Am I the only one feeling left out?

[nashorn]

Yes talking about the Rare swap. Sorry but I can't help feeling that way. One day I too will have rare corals and than I can look down on other reefer too. Seem like all the elite reefers know each other so why do you want to make the rest of us(o.K. maybe its just me) feel left out ? (Don't mine me just venting after a stressful 1st time redbug teatment)

[sfsuphysics]

I'm not an elite reefer

I don't know everyone in the swap, sure I've met a good handful but that doesn't mean I know them. I would almost hazard to guess that's the same with others as well.

[4jlong]

i do know what you mean, i'm a newbie and what gets me is seeing adds saying "only looking for trades".

[Mr. Ugly]

I hope nobody is looking down on other people. I know I'm not.

There are quite a few people at the swap that I don't know, or have yet to meet in person. Some of them I do know, but mostly from online.

I do find that a lot of the people participating in the swap and in our forums are nice helpful people. No need to be shy or anything.

As far as elite reefers... the most "elite" ones aren't even in the swap. A lot of the stuff people are bringing are cool or fun, but not necessarily of much interest to those with ultra rare stuff. Some people think that if you can buy it from a store, it's not really rare.

If you're interested to swap or trade with people, you can pick-up a few frags to start off with pretty inexpensively. For example, from New Alameda Aquatics, you can get Gold Leptastrea for $25, and Fire Engine Monti for $30.

You can even get rares for free in our DBTC forum. You do have to prop and pass along free frags before you can trade those to other people.

Anyway, I was glad to see Charles and others pitch in to make a fun event. No need to wait for the club to organize an official event. Maybe someone could put together a "Welcome to Newbies Swap". That might be fun

Hope the redbug treatment went ok. Let us know how things are looking, and if you need help!

[Mr. Ugly]

Originally posted by 4jlong
i do know what you mean, i'm a newbie and what gets me is seeing adds saying "only looking for trades".

The people that I know who do that feel bad to charge $100 for a frag, so they'd rather just trade to someone for something they want!

[4jlong]

now that i read what i wrote, it sounds aloy more like "*****en" than it was ment to be! i guess i need to start finding where other stores are locally to me so i could see some different stuff!

[CitS]

Nothing rare in my tank either...
How about a "any coral frag swap" thread?

[montanabay]

we should have a "it's junk to me" for the newbies

chateo, random zoas, xenia will all be welcome!

haha

[fed-exguy]

Originally posted by Mr. Ugly
I hope nobody is looking down on other people. I know I'm not.

There are quite a few people at the swap that I don't know, or have yet to meet in person. Some of them I do know, but mostly from online.

I do find that a lot of the people participating in the swap and in our forums are nice helpful people. No need to be shy or anything.

As far as elite reefers... the most "elite" ones aren't even in the swap. A lot of the stuff people are bringing are cool or fun, but not necessarily of much interest to those with ultra rare stuff. Some people think that if you can buy it from a store, it's not really rare.

If you're interested to swap or trade with people, you can pick-up a few frags to start off with pretty inexpensively. For example, from New Alameda Aquatics, you can get Gold Leptastrea for $25, and Fire Engine Monti for $30.

You can even get rares for free in our DBTC forum. You do have to prop and pass along free frags before you can trade those to other people.

Anyway, I was glad to see Charles and others pitch in to make a fun event. No need to wait for the club to organize an official event. Maybe someone could put together a "Welcome to Newbies Swap". That might be fun

Hope the redbug treatment went ok. Let us know how things are looking, and if you need help!

what does DBTC MEAN?.......

[montanabay]

Don't Break The Chain

you give a frag free to someone with the agreement that they will not sell or trade it and they will do the same in return for another reefer once it is fragable again.

[CitS]

Originally posted by montanabay
Don't Break The Chain

you give a frag free to someone with the agreement that they will not sell or trade it and they will do the same in return for another reefer once it is fragable again.

DBTC Program FAQ:
http://www.bareefers.org/discussion/...p?topic=1903.0

[sfsuphysics]

Originally posted by CitS
Nothing rare in my tank either...
How about a "any coral frag swap" thread?

There is one, it's called the annual frag swap

[CitS]

Originally posted by sfsuphysics
There is one, it's called the annual frag swap

On that note....

I was kinda hoping for a bi-annual frag swap...

**Peers at Mr Ugly**

[Thales]

Originally posted by CitS
On that note....

I was kinda hoping for a bi-annual frag swap...

**Peers at Mr Ugly**

Perhaps if you offered to organize it....

[Kinetic]

you can't get all the coolest stuff right away. nobody's looking down on anyone else =)

I think I started a "for fun" thread about how to get into the elitist rare coral circles =P

it actually has a few tips / tricks to get a few goodies and how to get into the rare corals.

yes you'll feel left out, that's how all newbies have to start. keep with it, you'll get into these nicer corals soon. BAR is a great place to start.

[Vincerama2]

If we make a habit of bringing some "plain ol' coral" frags to meetings, maybe more people will come to meetings! I don't mind spreading around my fast growing (and thus, not rare) corals to share, even if they aren't on the DBTC. Though DBTC is preferrable.

And on the note of "elite reefers with rare corals"... I think it takes a certain amount of experience in the hobby with "plain ol' corals" before most of us are confident enough that we can actually KEEP rare corals.

What makes them rare is generally that they grow slowly or are hard to keep (otherwise, they wouldn't be rare, would they?) so many people don't want to spend $80 on something that they take home and it dies!

Hardy corals, and fast growing corals become "common", but that doesn't mean they aren't cool corals! I mean, Xenia and GSP are pretty awesome, as are colourful zoos and cool shaped leathers. But we all have them because they are fraggable and easy to keep. Just because they aren't rare doesn't make them any less desirable!

Anyway, don't look at snobbiness in "rare" frag swaps. I think in general people that can keep "rare" corals are probably best suited to keeping other "rare" corals.

my 8 cents.

V

[Mr. Ugly]

Originally posted by montanabay
we should have a "it's junk to me" for the newbies

There's lots of nice non "rare" corals that I wouldn't call junk

Originally posted by CitS I was kinda hoping for a bi-annual frag swap...

That might happen


Maybe we need to have an "Adopt a Newbie" arrangement The club is so big and widespread that it might be hard for new people to feel welcome. Always good to help a newcomer.

[CitS]

Originally posted by Mr. Ugly
There's lots of nice non "rare" corals that I wouldn't call junk

That might happen


Maybe we need to have an "Adopt a Newbie" arrangement The club is so big and widespread that it might be hard for new people to feel welcome. Always good to help a newcomer.

See!!
He keeps hinting at another swap.

[4jlong]

Originally posted by Vincerama2
If we make a habit of bringing some "plain ol' coral" frags to meetings, maybe more people will come to meetings! I don't mind spreading around my fast growing (and thus, not rare) corals to share, even if they aren't on the DBTC. Though DBTC is preferrable.

And on the note of "elite reefers with rare corals"... I think it takes a certain amount of experience in the hobby with "plain ol' corals" before most of us are confident enough that we can actually KEEP rare corals.

What makes them rare is generally that they grow slowly or are hard to keep (otherwise, they wouldn't be rare, would they?) so many people don't want to spend $80 on something that they take home and it dies!

Hardy corals, and fast growing corals become "common", but that doesn't mean they aren't cool corals! I mean, Xenia and GSP are pretty awesome, as are colourful zoos and cool shaped leathers. But we all have them because they are fraggable and easy to keep. Just because they aren't rare doesn't make them any less desirable!

Anyway, don't look at snobbiness in "rare" frag swaps. I think in general people that can keep "rare" corals are probably best suited to keeping other "rare" corals.

my 8 cents.

V

makes alot of sense when you put it like that....like i said in my 2nd post, i didn't mean to sound upset or like i was looking down on anyone. i guess what i should have said is "does anyone know of a good store(s) to get some colorful zoas?"

[sfsuphysics]

Yeah most of the items that are being swapped are not so rare that you couldn't buy them. They aren't these ones with 2 year waiting lists, well ok some are but that doesn't mean you can't get them else where. As Norman said you slap down some money for a few frags here and there of "rarer" stuff and within a year you have those for trade.

I think this has the possibility to be more than just the "elite" (which I'm not one of..I just snuck it.. teehee!) swapping stuff around within themselves. This is a way to get these "nicer" corals to more local, then potentially as they grow out can be re-distributed to others, and by re-distributed I mean available for purchase/trade/whatever. This is something "reeffarmers" site can't even do, hell many of their corals have reservations until 2010 for frags! The Idaho Grape is still on their as well, and while there aren't reservations until 2010 for this piece, there still are qute a few "reservations" waiting to be filled, and as we know in this area the Idaho Grape has lost its "rare" status.

So there are 14 or so people swapping this time around, on VERY short notice, don't worry about it not getting chosen... or more to the point not having 2 frags of a coral someone mentioned, there will be other opportunities. I notice one person is offering a coral I requested in the DBTC forum (which FYI has reservations until 2011 from reeffarmers), so don't worry so much about rare corals being coveted by miserly reef owners, they'll make their way back out into the fold.

[Sparkss]

I wouldn't feel left out. Some people just spent more money and more time to build up their collection than others. To use an analogy, we don't drive by the ferrari club events and porsche swap meets feeling left out. Our automobile threshold does not feel the need to compete with them . OK, enough with the analogies... it is not about being elite, or snobbish, it is more just about meeting people to trade for something you really wanted. We personally know only a small handful of the people at the swap, and we have been in BAR for going on 2 years now. We met them all at other swaps and general events. We also met a ton of other people at those same events that frankly, I would consider pretty elite, but I don't see any of them on the list for the swap. We consider ourselves pretty un-elite by comparison to a great majority of the other BAR members (and just equal to the rest) . I believe that you just joined BAR and are starting to attend events and meet people. That is the first step towards "knowing everyone"

And I take personal offense to the accusation that we personally are looking down on anyone. Just as most anyone would do, we place a value on our various corals. Some of it is due to what we paid for it, or how much we like it, or how hard it was to keep alive . Back to the anologies for a minute : If you bought a trading card for $100, and someone came up to you with one they paid $20 for and insisted to you that you trade with them for it, how would you feel ? Does that mean that you look down on the guy with the $20 trading card ? No ! it just means that they don't have anything that you are interested in trading with them for, that is all.. simple market economics. Everyone in this swap paid out hard earned cash for what they are trading, I know that we did. We sacrificed for one coral or the next. Normally these frags would command a pretty high price tag. If we were selling them to each other for high $$, would you still feel left out ? Instead of money we are using corals for currency (trading versus selling). If you really want to get some "rare" or exotic corals, there are many online and local vendors that will trade regular US currency for corals. Most of the people from the swap would be more than happy to sell you a frag of whatever you wanted, although some have waiting lists for the more desirable corals (I know that we are on one or two waiting lists for corals that we really want).

I know that BAR is about freely propogating corals amongst the community, and that is something that we do ourselves. But bear in mind that this upcoming swap is not a BAR event. Perhaps the thread and other information should have been posted in the SF Bay Area forum versus the BAR one, to have minimized the confusion. I also know that I will likely take alot of flack for this post, but we help alot of local reefers out with advice, time to help them set up tanks, troubleshoot problems, before our tank crash we were pretty free with our corals, and once they grow back out we will be once again. But I take offense when someone gets offended because maybe we don't want to included a frag of an imported acan that we spent $150 a polyp on to trade for GSP (as an example). There has to be a line drawn somewhere, otherwise 1. no one will want to buy any rare corals or 2. if they do, and are unduly pressured to include them in the swaps, they will just stop attending any swaps at all or otherwise contributing to the reefing community

That is my rant, feel free to flame the heck out of me for speaking my mind.

[delsol650]

Yeah besides AOG's and Tubs blues I readlly don't have much " RARE " pieces like LE stuff...

[Sparkss]

-- retracted --

[sfsuphysics]

Originally posted by delsol650
Yeah besides AOG's and Tubs blues I readlly don't have much " RARE " pieces like LE stuff...

Blame the Zoathid people out there for that one, they decided that EVERYTHING needed a name, although Tub's name is probably the most accurate

But seriously, someone could organize a zoa lovers swap or something similar.

This was "rare to you" swap was not something BAR put together, it was a single member who did organized this by himself, without club funds or support, and set up a set of rules, a venue, and a date. Nothing is to stop anyone else from doing the same thing in a similar fashion.

[BBishop]

Wow!