Coral pricing

[Ryan]

Originally Posted by Reyphox

I'm talking buying from hobbyists.

If you want to talk vendors, yeah its gone up. But be real man. EVERYTHING you buy now from the stores are more expensive then 8 years. Cost of living is higher, wages to pay people are high. Hell apples from your grocery store at like 5 times more expensive. What are you expecting?

I gaurentee your grocery prices haven't gone up 300% in the past 8 years......

What has caused the price increase has nothing to do with cost of living. 2 things have attributed to it, one of which is the biggest player. The dollar exchange, which is still about 30-35%, so not too major. The second, and largest, is the internet. The collectors, have come to realize they are being given peanuts compared to what the corals are being sold for across the world and have increased their price. Vendors are still going to make their percentage so prices increase. People are willing to pay the prices so they keep buying coral. If hobbiests wouldn't pay large prices would come down.

[Dearth]

I generally give coral away especially if it grows in abundance in my tank like GSP I give this away at least three times a year to local reefers the only catch is I don’t have the room to keep it once I prune my coral so it goes in a bag and is held for no more than 2 days then it’s tossed.

Now technically once it is out of my hands and into another reefers hands they can do as they please but I get my hackles up especially if the pieces I give away are sold for huge profit. There was 2 people that regularly got GSP and when I had an abundance of them hammer coral and gave the GSP away and the hammer I charged 5 bucks regardless of size.

Well these 2 individuals would take the pieces I gave them and sell to other reefers for large amounts of money. One would charge $60 for a piece he got free from me and another time he sold a 5 head hammer for $130 after I found out what they were doing I refused to give to them anymore which apparently made me a bad boy and a whiner but I can handle that. I can’t handle that my cheap coral is being resold for huge profit and not even taken out of the bag I gave to them.

Call me petty but I don’t like people who do that and I have no problem shaming them if it is proven beyond a doubt. One has since left the hobby and the other is still in it but few people will deal with him because he takes advantage of people.