just wanted to see what everyones opinion is towards this…if u see a coral that is pretty beat up, but was within the $5-$10…would u be willing to take the risk and see if u end up with the reward?
or does the coral just usually end up dying anyway?
for example, if u see a brain of some sort that would usually sell for say $40-50 and was going within the range i stated, with a little skeleton showing would you take the risk?
once i acro starts to RCN is this worth the risk?
i guess i could break the question down into sps and lps being somewhat damaged and on a major discount…would u be willing to spend a couple bucks to try or is it not worth it?
This one has to be started with a huge IT DEPENDS. There is no simple answer here.
First off the more you understand the individual corals the better you will get at making this decision. If you have read up on the particular coral in the past and are aware of what a healthy specimen looks like and have a good idea of what is affecting it then it might be a deal. For instance if it is a coral that you have other color varieties of and you believe the coral to be a different color morph of the same species and you see it is being baked right under a MH then it might be a deal.
It is impossible for LFS to place every coral in perfect conditions and often times all the corals in the system are stressed and releasing toxins which affect each other. Cramped tanks can also lead to stinging tentacles and other direct coral warfare which if separated might be the end of it, but there is also the chance of secondary infections.
At home in a QT tank you might be able to place the coral in ideal conditions. You can also dip the coral in many different things to relieve it from parasites or infections. For instance if the coral is damaged because it has flat worms on it, and only flat worms, then a dip in Flat worm exit could relieve the problem. I have 4-5 different types of dip solutions I keep on hand to treat various things. There is a very good section on dipping in Practical Coral Farming by Miguel Tolosa.
I have been buying a good bit of corals recently which are on their way out, but recently looking at a cost analysis it isn’t often worth it. If there is rare coral which 99% of the time even if 99% of it dies off it will recover then I might buy it. If there is the possibility that fragging off part of the coral and rescuing a bit then it might be worth it. It all depends.
I know one of the hobbyist that frequents this board and has been in the hobby for MANY years used to always buy damaged corals to give them a shot. He stopped after two things that happened. First he bought a coral from a tank that has a sick fish in it, after adding the coral one of his fish got the exact same disease after being perfectly healthy for many years. Second he rescued a crashing wild caught Acropora colony after adding it to his tank many of his Acropora he had been growing for many years got sick as well. This hobbyist does not quarantine his animals and has since stopped trying to rescue corals.
PS. My guess would be that 99% of wild caught Acropora are doomed and often times when they start to go, they are already gone.
so if your going to get a qt tank, i think thats where my 10 gal will come in handy
Yes I have! when i first started, most of my exotic acros and stuff i got from TFPs dead and dieing coral tank. all the stuff that had just about gone extinct in the sales tanks, they tossed into this 5 buck tank. i would buy things with live tips, take them home and break them off above the RTN line, dip, and mount and a goodly percent of them grew and thrived. often saw little hitch hiker polyps on their base rock i bought it for too. didnt have any luck with reviving LPS sickie corals, but acros and zoos i seemed pretty good at. Ive started new mother colonies from just a 1/4 inch long acro tip. takes a while, but got the species going.
But i was reckless about quarantine. didnt have a tank for that, and sometimes that hurt.
i see a lot of them come thru on our lists at the store. pretty hard not to give it a shot for 5 or ten bucks… problem is, u never know what ur gonna get. listed lps/sps/soft. thats it. still thinking about setting up a separate tank and giving it a shot…
Errr, good luck with that. You know everyone of the wholesalers have locals that pick through there stuff regardless if they admit to it. If something was worth saving someone else would pick it up. Also shipping is HORRIBLY stressful for corals. If it is on their way out enough for them to admit it isn’t healthy, putting it into a box and shipping it to you… good luck with it, lol.