Marine Depot Live returns with wysiwyg corals, clams and fish

By Jake Adams on Feb 05, 2013

Marine Depot has decided to return to the livestock side of the aquarium business by relaunching Marine Depot Live. Almost four years since Marine Depot Live was closed, the Depot is once again aiming to satisfy all your marine livestock demands with a contemporary marine life website.

Currently the Marine Depot Live website has webpages for corals, clams and fish but only the coral section is populated with a decent selection, neatly browsable by clear and concise tags. The corals that are in the MDL galleries are pretty sweet though, and exotic pieces like the Marshmallow Leptoseris, Watermelon Micromussa and this assortment of disc corals really caught our eye: the wysiwyg photos are impeccable and the black background makes them pop.

Marine Depot has been at the forefront of making high quality and diverse marine and reef aquarium products available over the last half decade. If they can do for crazy rainbow chalices what it did with man of today’s leading aquarium devices, we could see a lot more amazing top tier corals come to market from Marine Depot Live; we and a whole lot of other livestock dealers will be watching for sure.

XD_1

Any idea who their wholesaler is?
BadBoyBill

Looks like Unique Corals website, probably merging. Who knows, could be Oculus since they went under. Inquiring minds wanna know! They should stick to drygoods like the original RB article 3 years ago said….
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Thompson/100003123012524 Michael Thompson

to bad their prices are like 4 years ago.
http://www.facebook.com/ray.so.104 Ray So

Are they crazy with those prices!?!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Joseph-Callahan/1475945250 Joseph Callahan

If I remember right the first lauch had extreme prices as well. Perhaps a contributing factor to the failure of the first time?
Chayus

At first I was like but now I’m like :I
disqus_sBa4yHwORV

their prices are certainly reasonable for rare, highly sought-after specimens, particularly if their service will be of any quality. funny how everyone wants the prime stuff but never wants to pay for it. i’m eager to see where md goes with this.
thatfoilguy

OMG I see Corals there that are $60 Dollars that I have gotten at Frag Swaps for $10 ! and then they probably charge 40-50 for shipping + tax. Something you obviously do not pay at a Frag Swap.

Anybody that buys anything from this site needs a beating.
http://twitter.com/SSmashing YerUgly

Reefbuilders comments section is a breeding ground for negative trolls.
mcallahan

Oculus is still alive and kicking.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jon-Carvallo/551135810 Jon Carvallo

Some of you guys are crazy with these comments about being overpriced. I see some seriously unique stuff for grabs there, and for very moderate prices. Not to mention the $25 FedEx Overnight shipping and a 14-day alive guarantee. These aren’t new kids on the block… I’m sure they are going to kill it w/ awesome stuff.

PS- Just picked up WYSIWYG #6… couldn’t resist.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jon-Carvallo/551135810 Jon Carvallo

Good thing this isn’t a frag swap then, huh?
reef911

Oculus isn’t gone. I just talked to a rep on Monday. They are currently moving their operations to Gardena.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Michael-Thompson/100003123012524 Michael Thompson

reasonable and rare like the 2 head dragon soul favia for 80 bucks. or the nickle size rainbow monti for 75. yup rare and reasonable for sure.
thatfoilguy

Be smart like me.

Only buy your Corals at Frag Swaps.

Much much better Corals which are much much cheaper too.

Can’t beat that.
Mike

Looks like they’re also trying to dazzle people with photo-trickery. Heavy use of a spectrum that makes colors fluoresce more so than under “regular” lighting. Black backgrounds, that look unnatural (possibly removed via photoediting) so you a) get a lot more contrast from the corals colors and the black background (this is why the moon looks white) and b) so you can’t see reflections off eggcrate to clue you in to how blue/actinic their lighting is and c) you don’t have any idea how big these WYSIWYG corals are, are they dime sized babies? Or pancake sized corals?. I mean hell I have brown palythoas I’ve been trying to kill out of my tank for years that if you hit with nothing but actinic light look quite bright green with no brown at all.

This is why when going to shows/stores I’ll actually bring a flashlight that has white LEDs in it, too many vendors realize black bottom frag tank with blue/actinic lights make corals look a lot better than some broader spectrum light that you’ll more likely have over your tank.

As to the prices, whatever, if they’re too high they won’t sell to anyone and they’ll have to lower them, an online store probably would rather focus on selling to those who are willing to pay a little more, especially if their stock keeps cycling out. That said that Green Lantern one looks fairly sexy in the picture, wonder how it’d look under normal lighting conditions.
ScottFellman

LOL, Unique Corals is not merging with anyone. While MDL chose a website template that is somewhat reminiscent to ours from an aesthetic standpoint, there are many, many differences, and they are in no way affiliated with us.

That being said, MD is a class act, and we certainly wish them luck on their new venture.

Scott Fellman

Unique Corals
http://www.facebook.com/michael.niksa Michael Niksa

Not being a troll at all – I actually LOVE Marine Depot – their customer service is second to none. I just find it amusing that the last related article from 2009 applauds them for coming to their senses and sticking to what they do best – dry goods.
http://twitter.com/MarineDepotLive MarineDepotLive

Thanks, Scott!

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