greg will always be around, sponsors will always come and go , fact is coral master is growing and doing very well ,over the years he has made a great clientele and name for himself, these clients now keep greg very busy:).

I hear ya there. There is not a lot of places that have Zoas and other LPS. I think this void in the market will be filled very soon. I have noticed a number of small farmers in the GTA that have been picking up the slack for these types of Coral.

Dave

Well then...I hope he sticks around as a reefer....but that's for another thread...

ive been trying my best to do the same for the folks here in calgary but the small amount of frags i make doesnt cut it and i get cleaned out reguarily, i talk to the lfs here in the city about making smaller frags....none are interested , im hoping that will change soon:(

Too bad for them and there customers. I honestly think that mentality will start to change in the next few years.

ON the plus side you are able to make back some money and purchase more beautiful corals :)

it will for sure, summer is also the downside.... alot of these business do freswater and koi so summer they kinda forget about saltys:P



your right ,absolutely it does, i do get the priviledge of ordering with the lfs too , so even if they dont order the things i need or want i order them myself through them, even then from the wholesalers/divers i still dont get what i ordered lol

from my understanding they are usually happy to let anyone order as the more they order reguarily the better choices they will get come next order.....seems all the larger stores have first choice for corals that come into the country as they can afford to bring in on average 100+ corals:(


when it comes to zoos most lfs tell me its too hit or miss on what they order so unless they get too see pics( not everyone sends them pics) they are afraid of getting stuck with bland common colors. zoos aare hard to identify by name and the names and flaavors change too often.

i imagine its close to the same for sps as well right??

Yup, for the most part. Even with SPS it's very tough to know exactly what you are going to get from the supplier. I do however think it is a little easier with SPS since you can order the exact species and colour (although, the colours are not always what they seem, by the time you get them)...shipping stresses, lighting issues, time spent at the packing facilities...etc.

Name brand SPS corals are not going to be purchased overseas from the supplier..... for the most part. BUT, it can happen and it does happen once in a while (from my experience). Most stores I have talked with also request lots of photos from the suppliers, but as you said they don't always get them. Another issue I have noticed (similar to what you touched on with Zoos) is that stores normally have to bring in X amount of coral in order to get X amount of AAA grade coral. This ratio can be lowered if the stores increase there quantity or the frequency in which they order.

at least in my experience....

Dave

:deadhorse:

from the stores point of view in a big city if they dont have something i like im walking out and on to the next store, so in order to keep my business they either half to pony up in advance and take the risk of ordering and hoping i like it or that it sells or allow me to order for myself ,pick out what i like and they get to increase their order size and there fore their "ultra" selection...this is especially true for aussie stuff where the word "ultra" has gone mad:(

getting the store to let you have the ultra selection is a different story lol especially when you get to see the prices.....lots of markup on high end selection....people get greedy when they see this......makes for a stupid market:(


zoos then have no real ids , their of the same class and no really species ids so on the order sheet it likely says:

xl-polyps red/green
med-polyps blue




that could basically mean anything , now adays pics are more common so the nicer stuff gets ordered a bit more then it did years ago but still goes out to the larger retailers.

at least off the ultra selection the colors are better guessed , so safe to say any red/black combos of ultra are going to be decent:)


there is actually a decent demand for saltwater say here in calgary i can guarantee it, the problem is the lfs arent interested in a change of business.

For the sake of completness I'll give people this update about my order.

I ordered 21 different frags. Of those frags 4 where missing, I suspect at least 2 items were substituted, one for sure. Another item was suppose to have 10 - 12 polyps it had 4. One of the Acro's I bought was pretty damaged, but not from shipping.

I emailed once as soon as I opened the package, called 4 times during differnt times in the week days and left 2 messages.

I will try to get a hold of Burc again this week, other wise I'm calling Visa. Like I did get a few nice pieces, and some items I have never seen here in Calgary... but still dealing with Burc/Fragalot is painful.