What is COOP?

It's a coral sharing program where Members share coral frags, they have success growing, with others. This is not only a great community activity but hits the core mission of the club and it gets more captive corals into our members hands.

To participate as a donor, start a thread in this forum area and list the coral details. Common information to keep the coral is important as well as your experience with it. Also, be sure to list how many are available and where they can pick it up.

To participate as a donee, find a thread for a coral you are confident you can be successful with and reply to the post to be put in line. Make sure you can keep it alive before getting it. This is not a place to see if you can keep more difficult corals. When you receive it, grow it out and give at least two frags of it to the next people in line.

Please note, this is a members ONLY program and corals received via the coop ARE NOT TO BE SOLD on the forum.

Also you have to be a member with at least 5 posts Thank You!

im game for that!!

I'm in. How about a feedback section also for moochers and con artists? I thought COOP was where you kept chickens.

LOL @ chickens. I have some
sour apple birds nest
Procillapora
pink birds nest
green zoas
and a few other things.

let me know it there are any interests.

I'd be interested in pretty much every single one of those. lol.

But... I just snagged some from the coop so I'll let others jump in first.

Grimreefer - sign me up for a frag of the sour apple birds nest.

Grimreefer - green zoas also.

sounds good to me. just pass on free frags to others once they are big enough to frag.

Absolutely! When/where do you want to meet up?

I'll take a Procillapora. I'll wait to see how these other more hardy SPS do before I try a birds nest.

Im off all day today if you guys wanna come check some things out. Again, all I ask is that you pass of the saving to other hobbiests once they are big enough to frag.

Maybe Jose could set up a section to show how these are being fragged out. That way we can see the effects on our new communitty. Just a suggestion. What do you guys think?

TonyT

Hey Matt still have a few things left for the co op. I will be off this Tuesday evening and Wednesday all day if you wanna swing by and pick a few things up. Just let me know.

Tony-

You have any of the green zoas left? I'd be interested if you did.

Grim. Start a new thread and then list the frag and who it went to. That's what I did for the frags I donated; see the thread for the unknown green SPS. The Host should update the thread when they are ready to be a donor. Or, if the frag dies they should post that as well. There is also a feedback section for those that are not honest or continually fail to keep frags alive.

I agree with bigblue about the Ppl who kill corals because their lighting is weak or they don't keep a eye on the water quality !! They should not be allowed to be part of the coop. Should be some kind of rules for the coop program.

I beleive we just have to ask alot of questions before we just turn corals over to people. That way we are sure they can be properly cared for. If we start the threads like BigBlue had me do, we can moitor the progression of the program as well. If people are using the program just to receive coral but we never see them putting back in, we don't have to donate to that individual, And starting the threads will help monitor this. If its a high dollar coral, the member should have a 10-15 frag donation already in the program or something like that. I dont believe the 1st coral a person receives should be rare, highly sought after, or exotic frag.

I also believe we have a good group of people right now but we have to watch for the people who will hear of this program, join the site, get their frags, and be gone. Possibly the member could have a minumum time on the forum before being eligible for the program.

Just some things to think about.

I like those ideas Grim...... I would defiantly be suspicious of someone that shows up on the forum and goes straight to the COOP. Maybe a thread inside the COOP forum for something similar to a Resume. If you want to participate you need to give up your credentials. For example, what size tank, filtration, lighting, years of experience keeping softies, LPS, & SPS and etc. The single most important thing to me is protecting our hobby by making sure we do everything possible to ensure the health and survival of the corals. We will all fail to keep everything alive all the time. However, someone that continues to lose corals should not continue to receive them.

+1 on the "resume/credentials"

+1 on resume. Maybe we could have a deal where the person who wants the frag posts their tank info and if 2 people say no then it doesn't go through.

So if someone is signing up to take a frag they could list lighting, tank mates and equipment, and any similar corals they're already keeping well. And since we all like pics anyways... they could be required to post tank shots.

And we need to do some tracking on who is giving and who is receiving... so if someone lists a frag right now and I happen to post before tony, tony should get it because I have received frags already but tony has given away frags.

To start tracking corals to that detail would take some special software like they have on the DFW site. That's why that site costs thousands a year to run.

Good idea though....

Not really that big of a deal... just a good google docs database. Of course we can always just let it go until we run into any problems.

Your way over my head now Matt!!

I looked at some of the other COOP programs that are quite extensive now and they all started out with the following premiss: "Keep this as simple as possible and if it becomes apparent more rules are needed then add them - but start from a position of trust and just monitor the usage for a while. Members who aren't going to play fair will be identified quickly enough and it is more appropriate to restrict the few than burden everyone else." They all basically started with a "give one - take one" rule. If you want to participate you must be a Donor before you can host. If you want to host another coral then you must donate one first.

Your idea would probably be something to start thinking about now just in case "trouble" decides to join the forum one day. Hopefully, that doesn't happen though. I think we are small enough that we will notice when someone is not playing fair.

Good points everyone! I think the most important part is that for every coral we share, that is one less coral removed from the reef.

Absolutely Ritter!!

I'll let myself chill out on the way its done. Lol. Just wouldn't want anyone getting messed over by the system and not taking part in it anymore. I like that two people have to agree on it... So that should help.