High End Coral Question

[chemaholic]

I have been looking at various websites that carry more unusual and/or more expensive corals. I notice some of the sites have pictures that look particularly spectacular compared to other sites. Most of these sites are big names in corals. Their stock is more expensive too.

When I look at other sites for the same corals, the pictures of the corals do not look nearly as nice and they charge less. My question is, are the corals on the more expensive sites superior?

 

[dball711]

Depends not necessarily, some vendors may enhance photos. I’d Google photos of what your looking for and compare from there.

looking for anything in particular?

 

[chemaholic]

I was looking at a 21 Tails Torch and some Frankie's Acid Trip Zoas maybe. That is unfortunate that some of the sites enhance their photos. That would make me never want to purchase from them again. Taking pictures under blue lights or whatever is fine, but not augmenting the photos.

 

[Rainblood]

I try to find the coral in photos in different peoples tanks. If you're looking at the 21 tails - peruse R2R and see the guys that have it for sale and what it looks like in their tank.
Over saturating is usually fairly obvious in photos. The hardest thing for me is usually determining size and brightness.

 

[chemaholic]

As an example here is one picture of the 21 Tails Torch

Here is another one.


The site with the lower picture is charging almost 50% more than the site with the above picture. Makes me uncomfortable tbh.

 

[hzheng33]

most of the time you just need do a few searches online for the same coral to set your expectation when it comes to coloration.

 

[Doberman13]

Insert appropriate catfish joke here.

 

[Rainblood]

 

[Rainblood]

 

[billyocean]

Some vendors enhance the corals a pretty ridiculous amount. Even if it's a true pic, your lighting will make things look different sometimes. Having said that, both of those corals are very nice and bright.

 

[picoreefguy]

I know some augment their photos to match what the see with the naked eye and others augment to such an extent it could be considered false advertising. So i wouldnt say augmenting the pictures on its own is a bad thing. That being said though 90% of the time a coral bought online WILL look different in your tank. There are so many variables that go into coral coloration and intensity that its near impossible to guarantee it’ll look the same in your tank. Also another consideration with Some corals in particular is how close up the coral is in the picture vs natural viewing distance. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of beautiful acans or other lps taken with a macro lense so it looks like you’re two inches away and you get so many gorgeous colors in the oral disc but when viewed form a couple feet away those colors are almost unnoticeable, so while they’re not really showing you anything that isn’t there it does make it much more enticing to buy. They can also use other photography tricks like placing a decently colorful coral on a black background or on black sand to make the contrast really intense and the coral look that much better, again not showing you anything thats not there but it definitely ups the likelihood that you will buy it. So like others have said here look for pictures of the coral in other peoples tanks across multiple sources, that way you get an idea of what it could look like in yours. To answer your question though, as long as they are actually selling the exact same coral the only thing that would make one superior to another is the health of the coral so id say go with the cheaper one because it will change once it gets into your tank anyway.