piranhapat

Advanced Reefer
Location
Westchester, N.Y
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Is it just me or is this hobby just stop growing or less freindly. How's our LFS doing with Indonesia and Hawaii issues. Not seeing vendors posting stock lately like they used too. Discussion board are dead. Usually this time a year the hobby gets going. I think Manca was a disappointment. Another weekend show hitting New Jersey at end of October where Reef a Palooza is located. What happen to MR frag shows? To me now it's more important to trade or have more frag shows.
 

pecan2phat

Professional Commuter
Location
Wallingford, CT
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Tough hobby Pat, lot of work just to get a fish or piece of coral into your tank now a these days.
Decade and a half ago, I don't seem to remember having to setup a lab to treat a piece of coral for everything under the sun and well they were fish, diseases were not as prevalent as it is now.
Seems like all the parasites are masked with the popular practice of lower salinity and low dose copper that everyone seems to practices now.
I remember ordering from Flying Fish Express and things were hunky dory with the exception of all those cyanide caught fish out of the Philippine, Lol!
First frag swap that MR had was more of a hobbyist frag swap but now everyone wants designer brand hence it's more of a vendor swap/show.
It's like the Stones, gotta change with the times and adapt :D
 

duke62

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High cost of the hobby keeping people away. I mean mushroom now selling over 500 bucks!!! People are selling home grown corals for the same price as vendors now. I remember we had a great guy in the hobby MGNY. He would buy all the new in the hobby corals 300 dollar chalices and acros grow them and sell them for maybe 50 bucks. Now people sell them for more then what vendors do. I still stick with hobbyists for buying corals but it?s harder for me now to find true hobbyists
 

bonomo53

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High cost of the hobby keeping people away. I mean mushroom now selling over 500 bucks!!! People are selling home grown corals for the same price as vendors now. I remember we had a great guy in the hobby MGNY. He would buy all the new in the hobby corals 300 dollar chalices and acros grow them and sell them for maybe 50 bucks. Now people sell them for more then what vendors do. I still stick with hobbyists for buying corals but it?s harder for me now to find true hobbyists


Duke the issue with this is that there are too many people out there that will take advantage of you selling stuff cheap. Of course i hook all my friends and people i trust up but so many people out there will buy something for $60 and re post it for $120. Just saw an example of this today.
 

duke62

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Take MR. A few years ago there were so many topic threads Everyday you would open up the site and 5 to 10 new interesting threads were posted. The page would be 5 pages deep with the whole community posting. Today I opened MR up and every new thread was a F/S thread.
 

grsfish

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Location
Long Island
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Hi. I can?t speak for how things were a few years ago because I only found out about this forum about a year ago. In my opinion you can get better deals on here than a lot of online vendors. There are a lot of people that either give away corals for free or pretty good deals which helped out a lot especially when I first got started. Also most of the stores have sections where the corals are $10-20. You don?t have to spend hundreds of dollars and get big colonies or designer corals. We also shouldn?t generalize and say things like ?today?s reefers? and generalize negative stuff. That only discourages people to participate even more. Most of the people that I have met on here have been really nice and genuinely just care about the hobby. Of course just like with anything in life there are going to be some sour apples. From what I?ve seen more people have bigger general discussions on Facebook and reef to reefs general forums.
 

piranhapat

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Location
Westchester, N.Y
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I truly believe some of us are die hard hobbyist and some just taken advantage of other people. Some talk that Indonesia lift ban is somewhat lifted. Any news that true. So true Duke62. MR was exciting to see new topics and building threads. Pretty much a ghost town. Warren you are exactly right. Got two Qt systems and a frag tank station to qt coral. Today their are more fish caught by cyanide then we actually know. Aquaculture will be the future of fish and coral.
 

Reef lover24

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Location
Long island
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Although I am young I have been in this hobby since a young child.. The hobby has changed a great deal over the years like everything else unfortunately. Even if you post something at a real good price you always have those people who want a tad lower. I try to support people I know and LFS who have done right by me. Just sad to see what this hobby has come to. even though fish and corals are quite expensive I love the hobby to much and will always have a tank at some point in time.
 

Spartanwarrior

Reefer Always Learning
Rating - 100%
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I was just saying to this a member in need today, how posts are all about sell sell sell and very little about helping members in need with questions. The FS threads get 15 responses while question threads or HELP ones get maybe 1 or 2. I have to google when I have a concern and get responses from 2006 and then need to research to make sure that response is still valid 12 years later... I think because everything is so expensive at the onset (tanks, equipment, husbandry, etc) we all tend to get a little selfish in our ways and time and keep our knowledge to ourselves. i'm lucky I am able to afford this hobby but it seems ridiculous to spend $200+ for some acrylic shaped as a cylinder with a pump attached to it and call it a "reactor" or "skimmer" or these lights nowadays. I bought a damn nori holder with a magnet on it for $25! Its a plastic sleeve and magnet. I mean seriously! Glass tanks from makers in NJ or FL that go for $5K for a simple 180G. Its pure madness.
it really is all about supply and demand. once people stop paying for WWC's newest SPS release for only $1200 and your first born child, prices will have to moderate.

i'll always remember going to members houses, like CharlieTuna or Fishman77 or TUSI and really engaging with them about their tanks and soaking up everything I could. It really was a joy. I've only just started to be able to invite other newbs over, like I was, and extend my hand out to them with tips or free frags or equipment and I encourage others here to do that if they are able and willing. it really helps grow this hobby.
 

Timbo

Got Reef?
Location
Chester
Rating - 100%
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Agree that since my time back I see much less being posted than 10 years ago. Also, started a thread looking to see if local reefers had any LPS or softies to start srocking my tank to try and save some cash. Results = 0 replies with over 170 views. Wasn?t looking for free just reasonable priced fags or colonies from a local fellow reef junky.
 

jck16

Member
Location
Queens
Rating - 100%
52   0   0
I think since I joined almost 10 years ago, it's become less of a community and more a local way to sell and buy things. That's mostly what I've used it for lately admittedly. It takes time to browse and respond especially when New Yorkers are busy enough as it is. It would still be nice to see MR returning to a real community and meet fellow reefers socially, but unless there are more organized swaps and gatherings, I don't foresee this trend toward p2p sales changing.
 

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