How many people fall for the "deluxe" frags?
 

I am looking to stock my new tank, and the journey has led me through google and back and I am finding a lot of retailers that sell "deluxe" coral frags

Some blue Mille called stuff like "super electric awesome thug kanye west explosion mille" and whatnot. But, instead of 10 bucks, it is like hundreds of dollars for a 1" frag.

Now Kanye West doesn't have a coral named after him yet - it was just an example.

This site I found extra fascinating:

http://sexycorals.com/Sexy_SPS.html

Almost all of the stuff there I have seen at J&L at some point, but usually called "assorted Mille" and "Pink Acro"

Look at their Chalice prices....

And the Canadian market isn't without it's perpetrators either. It is common to see colony pricing on Canadian frag variants of common coral with super names.


The internet seems to be littered with these sites

Do people really fall for this? I find it laughable and unjustly elitist, like buying a $10,000 dollar watch with a ETA movement in it.


It really makes me want to sell my Chocolate Hershey Machine Gun Staghorn (browned out staghorn) for 300 loonies a frag...any takers? Can't find Machine Gun Stag for any cheaper...

Yeah, more money than brains.
But if I had the money...I still probably wouldn't spend it like that...

I agree with you to a certain extent

when I orginally bought my red planet frag (about 1" max) it ended up costing me close to $240 by the time it got into my tank. To say the least it paid itself off and ended up being my largest acro. There are certain corals that you will never or rarely see in a shipment. Than there are corals that come in as a wild coral that just don't make it. strawberry shortcake is a great example of this. I have seen 3 colonies come in and not one of them survived.

IMO i have given up on "designer" sps frags. My new set up consists of caps, some digi, and birdsnest... I love it. After spending hundreds of $$$ on frags/cultures I will never do it again.

A lot of sps and other corals (you LPS folks are guilty of this too) are pretty garden variety and get hyped up to get caught up with the really "unique" corals. Quite a few of those millies and the like show up all the time - however, I have yet to see anything like a Red Planet, Hawkins Echinata, Montipora setosa, Sunset monti show up in a cultured/wild shipment to date. Those "named"/"designer" corals are often worth their cost.

Like lorenz0, my montipora setosa probably took an arm to get into my tank in the end. But now after almost 2 years with it, it's made it's cost back and is already over 6" wide and is a one of the most spectacular corals in my tank. Well worth the cost to me :)

lot of the "brand name" stuff is heavily aquacultured so it does very well in home aquaria vs the random crap LFS ship in from the ocean. You can get similar stuff cheap at the LFS in every shipment but theres a 50% its just gonna brown out or just die on you. Some corals just dont do well in closed systems.

also buying designer from the store is like buying Hugo Boss at the Holt Renfrew at full retail. You gotta find deals from hobbyiest who are just looking to make a few extra bucks to help pay their aquarium costs.

These are certainly nice pieces, but I won't pay that kind of money. I don't mind waiting for you to buy it and grow it out, I'll get a $20 frag from you next year! I think the most I've paid for a frag is about 40 bucks, and even that was a lot.
On the flip side, once all my "named" acros grow up, frags will be 10 or 15 bucks. And my frags are never 1" :) There are enough people that just want the nice piece and not want to recoup their costs in the first 2 frags they sell, so once they have frags, them I buy the fancy stuff.

Frags
 

Hey, you know I have a tank full of named corals, but I would not have bought any of them if I did not like them, regardless of cost.
I buy what I like! Some of my nicest pieces are wild collected and in the last few years I have noticed that the wild pieces are starting to cost more because LFS are not bringing them in as much. I have been good friends with 3 LFS owners over the years and have had the good luck to help un pack many coral orders as they come in and as such have had first shot at a lot of corals before the general public. I have never seen anything like a Purple Monster or a Red Planet or Ice Fire Echinata show up in these orders.
There have been some realy nice stuff don't get me wrong.
I guess you just buy what you can afford and like and thats the way I look at this hobby.
I don't think I would call anybody names because they were buying stuff for reasons other than mine.
Just my two cents though.
Keith.

Absolutely right Keith. Nothing wrong with buying a frag of something nice if you like it and can justify the cost. For me, my money needs to go to other things, like feeding baby, dogs, etc. I have a limited tank budget and couldn't spend that kind of money if I wanted to. For me, I have to wait a year for your purple monster to be sprouting branches out of the top of your tank, and hopefully you're throwing it away by then :) Sometimes I just have to wait longer than you to have these pieces.Sometimes a lot longer -lol

catchy names or slogans help to sell products right?

Why would you sell something for less than market value?