What is your opinion on the hobby's status?

[Bayside Corals]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

Actually, it is the locally grown hobbyist frags that keeps the hobby alive. Besides expensive, I have found LFS frags to be hit and miss, and always worried about pests from them. I would like to see the LFS buy more hobbyist surplus frags rather than the expensive imports. Would be better for them (margins) and would help support their customers. Win/win for all.

The problem with hobbiest surplus frags is that in general they are the left overs. This is not always the case but my experience is as follows. The hobbiest trades his good stuff to friends or other hobbiests for other good stuff that he/she wants. Or he/she sells the good corals on forums, social media, frag swaps etc. Then they go to the LFS with the stuff they couldn't sell or trade to anyone else. In general it is either not nice or just not desirable because everyone in that area that wanted it already has it. So hobbiest grown stuff can be a hard sell for the LFS.

Where as a fresh shipment will have new colors or varieties that people in the area may not have yet.

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by Colby Bay

The problem with hobbiest surplus frags is that in general they are the left overs. This is not always the case but my experience is as follows. The hobbiest trades his good stuff to friends or other hobbiests for other good stuff that he/she wants. Or he/she sells the good corals on forums, social media, frag swaps etc. Then they go to the LFS with the stuff they couldn't sell or trade to anyone else. In general it is either not nice or just not desirable because everyone in that area that wanted it already has it. So hobbiest grown stuff can be a hard sell for the LFS.

Where as a fresh shipment will have new colors or varieties that people in the area may not have yet.

Yes, I agree what the hobbyist sells to the LFS is generally the left overs. However, it is priced accordingly (to the seller), and with the the higher LFS traffic, they still seem to sell through pretty quickly. But the LFS also gains more business from the seller (corals sold as credit), and I for one will go out of my way to support an LFS (even if they are more expensive) that buys frags from me.

Some fresh shipments may have good colors, for a while, but in general I have found the hobbyist corals to be the most healthy (of course you need to buy from a reputable seller) and usually take off in the new tank right away. I have seen a lot of brown SPS sitting in LFS shops that were good size, but obviously not happy. I don't think these came from local hobbyists.

Also I cringe when I watch an LFS pop in a batch of new frags without dipping. I saw them do it with mine. I always dip (and usually QT as well) any new corals, no matter who I got them from. So far I have never had a problem, but that (AEFW, etc) is always my biggest fear.

I agree with you about the new varieties, though. Hobbyists (incl myself) are not so quick to offer up their slow growing designer corals. So if I was an LFS, that is what I would be importing.

[Bayside Corals]

As far as pricing on fish and corals go. Many things have changed and have been changing for a while. All livestock is paid for in USD, doesn't matter if it comes from the Caribbean, Indo, Australia, Fiji, they all want to be paid in USD. So with the CAD in the ****s the prices have to go up. Freight never goes down, only up and that is a huge factor in the pricing of your livestock. How much does it cost for a plane ticket to Bali? It's not cheap, and what they charge for the box of coral under your seat in the cargo space is not cheap either.

The other thing is the internet. The collectors that grab your corals from the wild have the internet they see what people pay for certain corals and are now charging accordingly. Back in the day it was a crap shoot. You order 100 corals, pay a similar amount for every piece and you get 5 amazing ones, 20 really nice ones, and the rest would either be average or brown. Some collectors would be better than others but in general it was a crap shoot. In short you would pay cheap prices across the board, but the nice corals would have to make up for the brown crap that would never sell.

Now its a get what you pay for, the collectors know what premium corals are and charge a premium price right off the bat. They sell to the highest bidder. Americans, have more people in the hobby and have people that are willing to pay more for corals. So in general most of the really nice corals end up in the USA because they will pay more for them.

If you want the crazy corals you have to pay the crazy prices because if you don't someone else will. It sucks but it's the reality. Most Canadian stores won't pay the big money for the exceptional corals because their customer won't pay the prices the store will need to charge. The stores are not ripping you off. They pay more for the nice corals so they have to charge more for them.

One last note is that the corals are getting smaller directly from the collectors. They see a really nice acan, they chop it up into four pieces and charge the same for each piece instead of the one big piece. Some of these coral colors are exceptionally rare and are literally one out of many thousands type of coral. When one of these corals are found the collectors have alot of people asking for them and are willing to pay top dollar for it. So they chop them up and distribute to as many people as possible all the while maximizing profit. They collect these corals to feed their families just like you go to work everyday to feed yours.