Musing about corals

[Great Lakes]

Cruising one of my local sites, I noticed talk about coral prices. They have gone up a bit, but it got me thinking more along the lines of the kind of corals we see available to our hobby.

So I wanted to start a thread so we could all speculate on what we thought of certain types and how it may affect their availability and price.

For instance. I have noticed lately that many hobbiests are talking about their Acroporas along with other SPS corals. My system is more than capable of sustaining a thriving colony of Acros, yet I find them a bit dull. Pattie and I fing the LPS and Softies far more pleasing because of their greater movement.

I have been noticing that with the greater popularity of the stonies, the softies are getting harder to find. Yet I don't believe they are any less popular. But the price is reflecting this shortage.

An example would be my Green Nepthea. Since I got it three years ago, it has split, and I am getting ready to divide it again. All will still be larger than the original which I paid 40 dollars for.

One of the large reef stores downstate has the only one I have seen in ages. It is about the size of mine, and going for 200 dollars!!

Xenia used to be hard to find, and now people are scraping it out of their tanks...

GL

 

[chkltcow]

I'm new to the hobby, so I can't comment on how things used to be..... but I will agree that at most stores, SPS corals are overtaking everything else, and I don't know why. A lot of them look like fake decorations.... beautiful, but not quite "real". Still, people are buying them up. The shop I went to yesterday where I got my Xenia has a lot of softies around, but they're getting more and more SPS and LPS corals in every week. There was a nice big rock covered in green star polyps that I had looked at a few weeks ago, but now it's gone, and sitting where it used to be is a green stony coral, which I guess is acropora.

I'm kinda surprised though, given the new surge of nano reef tanks. Most aren't capable of sustaining these hard corals, so you'd think softies would be easier to find. *shrug* I'm in that boat now, with a 20g reef and a 5g invert only.... I'd like to find some nice green star polyps.... I'd like to find some nepthea..... I'd like to find some more colorful zoanthids.... but nobody seems to have them. I lucked out and got the Xenia yesterday really cheap because, like you said, they're scraping it out of their tanks It's growing on every wall of their main 125g coral tank.

 

[Navarre]

I live in quite a remote part of the UK and down here we dont get sps coral at all! All my acros have been via swapping with other people All we ever get downhere is soties! Sarcopytons, pussey corals, zoo's yellow zoos star polyps, xenia etc. There has been a growth in LPS corals lately. Hammers, bubble corals and things like this.

There are 3 main shops in my area and only 1 gets the occasionaly acro in and even then they are incredibly expensive

 

[Great Lakes]

Too bad we are so far apart. Green Star polyps are the one thing I have in plenty. I have the brightgreen and the yellowish green. The bright green grows at a great rate. I have to get fragging on it along with my Nepthea.

GL

 

[TBLightningFan]

Too bad I'm not near Great Lakes... I am flying to the UK in March and I'd carry it on to bring it for ya... Well, If there was a way to get it to survive the 8 hour flight.

One day I hope to get into corals. I just think that is taking on too much for my knowlesge at the moment. I'm just now inching into live rock and inverts. If I do well with that we will see.

 

[this guy]

Well I when I bought this piece of rock with a leather It had a smlall lylic thing growing. It has now multipled by 3 in size. It resepbles a hand with millions of fingers holding grapes?

It is lylic and appears to be SPS.

It changes shape occasionaly.

May I send someone a pic to tell me what it is.

I am not sure If I like it; does anybody want it?

What is somefy's email so I cand send it too. Its quite cool though.

my mom and dad adore bu i prefer lps and softies.

Might keep it in though gould to have a variety from all sorts of corals do you guys not think?

This guy...

 

[TBLightningFan]

Well I when I bought this piece of rock with a leather It had a smlall lylic thing growing. It has now multipled by 3 in size. It resepbles a hand with millions of fingers holding grapes?

It is lylic and appears to be SPS.

It changes shape occasionaly.

May I send someone a pic to tell me what it is.

I am not sure If I like it; does anybody want it?

What is somefy's email so I cand send it too. Its quite cool though.

my mom and dad adore bu i prefer lps and softies.

Might keep it in though gould to have a variety from all sorts of corals do you guys not think?

This guy...

Just attach the pic on a thread.

 

[daniodude]

I like softies a lot more than hard corals....... Around me, I have never seen most of the soft corals people talk about on forums, but I have seen most Hard corals people talk about. Also, anemones are getting more common too, but they are very hard to keep in aquariums....so I've heard. I personally think toadstool leathers look just as good, if not better.

DanioDude

 

[Navarre]

agreed daniodude. When i had my maroon clown, it lived in a leather muchroom. people used to say it looked great to see a clown in an anemone. They simply didnt evenknow the thing they were looking at wasnt an anemone.

Mush smarter to get one of thee as they are far easier to care for and wont eat unwary fish!