!!!WILD FIRE...and the INEVITABLE AFTER BURN....

[Centerline]

If this does get turned into an article I would speak to the pest issue as well as the odd bacterial and fungal infections that are part and parcel with co-mingling heathy and stressed out wild corals in wholesaler tanks. Browned out wild SPS can be brought back around with MH and meticulous fostering but nothing can save them when, as a consumer, you dont know what you dont know. While more obvious with LPS, often SPS will suffer from odd infections or unknown pests and present symptoms that appear to be shipping stress or acclimation issues. Of course shipping stress often exacerbates the underlying issues highlighting the wisdom of purchasing healthy tank raised stock that someone else has put the time and money into bringing to market. Personally, Ill never purchase a wild SPS again.

 

[Mark SF]

Huge amount of respect and appreciation for your craft. This hobby is unfortunately 100% based upon the cavet emptor model and it is crap. It would be great to see documented lineage and perhaps a "certified" repository/database of coral types and morphs, similar to what the cannabis industry is doing with different strains.

 

[Battlecorals]

Huge amount of respect and appreciation for your craft. This hobby is unfortunately 100% based upon the cavet emptor model and it is ********. It would be great to see documented lineage and perhaps a "certified" repository/database of coral types and morphs, similar to what the cannabis industry is doing with different strains.

This is actually a pretty excellent idea. I definitely have at my disposal the means to organize and document, individually, a single corals path from exporter, to available captive grown coral. thanks a lot for the post

 

[Maacc]

That would be enormously interesting.

 

[DieHardPhotog-Reefer]

Amazing write up Adam ! That is why many of us who have bought from you in the past , always come back for the amazing battle tested aquacultured pest free acros that have stood the test of time .

Buying wilds from vendors without a large mh term multiple staged quarantine system is a recipe for disaster. On the other hand -with quality aquacultured acros especially BC ones - we don't have to worry about qt . That's a big thing in my book knowing that I won't have to deal with crazy pests or atleast 99.99% sure as you have done all the hard work on my behalf .
Anyone who haven't never faced AEFW - I hope they don't have to as it's excruciating even worse than
Dinos .

Regards,
Abhishek

Really appreciated @Battlecorals OP. For the sake of my newness to the hobby, would it be okay to ask what's the difference? My wife and I are only 1 year into the hobby but only 5 months with our 1st system (took a lot of time to collect all that gear and info). Questions:
1. What's the difference between aquacultured and maricultures?
2. What's a large "mh" term multiple staged QT? Example??
3. What's "BC" ones reference?
4. What's AEFW?

Note we don't have our first coral at all... just a 90 gal display, 29 gal display refugium and a 26 gal sump and a 15 gal AIO nano so we're really asking for educational reference.

 

[Maacc]

Aquacultured corals are ones that have been fragged/grown for years and multiple "generations" in a tank as opposed to in the wild.
Maricultured corals are typically colonies collected in the wild and grown out in the wild in semi controlled environments.
Aquacultured corals are typically hardier and keep their colors better than maricultured, but are smaller and more expensive.
A multiple stage qt is one where corals are dipped multiple times and kept separated in stages to catch the life cycles of different pests.
BC is Adam's stuff that he has grown from colonies as opposed to gotten from another aquaculturist.
AEFW- acro eating flatworms

 

[smokin'reefer]

Your write ups always help the expectations In this hobby. I see a lot of people post along the lines of " just bought this $500 frag and hope to grow it out and sell it in 6 months and retire off the proceeds"
A lot of your narrations on your website talk about a certain frag that you nursed for, in some cases, years to finally have something that is a marketable product.
Thanks for Sharing and helping to keep people's expectations real. Those that take the time to read anyway.

 

[Battlecorals]

Hello,

As much as I have really enjoyed readying this thread, and learned a lot some things that I find very important are left out. I’m not super new to the hobby, but just within this week have purchased my very first online coral order. Not one post says how to tell the difference between a live wild coral, or a live maricultured coral. As I have looked at several places just for the giggles, I was unable to find any sources dictating as such. This thread is truly amazing, and has a very strong and valid point. But, for people like me that are new to the online part, how do we tell? In addition how do we tell what our lfs even gets in?

Being aware the problem exist is truly amazing, and Huge thanks to Adam for the disclosure on such problems. But, how do we as I tell the difference between them to begin with?

Sincerely
Sarah

This was actually the topic of another write up I started a couple years ago but still never concluded unfortunately . I think i should get back to work on that one lol. With comparison pics and all sorts of good stuff like that lol. It's pretty easy for me to spot wild cut frags, but I can imagine that generally, it's not so easy for the average customer to differentiate. Captive growth tends to be physically smaller in scale to wild growth, and that's something can stand out pretty well a lot of the times. Especially in a frag pack picture. There are lots of subtle details that can become quite obvious as well once you have an idea of what your looking at and what to look for, for sure.

As for LFS's safe to assume that just about anything they buy wholesale larger than a golfball is more than likely either wild or maricultured.

 

[Battlecorals]

Your write ups always help the expectations In this hobby. I see a lot of people post along the lines of " just bought this $500 frag and hope to grow it out and sell it in 6 months and retire off the proceeds"
A lot of your narrations on your website talk about a certain frag that you nursed for, in some cases, years to finally have something that is a marketable product.
Thanks for Sharing and helping to keep people's expectations real. Those that take the time to read anyway.

This is so very true! and thanks a lot for the post. Many, and I mean many, of my grown out pieces were frags off wild colonies that crashed. Maybe a few generation in now though as lots of them have been fragged and backed up and backed up again. This extremely drawn out process( literally many years) certainly helps to create far more resilient and adaptive sps over time and may very well be the best argument for aquaculture. Period.

 

[PlasmaBoy]

I think at some point Wild collection will be banned, or incredibly regulated. At that point chop shops will disappear and prices will initially skyrocket for frags, then we will start to see prices come back down as the super hardy corals start to propergate the market. This will be the day when you see amazing reefs everywhere

I'd say 10% of Wild colonies in my experience have turned out to be hardy and colourful, I should really pass these on at some point as they are the future gems.

Great article! This should be posted in the beginner section all the time. The rinse repeat cycle of beginners and the chop shop has to stop.

I shudder when I see chop shop corals under insanely blue LEDs , soon as I see that I walk. To a beginner this is extremely luring.

 

[Battlecorals]

I think at some point Wild collection will be banned, or incredibly regulated. At that point chop shops will disappear and prices will initially skyrocket for frags, then we will start to see prices come back down as the super hardy corals start to propergate the market. This will be the day when you see amazing reefs everywhere

I'd say 10% of Wild colonies in my experience have turned out to be hardy and colourful, I should really pass these on at some point as they are the future gems.

Great article! This should be posted in the beginner section all the time. The rinse repeat cycle of beginners and the chop shop has to stop.

I shudder when I see chop shop corals under insanely blue LEDs , soon as I see that I walk. To a beginner this is extremely luring.

I think you are right about that. Hopefully not any time real soon. But it would be pretty naive to think a total and complete ban will never happen. Another 10-20 years maybe.

One of my primary goals is to build up my collection as massive as possible until that day comes. However my biggest fear for the long game, for my own sake that is, has always been a total ban on actually keeping coral.

 

[MrWheelock]

I think you are right about that. Hopefully not any time real soon. But it would be pretty naive to think a total and complete ban will never happen. Another 10-20 years maybe.

One of my primary goals is to build up my collection as massive as possible until that day comes. However my biggest fear for the long game, for my own sake that is, has always been a total ban on actually keeping coral.

I doubt that will ever happen, especially if people like you continue to make the burden on wild colonies less and less. It would be silly for them to ban people from keeping, especially if we all came together collectively, as some are doing already, to aquaculture corals and return them to the wild, and get them to breed successfully.

 

[Battlecorals]

I doubt that will ever happen, especially if people like you continue to make the burden on wild colonies less and less. It would be silly for them to ban people from keeping, especially if we all came together collectively, as some are doing already, to aquaculture corals and return them to the wild, and get them to breed successfully.

I'd very much like to think so as well. But sometimes it seems that common sense does not prevail in situations like this.

Id imagine it would unfold like this, Kind of a worst-case scenario. If blanket "endangered" declarations were put on all species of Acropora today, then Id also imagine having any of these in your possession would be illegal tomorrow. Or would be Illegal to sell at the very least.

And, the thing is, I rely a lot on wild stuff to build my collection. I mean, I am in a constant state of buying and transitioning wild sps to captive grown. The day wild collection stops is the day my collection plateaus.

 

[MrWheelock]

I'd very much like to think so as well. But sometimes it seems that common sense does not prevail in situations like this.

Id imagine it would unfold like this, Kind of a worst-case scenario. If blanket "endangered" declarations were put on all species of Acropora today, then Id also imagine having any of these in your possession would be illegal tomorrow. Or would be Illegal to sell at the very least.

And, the thing is, I rely a lot on wild stuff to build my collection. I mean, I am in a constant state of buying and transitioning wild sps to captive grown. The day wild collection stops is the day my collection plateaus.

Very good point, and I have to agree common sense isn't common anymore.

 

[Battlecorals]

Very good point, and I have to agree common sense isn't common anymore.

We'll know soon enough.

 

[Thomashtom]

your strange!!

 

[Battlecorals]

your strange!!

Strange indeed...

 

[MrWheelock]

 

[PlasmaBoy]

Adam, I wonder if you do the same as me when buying wild coral. One of my LFS has shipments of coral come in and they move the coral down the table each week, there would be 100 plus Wild colonies on the table at any time. I buy the coral on the oldest side that is still healthy, often finding one that has new growth. It’s almost like they have done me a favour and done a captive test. Best part is those are the cheapest too

 

[Waynerock]

I see your mike and raise you one