coralsandbar

[scuba_steveo]

has anyone ever ordered from www.coralsandbar.com ?
They look like they have some very nice zoos and ricordea as weel as sps, hard, soft.....
I just have never heard anything about them, good or bad. And as all of you know from online ordering some places are good and some are not. If I get a good responce I will try to do a group order.

[TexasState]

He's been fast with the shipping, fair with the price when I bought dry goods from him b4. But right now, he have bad feedback from several folks on RC. If you wants frags, check around locally first.

[::pete::]

Its always your choice ... but I would not order from him. I have tried and I guess I asked "Rob" too many questions. His pictures are not what you get and his reply is "it will obviously look different under your lighting" I dont care but a brilliant green doent turn blue!! As Vinh said there are a couple people on RC that are not happy at this time. Also for what its worth it is just a side job good luck getting hold of him.

If you want nice zoos got to Farms at The Sea they are a little pricy but you get what you see and will be happy.

[TexasState]

If you wants zoo, there are better place online to buy from, but their best stock usually run out quick.

[scuba_steveo]

what are the better places? I am looking for zoos and ricordea.

[Instar]

I had great results with Rob of Coralsandbar.com recently. He answered all my emails too. But, I didn't persist because he has to be busy and answereing a ton of emails from someone takes a LOT of time.

For what its worth, I traded a pink frag with someone and my pink started growing blue in his tank.. And several of us have traded frags and seen color shifts. Some are temporary and some permanent. Everyones light spectrum is different and judging by the number of people looking for "cheep, good quality" many are using bulbs that are beyond their life. Corals will change under those conditions, conditions of different Ca/Alk or imbalance of Ca/Alk. That is not Rob's fault, its normal. And the one I got from Jim Norris that turned an awesome deep blue with rose polyps, well, I like it my way better than what I originally got. Even from the best conditions, corals change even when at the local level. Thats half the fun of this anyway. I've never seen a picture that looked exactly like the real rock or animal anyway, except for the frag I got from TimM. I couldn't believe it, looked exactly like the pic, but that is the first time of all the on-lines I've done. Perhaps there are better zoos and perhaps not. Its not that easy to get good photos of all of the colors and if you look thru the glass, or just from the top, they are different. I got exactly what I ordered, exactly when Rob said I would, all in great shape. Can't beat that with a stick IMO.

[ratboy]

I wasnt too impressed. I did his frag special and ordered cool blues, yellows and got plain greens and browns. Not only that but 3 of my frags were the same. the only decent color morph was only 2 polyps! Look at his pictures alot of them you can see his hand and its glowing blue..

[cubera]

I've known Rob for a very long time. At one point he was one of the best propagators of soft corals in the business. I'm sorry to see him get hammered about SPS coloration. Only people completely full of **** can promise any Acro. will be or stay any certain color. It is unfortunate that so many SPS keepers know so little about SPS coloration.

Acroporidae are most brilliantly colored just before they bleach. Scientists use this fact as a cue that a major bleaching event is about to happen.

These animals are highly stressed during the harvesting, storing, packing, shipping, unpacking, storing, repacking, retanking process before they arrive at somewhere like Reefer Madness. It is hoped these brillaintly colored corals will sell before they brown out or bleach. I am no expert, but it is fair for me to conclude after farming and shipping thousands of frags and tanking and shipping as many wild collected heads that predicting coloration is an extremely daunting task and I don't know ****.

Acroporidae expell colorful pigmented alages when stressed. The stronger brown algaes remain for the animal to survive while it is acclimating and becoming established in its new captive home. Eventually, in weeks or months, some colorful pigment will emerge, usually at the tips, and give a clue as to what algaes (colors) will dominate and what color it will be. This process starts all over agian when the animal is moved to a new system or when changes, sometimes very subtle ones, occur in the system it is in. Simple things like minor changes in temperature, salinity, pH/alkalinity, lightings, current, available nutrition (feed your SPS!!!) happen. People seasoned in keeping these animals know what I'm talking about. We can usually tell a hobbyist's experience level in keeeping SPS by which colors they expect/demand. This keeps things interesting and keeps people shopping and trading for frags and colonies. Most people are happy adopting a brown ugly and having it color up under their care. Also, almost all fragments will brown out when they start plating on a mount. Some people refer to this phenomina as "the two months" meaning most SPS won't exhibit stable color or growth for two months:) HTH....great topic. I'll Email Rob and see what he's up to. It is a bad feeling to get hammered by the shillers on RC.

[ratboy]

I should probably clarify my post. I ordered only zoanthid frags from coralsandbar. Still not impressed but I cant speak for his sps or anything else...

-Erik

[Instar]

Good post cubera. I recently got 3 brown frags that were dying from a MAAST member. They have all turned green now and are growing for me. Can't wait to see what color they will eventually be. I have no others like it. Zooanthids or otherwise, you have to have a complete light spectrum to develop some colors. If you depend on PC's, those are missing a number of the wavelengths in the color spectrum so you may not see what you want if thats what you are using. Salinity, calcium, balance and lighting all make a difference as well. The brand of salt used - it all counts when it comes to color. As for Coralsandbar and Rob, I'll order from him again for sure. The service is great too.

For what its worth, it often sounds like a large part of the population doing the majority of posting on RC are new reef attempters. I give what they say a only a measured portion of attention because if that.

[cubera]

Well said, Larry! One of the most rewarding things in life for me is to get a brown ugly Acropora and have it color. In fact, some of the best I've ever tanked were salvaged brown uglies....I'm fanatical about water quality, lighting, current, and feeding (again)....I've been playing with rotifers and Pavlova algaes in the 4-200 micron range and results are excellent. Seems LPS, soft corals, and clams like this brew as well:):) :roll: