What do you hate most about the hobby?
 

As the question states what do you hate most about the hobby?

For me it's distance the lower mainland is an 8 hr drive away and having livestock flown in is the only practical way for delivery which comes with its own challenges namely weather and flight cancellations.

For me, it's cost. I can balance almost everything else.

What do I love the most? The friends I've made.

Worst of all is the vendors with poor customer service and believe they “can do no wrong”

Would give gold if there is one.

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I hate where the hobby has gone with the corals. The price has shot through the roof and what everyone considers a "mini colony" now was nothing more than a chunky frag 5 or 6 years ago.

People have gone stupid. People pay ridiculous prices for average coral that is blasted with LED to make it look good.

You are so right on this. I left the hobby 6 years ago and am coming back now. The price of the coral I was fragging out and selling at $20-$40 per frag is now going for double to triple that! Man if I stayed in the hobby....my old tank would have been considered a secondary income haha

Sam Edelman here. Took a break for a few years and when we bought our own house I got back in. Just about fell over when I saw coral That used to sell for $20 going for 10x the price and half the size.

The other thing at have noticed is a large price tag today and in a year it’s totally forgotten about. I think people are spending large on pieces, stretching out their income, and then trying to make their money back as fast as they can. In a year everyone has the piece and it’s old news. The pyramid scheme used to take years now it’s taking months.

However it’s not just corals, I remember buying purple tangs for $75 - -90, now they are $180-$250. I used to sell Achilles for under $200, now look.

It’s great to see captive breeding going so far as well buy it’s sad to see people paying huge dollars for defective fish. I think people would be surprised just how deformed captive bred clownfish are compared to their wild counter parts. It’s seems the mind set of its swims fine, eats fine, and poops fine so sell it has taken over and people are okay with that.

why are coral so expensive now?
 

There's a few reasons for corals being expensive and hard to get.

Jan 1st 2018 Fiji banned the export of Corals... no CITES.

June 2018 Indonesia banned the export of Corals due to corruption in the trade... no CITES.

Sources of corals now are:
Vietnam, Softies only
Fiji, Softies only
Malaysia, cultured SPS and cultured softies. Expensive $60.00 to $900.00 for 3/4" sps frag
Tonga, expensive and cherry picked over, not reliable suppliers.
Australia, always has been expensive due to cost of coral collection license, they were over 80k AUD/year back 6 years ago.

Exporters are now aware of the retail pricing for corals due to internet and have increased their pricing as they want a piece of the pie.

Cheers,
Tim

Thank you for the information Tim

Thanks for the info Tim; interesting point of view. I've only been in the saltwater hobby since 2012, but I find that prices have come down on a lot of corals since I started, on most common corals. And availability seems to be better. I attribute it to more successful hobbyists who are willing to frag and sell corals. Note that I am not referring to rare, designer pieces. That is a whole different story altogether!...

As for me, I chose water damage as the most annoying aspect of the hobby...