I follow and pretty much agree - a cell linked to one individual coral seems like it would be too restrictive and activity in the program would be minimal. Zoas, SPS and others can take years to grow from a frag into a size that is 'fraggable' again so someone would just be hanging onto a cell for that whole time patiently waiting.I think having individual frag cells that can only have a particular species of coral frag in them will be counter productive... For example we start the trading system with a fixed number of cells and they are all filled and shipped out by willing participants with serial numbers logged in the system showing dates, user names, species info etc. then the users that recieved said frags now have to grow out the frag they received then re-frag it let the frag settle onto the tile then ship it to the next person. This will take months. Am I missing something here or is this what is intended?
I know a lot of people on here already swap, sell, trade, share and donate frags on here already. I dont want to see this system get so complicated that people dont bother using it and just trade outside of the system. I think it would be better to build a system around the community as it is developing rather than trying to herd the community into a complicated program.
Perhaps a system where people make a small contribution to a fund to start their membership which can be used as a collective to purchase starting colonies which can be fragged and sent to the participants who have a certain time period to either return a frag of the same or another suitable (deemed suitable by the group) species to the system or be required to pay a small tribute to the fund, in order to retain membership, which could be in turn used to purchase another starter colony. With this system we have control over what corals enter the program and we have a way to fund it. Once some variety is established and generations of colonies are returning to the system it could be as easy as paying your initial membership and registering for the LPS lucky dip where you will get the next LPS frag returned to the system or the Zoa lucky dip or the SPS etc.
As new members join the group if the waiting lists are getting too long the fund could be used to purchase another starter colony and, then fragged and a new branch is added to the family tree. All of the corals entering into the system could be logged and when they are fragged and they grow and they are returned to the system as the next generation they will be logged again this would build into a big family tree and could be very interesting data regarding the sustainability of the hobby.
Ok so I just read that back and im not entirely sure it makes sense... I hope someone follows!
And we know that not only are there tank crashes, but this is a hobby where interest can wane after a year or two - lots of tanks get sold up or neglected after that kind of time.
Maybe the idea of a cell being linked to a type of coral would work - eg Cell 1705 can only house zoas, Cell 0023 can only house Birdsnest SPS, etc