The list will be tweaked, in addition to other changes as Eric alluded to. We'll try to get things finalized asap.
Complete Bonus/Ultra Coral List - 2024 (REVISED AS OF 11/14/24)
- Thread starter IOnceWasLegend
- Start date
derek_SR
Supporting Member
Damn me too. Oregon tort and vivid confetti not even bonus anymore? Is that right? They were ultra before
Same has happened to me a bunch of times over the years. Don’t take it as the club not wanting those, just that the list needed to be updated. It’s impossible to update in a way that makes everyone happy but it’s important to do. You can question specific changes if you want but Josh has the final say.
I hope you guys still bring those great frags even if they don’t earn a bonus ticket.
MichaelB
Supporting Member
@tribbitt
Same here lol, I was hopeful on my vivid confetti growing out. Still a lovely peice. Only bummer all the zoas I aquired and have been trying to grow out minus 2 have been made regular. I only bought them cause they were on the list. I'm glad however this update came before I went out hunting for more from the list.
I see that the updated list greatly increases the rarity of what’s available locally at the lfs.
I've only counted maybe 10-15 coral that I've ever seen in a lfs. I may have seen a few additional ones listed by local sellers on Facebook. However I've never seen any of the listed sps except beachbum and Strawberry short cake beyond a google image.
So question is where do people find these (specifically the sps listed)? Does it kinda require a online purchase or is there a individual in the bay area that is possibly the person to reach out to about these rare higher end sps?
Nothing said here is at all intended as a complaint just a observation.
It does make bonus corals more special, a lot harder to find, and increases the feeling of wining when you get one.
It personally makes me seek out corals I would never go after on my own. Which makes for a fun and challenging hunt. This aspect of the hunt has greatly increased my collection of coral. If I only went after what I thought was cool, I would have nothing but hammers and a possibly a few sticks. The other benefit is the knowledge I've been forced to glean from simply aquiring and learning the care requirements for keeping many different types of corals.
I would only hope maybe the future lists could have a general update date listed when swaps are announced. Only to prevent people from buying things thinking it's a bonus or ultra item prematurerly. I honestly almost bought a few such peices at the recent cfm for this purpose until I got side tracked by my hammer addition lol.
By general updated date i mean where major changes such as a larger number of corals having their status affected. This is over a month before the swap so again not a complaint. Only suggesting it would be nice having a major update date expectation time frame to know that's it's somewhat safe to start hunting/ fragging stuff.
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derek_SR
Supporting Member
I understand, but those are just strange choices. Both of those coral are still fairly expensive online, Oregon tort is a particularly slow grower. Neither of those corals was at the last frag swap that I recall, other than the one I brought. Maybe my memory is bad but I staked out the acro table pretty well. What’s the reasoning?
There was about 8 frags of Walt Disney at the last swap, and that is still an Ultra.
derek_SR
Supporting Member
@JVU if part is the reason to remove things is to maintain a manageable /short list - about 75% of the corals on the SPS lists aren’t even available in the club (unless there’s a bunch of SPS keepers I haven’t met yet!), and about half of them aren’t even for sale online anymore. I would love to partner with Josh on getting these a little more updated.
To be clear - my interest isn’t in ensuring my own corals make it so that I can earn tickets, but more so to incentivize folks to actually frag and bring their SPS in (or be excited to grow them out for the future like Michael). The SPS tables were light last time - and having a bunch of corals not available on the list is kind of pointless. I’d be happy to frag my Oregon tort if it’s worth a ticket - if it’s not, I’ll just bring another frag of Disney I guess, and save the tort for a friend or DBTC. I imagine others look at the list similarly.
Not sure about the softies and LPS - but the SPS list could use some love, IMO.
Not trying to be a big pain, just sharing some constructive feedback. I am excited for the frag swap regardless, intend to volunteer again, and am grateful to you all for organizing!
To be clear - my interest isn’t in ensuring my own corals make it so that I can earn tickets, but more so to incentivize folks to actually frag and bring their SPS in (or be excited to grow them out for the future like Michael). The SPS tables were light last time - and having a bunch of corals not available on the list is kind of pointless. I’d be happy to frag my Oregon tort if it’s worth a ticket - if it’s not, I’ll just bring another frag of Disney I guess, and save the tort for a friend or DBTC. I imagine others look at the list similarly.
Not sure about the softies and LPS - but the SPS list could use some love, IMO.
Not trying to be a big pain, just sharing some constructive feedback. I am excited for the frag swap regardless, intend to volunteer again, and am grateful to you all for organizing!
Your points are well taken.
If there are corals which make sense to be added, or re-added to the list, Josh is amenable. Can you shoot Josh @IOnceWasLegend and I a DM with the specific corals that you think should be added to the list.
To be clear, I’m not directly involved in this list update, other than agreeing with Josh and Austin’s suggestions when we’ve been chatting (higher level than specific corals). Josh @IOnceWasLegend has the final say, and Austin @Invictus has been assisting. I was only mentioning that I saw he had updated it and wanted to reply to the questions above.
I know Josh and Austin are open to suggestions, and I think the points you’ve brought up have merit, specifically the 2 you questioned being de-listed. It’s an iterative process and as I understand it from discussing with Josh, this was his first pass at updating before the next swap. I’m sure they’d appreciate you working on the list with them directly.
Regarding the comment about not bringing coral because it was de-listed, I’d discourage that way of thinking about it. A large fraction of the coral in my tank was bonus/ultra at one point then delisted. I’m still happy to bring it and people seem to be happy to take it home.
derek_SR
Supporting Member
Awesome - thank you both. I will get a google sheet fired up today for collaboration and share it with you all via DM.
Most of the corals I am bringing are not worth a ticket, and I am happy to bring them. My example did a poor job of illustrating my point. I'm simply saying that the bonus lists should incentivize people to bring in the good stuff - they should be relevant/expensive/rare/slow growing/exciting corals. Take the Homewrecker as a better example - if it was not an ultra, who is going to frag up their incredibly valuable HW just to throw on the table at the swap? Reef Jesus, maybe - most folks would not. I would rather save my HW for the DBTC, or for a very close friend. Earning a ticket for it, knowing there are other AWESOME corals to spend my ticket on, changes the equation quite a bit.
I am all about the reefer code, and have never even sold a coral - and have given a ton away and made many losing trades, value-wise. I text daily with a group of experienced reefers in BAR that can have anything in my tank, any time they want - and they know it. My motivation here is not so much about earning tickets, it's about having something exciting to SPEND my tickets on. To get awesome, desirable corals into the bonus rounds we need appropriately curated lists of bonus corals. It's only a good thing for the club too, if our frag swaps have a reputation for awesome corals - it'll further incentivize people to 1. attend and 2. bring frags of the precious. We have a lot of new members joining the club lately and starting tanks, which will only snowball as we have awesome events. Hopefully, some of those folks want to keep SPS and finding sweet SPS frags at the swap will ignite that desire further.
Anyway, it's a dead horse at this point - I just wanted to clarify why I'm passionate about it.
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Not a pain at all, Derek, and I appreciate the feedback. To be honest - I'm decently aware of pricing for zoas and LPS is my area of expertise, but I know very, very little about SPS. I tried to do an overview online with the existing list, but may have missed the mark. If you want to start up/shoot me a google doc with suggested edits, I'm happy to take them into account; and given Oregon Tort and Vivid Confetti prices online, I think I may have been remiss in taking them off the list.
We'll be adding them back, editing others, etc. At this point we wont be removing anything as far as eligibility, per say, just for relevance sake. And as always, if there's something specific that you want to bring which you think should be on the list, please let us know and Josh can make a determination.
Here’s my thoughts on sps. There’s no need to list any sps. The online vendors have already done it for us. All we need to do is come out with a rating scale on price.
Show online prices for your piece. Get a sticker for your piece.
Big retail vendors only. Simple.
Show online prices for your piece. Get a sticker for your piece.
Big retail vendors only. Simple.
In theory, that could work. In practice, not so much unfortunately. There are two major issues. First, we know that places like WWC and TSA are very inflated, especially compared to prices you could find from local sellers. Second, and most importantly, the line would be a mile long at the coral check-in booth. Volunteers are already slammed with work, and asking them to determine on the spot whether a coral meets the threshold is not a reasonable ask. Again, it could be a great idea if we had an accepted source of value and unlimited volunteer resources, but we dont.