Where to buy "full" coral in Canada?
 

While I want to support the aquaculture industry by purchasing 1" frags as much as possible, I also want to have some nice big show piece corals as well.

Anyone know of any online stores that don't only sell frags in Canada? Sites with WYSIWYG photos would be preferred.

Thanks,
Chris

A good number of our vendors sell aquacultured colonies. These ae smaller pieces. for large mature colonies, these forums often have them for sale, but they don't ship well at that size.

Contact Kelly @ The Reef Shoppe. I was there last Sunday and he had several nicely colored large pieces at reasonable prices. I'm sure he could send you a photo.

Yes, I'd contact Kelly :biggrin:

Colby at bayside also sells 3-4 inch colonies as well.

J&L also sells larger sizes

I think we would all like to see a site like Dr's Foster and Smith or LiveAquaria here in Canada... I have yet to see a site anything like either of those that are Canadian. I'm sure most of the vendors would be willing to send you pics of something you'd be interested in though.

X2 but in retrospec they are not all that cheap. I have seen better deals in stores like PetLand in Lethbridge or Red Coral in Calgary. Plus its hard to beat the service RC provides whenever we go in there.

Most LFS that carry frags carry full colonies, just as some said, "They are not cheap".

My last shipment of Australian corals were minimum 6" each, but not everone is willing to pay $300+ for corals, so we make them into smaller colonies or end up fragging them.

Most stores will send you a pic if requested.

Big box stores are nice for dry goods, but never compare to visiting your LFS for current stocks, as seeing things personally cannot be beat.

A picture is worth a thousand words, but pictures can be altered.

Ken - BWA

I have to agree the LFS is the place to go for quality corals. For those of us that live REALLY far from a LFS, though, a WYSIWYG on a website is the best we can do. I really wish there was a site more like those I mentioned earlier *sigh* I guess living in Canada does have it's disadvantages *looks outside at the snowflakes* :lol:

We have full colonies.
 

We will be selling an array of WYSIWYG corals. Stay stuned to next week's launch :)

Vlad.

Interesting. can't wait to see that. :)
Yes of course if there was a LFS around that i could buy corals from, i would. But there's isn't one. The closest ones would be a 6 hour trip. And even then, there's just a few acros for sale. (nothing special either LOL)

So getting sps around here is pretty much impossible, except for online buying. And then you have to pay more, pay shipping. Oh and you are very lucky if you don't loose corals in shipping. And your not really sure of what you are buying. A picture can be very deceiving. :(

I'm with you, Chipie... I'm around the same distance from a LFS. It will be nice to have a website with a good WYSIWYG section in Canada, can't wait to see what your launch brings, Vlad! :biggrin:

Just make a day or 2 trip out of it. I have a couple LFS here but once every 2 months or so we drive 2.5 3 hours to calgary. When I lived in Grande Prairie the closest LFS was a 5 hour drive. Noone is saying you need to do the trip once a week but a trip every 2 or the 3 months shouldnt be too bad.

I do this ^ every few months, but it always seems to be when there isn't anything interesting on sale. :wink:

LOL i see that you don't realize how far i am from any SPS corals for sale. The lfs stores i was refering to that are 3 hours away from here almost never have any sps or any you would like to make a 6 hour trip for. I live in New-Brunswick and most corals are on sale from BC to Ontario. That's a long trip LOL

Hi,
Are you selling any corals now?

Many stores including Bayside bring in Maricultured SPS colonies which are usually around 3-5" depending on the species and prices usually range from around $60-80. For SPS corals you really don't want to go much bigger, these types of corals grow in forms to match the water flow from their environment. If you did get a larger colony chances are you wouldn't be able to match the flow from it's previous environment which could result in stn and then ultimately fragging it anyway to keep it alive.

Must be nice to have such stores around :)

http://fragd.it/ has some beautiful corals for sale!!!

Thanks a lot for the link. I'll look them up :)

You are obviously half competent with the internet why dont you just order them off online if its such a hassle to drive to any store. They are delivered right to your door and you dont need to leave the house.

At least twice a year I take a 3 day trip and drive 9 hours from PG to the lower mainland to shop at places like J&L Aquatics and Ocean Aquatics. Both of which can also do a great job packaging and shipping. J&L has a new and noteworthy page and Oceans is often willing to take and email pictures. Progressive Reef in Victoria is also preparing to offer shipping for livestock and has been developing an area on their website for listing pictures. All of these offer coral colonies for sale in addition to frags.

Outside of BC I've also bought full colonies and had them shipped from The Reef Shoppe and Ottawa Inverts. Ottawa Inverts has a lot of WYSIWYG pictures and some pretty competitive prices.