Why is it?

[johnny]

Why is it that so many people would rather throw their frags away or sell them to the LFS for a couple of bucks rather than give them to fellow reefers for free?

I've met a few reefers in the last year that have been very very kind to me and loaded me up with frags for nothing more than a lengthy conversation. And that means everything to me in this hobby.

Yet time and time again I see/hear other reefers who say things like "Nope sorry I don't want to trade because I don't like what you have", or "I'd rather throw them away than give you them for free" ... now I mean I could understand if it were a nice piece of acro or something, but I'm talking about mushrooms, xenia, green star polyps, etc... things that multiply like wildfire.

It just doesn't make sense to me.

oh and what is it with all the commercial posts now on this forum? I thought they weren't allowed?

Nick

[pmui]

Nick,

Spare some frags? I'm new to hobby don't have any to trade but willing to pay for shipping and a little extra to remiburst. Thanks

Peter

[johnny]

Peter,

That wasn't the point to the thread, but yes I can spare a frag or two. Email me and I'll give you directions to come pick them up.

Nick

[Bubafat]

How much/far do you have to go to make someone who frags their colonies commercial? Is it a website? Is it claiming a profit on your taxes?

What I'm trying to get at is the fact that most people aren't making big profits and their prices are SOOO reasonable even compaired to some of the big companies (garf and tropicorium, if you call them big). They aren't reselling a product. The problem with determining if its commercial or not, is where do you draw the line, is greg hiller commercial, drmac, kcw1099@aol.com, or anyone else who trades or sells. Is it the moment that you sell more then you trade make you commercial? Is it how much you have invested in it? In all honesty, i would bet my left shoe that if you had a nice acro that drmac or greg hiller didn't have, they would trade with you, but they aren't gonna trade with most people as they may already have the colony that you have.

Where do you draw the line?

Buba

[johnny]

you draw the line when they become a company. I go to the captive raised forum to see what other hobbiests might be willing to trade, give, or sometimes yes even sell... when I'm looking to buy from someone who will not be willing to trade usually or who is looking just to sell something ..... i'll go to the vendor's coral section. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have ANYONE post in the captive trading forum if they were merely trying to SELL their corals, jmho.

Now don't get me wrong here.... i'm all for people like dr. mac etc who sell their corals at decent prices and sometimes captive raised, but those are threads for different places. Do you really want oh say flying fish coming onto the breeding forum and selling clowns... even if for $5/piece?

Back to the original point of this thread.... i just find it upsetting at how many people are greedy or arrogant or whatever it might be, to the point where they would rather throw their corals in the garbage than they would give them to a fellow reefer.

Nick

[Agu]

johnny,

Within our local club the generosity is so great it can be embarrassing to the recipient. ;) On the other hand I've had a person try to scam me for free frags for a "school project". The stupid part is that if he had been honest he would have gotten the frags anyway.
It's not just about money or keeping things even, it's about reducing the impact on natural reefs through captive propagation. Maybe you need to hang out with a better class of reefer?

Agu

[johnny]

Hey Agu,

Yeah I remember that thread about that **** and his "school project".
With the frags, I wasn't actually talking about people I know, more along the lines of some of the posts I see on the many reef boards.
There aren't many reefers around me here. I've started the club up in albany and met a few fellow hobbyists who have been VERY generous. Unfortunately most of us don't have developed tanks. I try to give as much as I can, but that isn't very much, some green star polyps here, some xenia there.
However, since we're setting the tank up for the school, we will be receiving frags as members through that. There will have to be a line drawn for what we can take due to the fact the the frags are what has to pay for the tank in the years to come, but we'll squeeze as many out for club members when we can.
Slowly the club is being heard of and I'm hoping once we have the tank up and running, the interest in the club will sky rocket. I'm going to ask to post a flyer at the one local fish store (the only other one is about 30+ miles away).... and hopefully that will help.

hehe ok that's far enough of a tangent to fly off of... btw how far are you from NY? ;)

Nick

[Bubafat]

hehe, MN is a LONG way to new york. You'll really have to get some pics in when you finnally get that tank set up. How's it coming along? When do you think you'll stock it?

Buba

[johnny]

Hey buba,

The tank is coming along well. The contractor is supposed to have the stand/hood/storage cabinet done by mid-may (so figure by july ;) ) The tank should be started on any day now, but I have to call to make sure. I'm hoping it will be in by july, where we'll put it until the stand is done if it's not done on time..... not my prob and hopefully that will get the contractor moving ;) As soon as we get the tank up on the stand and the bulkhead holes drilled, I plan on filling it with water and sand, some powerheads and getting some live rock going. Then while that's cycling, we'll be making the skimmer and setting up everything else.

The thing I'm looking foward to the most is the webcam. We're going to somehow sink a webcam into the tank and broadcast it over the web, but the fun part will be adding infrared to it... so that the tank can be viewed at night. It should be neat to see the night crawlers around the tank.

We don't plan on adding fish/corals till probably august, assuming the tank starts cyling by july.

Nick

[blistexluv]

johnny,
i've encountered the same in the plant world. agreed, corals and plants aren't exactly the same, but in many ways it's even more frustrating with plants because they grow so darn fast. i give away cuttings and whatnot to whoever wants them (don't even charge shipping...who can't use a little extra karma?), but i find few people willing to reciprocate. most want to sell, sell, sell...and these are *cuttings* mind you!

[Bubafat]

Ok Johnny I have to agree with you, there are quite a few commercial postings lately. Too bad that there can't be a forum where they can post. I know that there is the forum where they introduce themselves, but maybe should have a forum where they can answer questions, talk about their products, plug their products, say what they have.......etc.

As for the throwing out thing, the biggest culprit of this is public aquariums, when i was at the western marine conference last year I forget who, but someone who worked at the wakiki aquarium talked about how they pulled out 20 gallon buckets!!! full of frags and just threw them away!!!!!

Its a waste. Heck, i don't mind people who sell their frags or even better, trade them, but why throw out. Big f'n deal if you can say "I am the only one with this certain strain of acropora" when you could have an entire tank full of corals just by trading some of these "rare" corals.

Some people!

Buba

[Adrian]

Johnny, your welcome to drop by my place anytime and help yourself to what ever is ready to be prunned back, of course that would be a really long drive:) I wish I had some more fellow reefersin my area, real reefers I mean, the reefing scene around here is all but not exsistent, guess thats why I spend so much time on these boards, yall are all I have:) I know of two people in my area that are what I would call real reefers. A non-real reefer in my opinion is the people who come into the place I work and say "damn, I killed another mandarin, can you catch me another". Those kinds of people should be beat with a large colony of Acropora that was taken off a reef and bleached to be used in a coral graveyard tank;) Trading for a new piece and seeing a coral I grew growing in someone elses tank is half the fun.

[johnny]

Yeah, things in the capital region of NY are pretty sparse. SO for all you NY REEFERS out there...... speak up! :)

Nick

[Bubafat]

Ya right Nick, you live in NYC, you can't complain, you just gotta organize some stuff. At least you don't have the problem that NO conference will EVER be held in MN.

Only reason why we have good trading out here is cause we have some awesome people who organize stuff.

Buba

[johnny]

nah if I lived in NYC you're right... I wouldn't be complaining. There are quite a few functions down there. I'm 2-3 hrs away depending on which day it is. That's usually too far to go, but one of these days I'm going to make it down there for one of their reef meetings.

Nick