The Price of Ricordea

[Reefland]

I have never cared for any Ricordea and am not sure about the collection practices or captive culturing of them, but why in the world is the cost of Ricordea so high? I have seen some nicely colored polyps go for nearly $100 for a single polyp and that just don't make since? You can get a nice cultured Acropora colony with colors just as brilliant for that kind of money!

Just wondering if anyone knows what drives the cost up so high.

[Ninong]

Just wondering if anyone knows what drives the cost up so high.

Demand!

This is no different than tulipmania or orchidmania in previous centuries. The outrageous prices right now are for brilliantly colored (especially bright pink/red) Ricordea yuma polyps. These are mostly coming from Indonesia. I have noticed a trend among the various online vendors where they are actually linking you to their eBay auctions for their more desirable yuma specimens. I have also seen relatively small (1"-1.5") bright pink R. yuma polyps listed for as much as $149 (single polyp) on a vendor's website get sold within minutes after the email notifications are sent out. One vendor commented that he had 50 buyers for every bright pink/red yuma polyp he could get and that was why you should put your name on his email list so that you would be advised immediately when his website had been updated with new specimens. Every time I have clicked onto those email notices I have found that all of the really rare color morphs of R. yuma are already sold in spite of what seems to be rather high prices.

Common R. florida polyps usually bring no more than about $8 each retail. Some of the less common color morphs can bring about $14 per polyp. Larger rocks containing maybe a dozen or more polyps are often listed for as much as $185 if they are especially attractive. Some of these are being aquacultured now. I have even seen some of these man-made rainbow rocks with both R. yuma and R. florida on the same rock -- proof that it is aquacultured since they are from two different oceans.

It is illegal to collect them in Florida waters with anything more than about a quarter sized piece of live rock attached, so most of these wild collected R. florida pieces are coming from Haiti and other Caribbean locations. The wild collected R. yuma are coming mostly from Indonesia.

Both R. florida and R. yuma can be propagated by slicing them with a razor blade into wedge shaped sections like cutting a pie.

[Ninong]

Scott,

Remember when I posted the picture of that beautiful soft coral tank in that Japanese LFS? Well here is the actual custom glass tank itself:


It has a stainless steel frame at the top and the bottom, making it unnecessary to have any cross bracing or Euro bracing. If I remember correctly, this tank is approximately 160 gallons. The glass tank alone is 609,000 Yen ($5,639).

Value case(consumption including tax): 609,000 Yen -The stainless steel framework glass tank by the design of C.P.Farm.It is the glass tank which is similar to the tank which is installed in the C.P.Farm stone wall.
At the beginning, the tank of the ideal shape which CPF thinks in condition such as design, strength and size of the tank is not marketed and it is the original work to do and it does, but outside thinking we had decided to sell with splendid workmanship.


So why did he post that in this thread? To show that demand drives prices. Check out their website CPFarm.com using alta vista's babelfish or similar translation program. Check out the prices for common livestock and common pieces of equipment. Figure out how much they spent on lighting alone for some of those tanks whose pictures we posted a couple of years back.

P.S. -- Helpful tips: Babelfish's machine translation program comes up with some funny phonetic translations converting Japanese to English. Examples: R's are translated as L's -- leaf lock = reef rock, leaf tank = reef tank, and software coral = soft coral.

[Reefer769]

omg that is an amazing tank, is there a website were i can see more pictures?

[Ninong]

omg that is an amazing tank, is there a website were i can see more pictures?

www.cpfarm.com but you will need to use www.altavista.com 's translation program if you don't read Japanese.

[Ninong]

In this thread I posted a picture of that exact same tank as it is set up in a stone wall in C. P. Farm's store in Japan: Japanese tank pic... I hope you have cable.

The only incoming flow in that tank is coming from a single outlet in the upper right rear just above the live rock. That tank is mostly soft corals, therefore they can get by with less intense lighting and less flow than they would need for an SPS tank. They designed that tank themselves and had it constructed because they didn't like the tanks that were available from the commercial tank builders. I'm not even sure if it is low-iron, ultra clear glass or not for that price. Five grand for a 160-gal glass box is a bit steep unless you have money to burn.

[patsfan1130]

In this thread I posted a picture of that exact same tank as it is set up in a stone wall in C. P. Farm's store in Japan: Japanese tank pic... I hope you have cable.

Very nice tank!

It seems odd to me though that the surface looks like Lake Placid. Looks perfectly still.

[Ninong]

Very nice tank!

It seems odd to me though that the surface looks like Lake Placid. Looks perfectly still.

I believe they turned off the pump to take the photograph.

[patsfan1130]

I believe they turned off the pump to take the photograph.

hehe

you can tell it's getting late here. Or else I would have thought of that.

I feel pretty stupid now

[Ninong]

omg that is an amazing tank, is there a website were i can see more pictures?

Here is another Japanese website: http://www.splash-sea.co.jp/top.html

Here is a thread with pictures of a few tanks from that site: More Japanese tanks.

[Ninong]

I think we need to start talking about the high prices of Ricordea again so that Scott won't think I hijacked his thread.

[Reefland]

Sure, we all know demand will move up the price, how else would merchants make any money. It's no different than someone paying $50-$100 for a very small frag of an A. tortuosa or more for the "Purple Monster".

For me however, I can see paying a bit more money for a small frag of a desired Acropora sp. but $100+ for a single polyp of Ricordea? That would seem only feasable to me if there were multiple brightly colored polyps on 1 rock.

I guess the phrase "to each his own" comes into play here.