Buying corals online can be a little tricky even for people like me. Here are some tips that have helped me overcome some of the obstacles associated with shopping online. Do you have any tips that work well for you?

OK....This is the best reef/coral channel on KZfaq! Amazing content, high production values and Than's soothing voice. B roll is always just extra A roll. So educational. And by "educational", I really mean that we get to bask in the gentle coral information, then...BAM! We get a master class in digital photography. Dang.

Great video, it's nice to hear someone else's view on this topic. Especially someone with your experience.

Thank you for being honest. I look forward to purchasing corals from you because of your honesty.

I've actually had pretty good luck with corals I've bought online meeting my expectations. The biggest roadblock to me is the high shipping cost. It doesn't make any sense to buy a $20 coral and then pay $40 shipping. So you almost have to buy in batches instead. Either enough to trigger free shipping, or at least to drive the additional cost per coral low enough that it's immaterial. The only upside is that it's generally more efficient to process (dip) batches of new coral than a single anyway. But it really inhibits impulse buying.

I love this channel, I have yet to buy corals from you guys but feel more comfortable about it after watching your videos

Very interesting and educational. I appreciate your honesty and sincerity being an online seller.

Great video very informative, always nearve racking ordering not always , what you see is what you get !!👍👍

Some great info. Thanks, Than

Thanks for the video! Good information!

Thanks Than - nice video as always. We need a v2 with tips surrounding shipping! Some insight into how overnight shippers work, holding at facility vs delivery, when not to ship, checking weather, etc. would be awesome.

Nice Video-very nice tips !

Thank you Than for sharing your experience and knowledge. Long time sub and always look forward to your videos. Well done and educational.

Great video!!!!!

I predominantly use yellow filters for strickly under blue LED shooting... My camera overexposes the blue and so the yellow filter kills the blue.. similar to how cyan is used when editing green screen footage to kill the neon green ;) But in the end there is always temperature etc adjustments to get rid of the yellow as well in the photo... Like you said most people are not skilled in photography so it's tough. I mostly shoot my stuff now under a t5 combo of blue+, purple+ and coral+ bulbs... this gives a great "white light" photo... of course you still need to adjust color temp. a good point is also to look at the frag plug or any other thing that has a known color, white, grey etc... these should not have any colors on them... and look normal at least... Anyway great video as alway!

Great advise. I use few online venders who are very transparent in how they grow and photograph their corals. I have found that some of the bigger vender’s images and descriptions are not very accurate. Just like a local coral store get to know your online store venders and you will not be disappointed.

Great tips Than. I actually just shot a video last night while doing a water change from the top of the tank. All different views and colors

I bought a brown stylo from lfs. 3 months later its solid pink.

Thank you for your time & for sharing your experience. We're still newbs (haven't reached the point where our 90 gal display is stable enough to add corals but we're anxious). You've provided great info. Would you or do you have content regarding the safety precautions for ordering online (QT best practices, disease control, what to look for, what problems are reasonable to expect from an online retailer)? On a different note, what does stability really look for our new reef? More so than just time, when do the parameters show enough consistency to add our 1st corals? Sorry for the long post😞

Another great video. When is the next live auction?

Thanks for this video! Very helpful, especially since so many people are looking for specific corals that may only be offered by online retailers. 👍🏻

Wow thanks for the info. That really help me alot now that I am new to this hobby. I will be doing a lot of online shopping. So thanks 🙏🏻 and keep up the good work👍🏻🇩🇰😎

thanks for the tip, I never purchase online maybe ill give it a go

Great advice Than thank you

Good to know 👍

How real you are in your videos is a breath of fresh air to me. The ups and downs of your own experiences, I think, makes the rest of us feel less inadequate at the hobby ourselves. Things like admitting to fooling yourself into buying back your own coral, makes laugh at some silly stuff I've done along the way. Instead of being mad at mistakes I've made in pursuit of the perfect reef, I think even the greats have been there. An that has me feeling like a fellow reefer, instead of a rookie looking to living perfect reef gods to see why I do so many silly things. Thanks.

Great info. I bought blue mushrooms. They only look blue when I look from the top. From the front they are purple. Wish I could buy corals from you!! You have to bring tidal gardens to the Netherlands! 👊😉😉

Thanks!

w.r.t. cameras, Sony A7 and some others have very good lowlight performance. But I'm in robotic vision, not coral-keeping, so I don't know about your lighting conditions. Might want to look at FLIR/PointGrey for video - they produce machine vision cameras that let you get all the way down to the Bayer algorithm, so you've got good reproducible control of each step in the image process.

Size is an extremely difficult thing for newbs to gauge ( myself included Reefing 10+ years). The measurements given (if given) rarely account for volume when healthy. Its difficult I get it. But Its really difficult to buy coral online and plan spacing in your tank. I have had many upsetting corals show via mail because I didnt' understand the size of the frag!

I did this with a blue stag I had. Gist had a nice chunk for sale of a staghorn coral and it looked different than mine. Turns out that after a month or so in my tank it was actually just the same thing.

Color science is a pretty complex topic. What you see on the cell phone, screen, and paper varies quite a bit.

What I usually do for post processing is up the warmth and temperature for pics with blue LEDs and that's it

As a hobbiest photographer and done a few courses, too true about half the photography is editing. Just look for the bluring cour etc!

Even if you buy in regular stores, the coral will not look like that in your tank... because their water chemestry is different and their lights are different, some stores are very smart in their use of lighting and chemestry... and a coral just pops! Online you get very specific corals, often specific rare/beautiful morphs, with smaller sizes, something more appealing to advanced reefers while offline that is harder to get, and you get larger common corals, more suitable to newbies.

So much great info here! I learned the hard way that brilliant deep magenta is not a colour that exists in nature on coral. 😁 In real life, it’s orange. And it turned out to be beautiful in its own right, so ultimately it was a good purchase. And I’m left not understanding why the vendor misrepresented it so severely. 🤷‍♀️ And I love what you said about issues with photography, and the advent of amber filters. I really enjoyed this video, thank you for it. 👍🏻👍🏻

If it's an expensive coral I ask them to take a quick pic on their phone and text the image to me cause I don't have Facebook. Usually I get a photo under white light cause the phone camera can't handle blue.

Good video and advice. I believe when post processing goes beyond cropping and making it look as it does in real life, it becomes fraud.

If you bring tidal gardens to the Netherlands I will run it for you. 😎😎😎😎😎💪💪💪😉😉

Why not just do post processing to make the coral look like what it actually looks like to overcome the shortcomings of shooting coral.

I am from Columbus if I purchase from you can I do in-store shopping

I am surprised there are no reef cameras yet. Obviously a niche but for instance both Canon and Nikon have limited runs of astrophotography cameras that have no IR filter so they capture more red.

😀

Hey Than, camera's don't shoot reefs. people do.

What about a live video feed they have some cameras on bulk reef supply? Be like you are in the store looking. Then you would see my cat drinking salt water !

I WAS IN SINGAPORE!

The camera shot looked like Rico’s tank. Lol

You skipped the obvious ‘cost’ but I it’s pretty obvious why it costs as much as it does. These are love animals and require specific water parameters. Shipping over 7business days will result in 98% DOA. So we gota express ship them or overnight to ensure survival of the corals, and shipping water and corals quickly is gona cost more than sending a letter

Sponsored by shitty vendors like Russell Goddard and Tcd