a colorful display to feed your narcissism go to Hobby Lobby and pick up some plastic flowers and make a bouquet for your bookshelf and not have to be concerned about dealing with the husbandry.

A good question to ask oneself is where are your passions and what purpose are they for?
 
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Cody

Cody

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That video doesn’t look like the same coral?
Yep. Purchased from ORA directly. It's a Bellina. Mine used to have purple tips in the previous tank, doesn't have them now, and has been bushier than a milli. Haven't seen those patterns in other folks tanks.
 
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Cody

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I can’t find the post right now but I’m pretty sure I saw a one polyp Zoa going for $450 and comparing it to almost $2000 on some website as if $450 is a great buy. Really? Who would pay $2000 for one polyp of any color or hard to find Zoa? Probably someone who is obsessed or someone with plenty of money to spend. Obsession can be just as blinding as alcohol is to an alcoholic. I can’t believe how many multi thousand dollar aquariums are on craigslist and other places that have only been up and running for only two or three years and are selling for half or less than half of the five figure initial investment.

I agree with Cody in that I got into this hobby because I am completely fascinated and curious of how these animals have evolved and grown into these bizarre and beautiful creatures. I mean let’s face it even our wildest and creative minds could not come up with a sea apple. I’ve only been in this hobby for a little over a year and when I first saw a live sea apple I thought the large blue body was just something the red tentacles (Corals?) were put into to display them for sale in the aquarium tank. I never realized what I was looking at until I was embarrassingly explained by the LFS employee that it was the whole animal and that the red tentacles was what the animal uses to filter feed itself into the mouth at the middle of the blue body. That’s how bizarre this creature was to me.

Sure it’s fun and great to have a new addition to your reef aquarium and to have different colors and shapes and sizes of various corals or livestock that make a great display. It is fun to arrange your reef aquarium to have a great display I have to admit, but to do this only for the latest fad or craze or to just seek praise and accolades misses the point of having a reef aquarium. If you don’t like to learn and educate yourself and push yourself beyond complacency why get involved into saltwater reef aquariums? If you really want a colorful display to feed your narcissism go to Hobby Lobby and pick up some plastic flowers and make a bouquet for your bookshelf and not have to be concerned about dealing with the husbandry.

A good question to ask oneself is where are your passions and what purpose are they for?
Like I said, that zoa was pure speculation. That's the only reason someone would pay that price. It's transactional and they hope to sell it for a similar price to make a profit. It has nothing to do anything other than that. There's nothing wrong with making money, but it gets out of hand some times, and I feel it's gotten that way more often in the last year or two.
 

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Like I said, that zoa was pure speculation. That's the only reason someone would pay that price. It's transactional and they hope to sell it for a similar price to make a profit. It has nothing to do anything other than that. There's nothing wrong with making money, but it gets out of hand some times, and I feel it's gotten that way more often in the last year or two.
It’s that speculation that raises the prices of everything else in the hobby. Just like the housing bubble with so many people having a lot more disposable income it’s easy to pay cash for a house and flip it and flip it again hence raising the prices of homes in general. Back in the 80’s there used to be an acronym that was called DINKS. Can anyone guess or remember what that means? I’ll give a hint, the first two letters mean double income. Another hint was the couple that lived next-door to the Griswolds in the movie Christmas Vacation. Let’s see if anyone else knows the rest.
 
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Cody

Cody

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It’s that speculation that raises the prices of everything else in the hobby. Just like the housing bubble with so many people having a lot more disposable income it’s easy to pay cash for a house and flip it and flip it again hence raising the prices of homes in general. Back in the 80’s there used to be an acronym that was called DINKS. Can anyone guess or remember what that means? I’ll give a hint, the first two letters mean double income. Another hint was the couple that lived next-door to the Griswolds in the movie Christmas Vacation. Let’s see if anyone else knows the rest.
Haha dual income no kids. What you're referring to is essentially what I described with the tulip mania. Everyone's buying based off of pure speculation. Whenever that price keeps going up, everyone realizes there was never actually a market for it, and the last person is left with the hot potato, the game ends and the market crashes.
 

Reefy

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Haha dual income no kids. What you're referring to is essentially what I described with the tulip mania. Everyone's buying based off of pure speculation. Whenever that price keeps going up, everyone realizes there was never actually a market for it, and the last person is left with the hot potato, the game ends and the market crashes.
In the meantime everybody else has to pony up the related costs...
 
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Cody

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In the meantime everybody else has to pony up the related costs...
Haha i dont buy the tulips. Just observe and enjoy.
 

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The second picture is of @FarmerTy colony. The video is of mine, that I got from FJW, that ordered it directly from ORA.

You know what would be fun to do, grow a frag of each on the same plug and see if they merge or kill each other. [emoji848]
 
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Cody

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You know what would be fun to do, grow a frag of each on the same plug and see if they merge or kill each other. [emoji848]
Haha let's do it! Or see how long it takes my frag to turn purple in your tank, or yours to turn hairy as a golden retriever in mine.
 
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