TUBS Pink Lemonade that I won't be getting. Dang it!

[Anonymous]

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7755216330&rd=1&sspagename=STRK:MEWA:IT&rd=1

$490 with 8 hours to go.

To rich for my blood and I don't have any play money in my paypal account.

I wanted this one bad too.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

Image you got one, and after three months, it turn into white polyps with brown body? Always a risk for these newer coral that does not have a good history in the hobby when it comes to coloration.

 

[Len]

Wow, that is some ridiculous bidding going on. Good thing it doesn't appeal to me

 

[Anonymous]

Not that it's not nice, but Bob Mankin used to get nicer stuff than that from the Solomon's farms all the time back in the late nineties before they closed shop. Of course, his stuff cost all of, oh, $35 for a nice 3-4" maricultured mini-colony.

In some ways this hobby is taking giant leaps backwards.

 

[Anonymous]

Image you got one, and after three months, it turn into white polyps with brown body? Always a risk for these newer coral that does not have a good history in the hobby when it comes to coloration.

Obvisouly you've got very little experience with John's corals then I've never had any of John's corals brown out on me. Mainly due to almost of them being frags of pieces that do have a history

 

[Anonymous]

Not that it's not nice, but Bob Mankin used to get nicer stuff than that from the Solomon's farms all the time back in the late nineties before they closed shop. Of course, his stuff cost all of, oh, $35 for a nice 3-4" maricultured mini-colony.

In some ways this hobby is taking giant leaps backwards.

If Bob was still in the hobby/business, I can almost guarentee that he'd be selling his stuff for much higher prices. The first wholesaler I worked for, shared a warehouse with Bob. Being he was in the middle of Silicone Valley, using only MH/VHO lighting, his overhead would have forced him to up his prices.

It's a shame he had far more important things in his life then this hobby/industry. I hope things have improved for him since then, mainly I hope the reason he left turned out to get better. He really was an outstanding reefer

 

[Anonymous]

If Bob was still in the hobby/business, I can almost guarentee that he'd be selling his stuff for much higher prices.

Even at double or triple the old prices (and based on other etailers price changes in the region over the same period, I think doubling is probably a fair assessment) that stuff would still be a bargain compared to the rest of the market - and still be nicer, and still have it's profits funnelled into village operated mariculture.

Like I said, giant leaps backwards

 

[Len]

I understand where Charles is coming from and understand his "shock." Before my current tank, I hadn't looked at new livestock for at least 2 or 3 years. When I reentered the livestock market, I was VERY surprised at how absurdly expensive some corals have become. There is a lot more diversity to choose from nowadays IME, but some of the prices are obscene. And this is coming from a man who recently paid ~$400 for a watermelon chalice But it is what the market will bear.

 

[Anonymous]

It's not just a case of sticker shock, Len. I mean, hell, I'll plunk down hundreds on one of those captive raised dwarf angels that are coming out now and won't begrudge a dime of it.

Partly it's shock at the outright greed some of these companies exhibit. I've seen a couple of them selling frags supposedly descended from Robert Becker's blue acropora tortuosa (one of the single nicest corals I've ever seen) for hundreds of dollars. Now, I -bought- one of those frags from Robert himself back in '97 when he was selling them through Steve Tyree, and what did he charge for it? $40. Now, when the coral has been spread far and wide and many people and companies have mother colonies to frag from as opposed to the ONE that existed back then, it sells for many times as much. I mean, way back when, a lot of us had rarities that we fragged and sold - but not even Tyree's limited edition's went for more then $100 a frag, and those generally had a really good reason for being high priced.

But partly it's that precious little mariculture is going on, a solution I've always felt was superior to captive grown for a variety of reasons. And partly it's that I don't really think that anything nicer is available today then was back then; the reverse, in fact. There are more people selling more variety of stuff that's significantly better then the old bread-and-butter stuff, yes. But I'd take a random box of solomons frags over a box of the highest price stuff on the market now in a heart beat.

 

[Len]

I see a lot of mariculture corals coming in. I actually see a lot more mariculture SPS then I do wild-collected SPS these days.

I'm not trying to defend the prices. I agree some of it is outrageous. But people pay these prices, so I'm not sure how we are to fault the seller for getting top dollar for his frags, especially when demand for certain specimens exceed supply by huge magnitudes.

 

[Anonymous]

I see a lot of mariculture corals coming in

To where? And from where?

I'm actually doing a good bit of research right this very minute through FSPI, the solomons developmental trust and a number of related organizations and I'm coming up practically empty, with WSI being the only folks running an operative farm at the moment that I can locate any details on. A number of the old organizations seem gone entirely, or have ceased funding and terminated their projects, or have shifted focus like ICLARM.

If there are gaps you can fill in for me, it'd be appreciated.

 

[Unarce]

I saw this frag at the sellers house last Saturday. The coloration is unusual. What struck me most, was the unusual polyp extension. It was like each corallite had the usual small cluster, with one very long and thin polyp.

Very near took one home :?

 

[Len]

I'm actually not sure who is doing the aquaculture, but on most online livestock retailer and at many of our local LFS in LA like Passion of the Reef, PTF pets, etc., you'll see lots (often majority) of aquacultured SPS being sold. They all come on disk-like bases.

 

[Anonymous]

There's a BUNCH of aquaculture and mariculturing of corals going on. There's like 14 farms in Bali alone SI doesn't have any, but if you know much about SI, you'd understand why it's not happenning there

Tonga, Sumatra, Bali, Indonesia, Fiji, Vietnam and several other countries are producing so much AC/MC corals, many have to get refragged. Bali has far to much AC/MC coral at the moment, but that is due to a new reg over there requiring a certain % of all exports needs to be AC/MC. They plan on phasing out wild in the next few years!!

FWIW, the 2" round discs are coming from Tonga, from our very own Bookfish (Jim).

 

[Anonymous]

I am current stocking my tank, and I have the same issue that Charles and Len has. I also have one of Becker's tort back in 1998, and it did very well until I moved to a different city. Got the Benette version for a reaonable price. I gave and recieved frag for free once a while.

Back then, reefer selll frag more for a service. No one is expect / suppose to make a profit. I think people just decided to start to make this more of an industry than a hobby.

 

[Anonymous]

It's called 'greed.' All Americans are born with it, unfortunately.

Peace,

Chip

 

[Anonymous]

I wonder how this seller got the coral from SniperSPS, if it was a freebe or what not.

 

[Anonymous]

There's a BUNCH of aquaculture and mariculturing of corals going on. There's like 14 farms in Bali alone SI doesn't have any, but if you know much about SI, you'd understand why it's not happenning there

Tonga, Sumatra, Bali, Indonesia, Fiji, Vietnam and several other countries are producing so much AC/MC corals, many have to get refragged. Bali has far to much AC/MC coral at the moment, but that is due to a new reg over there requiring a certain % of all exports needs to be AC/MC. They plan on phasing out wild in the next few years!!

FWIW, the 2" round discs are coming from Tonga, from our very own Bookfish (Jim).

Gresham, let's get into specifics. The tonga stuff, that the WSI operation or something else? Who exactly is carrying/distributing the bali stuff? I've seen nameless bali operations mentioned on a couple of web sites, but the Secretariat of the Pacific community (SPC.int) doesn't seem aware they even exist. You mention operations in Sumatra and Indonesia, and those I haven't even heard of on commercial sites even in passing - can you provide details? Are we talking mariculture here, or terrestrial aquaculture? Vietnam... you talking about the clam guys, or something else?

Earlier today I went through all the livestock etailers that sponsor either reefs.org or reefcentral and probably 50% or so claim to have aquacultured or maricultured corals (few seem to make any distinction). Very few had anything to say about the origin of this livestock, where it comes from or it's culturing. And most seemed to have only a handful of such organisms for sale in very, very limited numbers. So who's carrying them?

 

[Anonymous]

Search the IBTH forum and all those questions will be answerred We've openly talked about most of them.

The largest in Bali, is CV Dinar. Eddie Dinar has most the CITES wrapped up. Check CITES site for mariculture quotas for Bali.

LeStari is a village co-op in north west Bali, they've got a farm, but no CITES as of yet. They're doing rock/softies right now, and it's really nice stuff.

Vanatua (sp?) has large operation as well, Larry Sharron is managing that one. (see SOTP website for details/articles written by him) I think that's a Bali Blue operation, but I may be mistaken.

Tonga operation is not WSI, it's IMT. Ask Bookfish or Righty ( www.reefstewards.com ) about it. http://www.imt.to/

WSI may be doing stuff in Tonga as well, I don't know though. WSI stuff from what I've always seen is Fiji.

Vietnam is doing softies and inverts right now, but they'll be ramping up into more I'm sure.

Some cultured stuff comes out of SI still, just softies really. The acro's are harvested with out bases and left to heal from what they look like when the land.

Funny thing is, Kalk could name em all :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

Almost every store in my area has Bali AC and Tongan MC corals in stock. Most the online places I look at for eye candy, carry both those and others.