Nothing on this page is for sale. Nobody can list and nobody can pay: the Reef Frags Frag Market has not opened, and these are the terms it intends to open against, as they stand on 22 September 2026.
They are published now rather than later because that was the promise: the site has said in two places that the authorisation, capture and dispute rules, and the minimum a seller's own terms have to meet, would be published in writing before the Market opened. Rules written after the first listing goes up are a description of what we had already decided to do.
Growers list their own corals under their own name, with their own photographs, the parameters those corals were grown under, and their own terms. A frag does occasionally come off the founder's display tank, and when it does the listing says so exactly like anyone else's.
Running a price reference and a marketplace at the same time only works if we are not also the biggest seller on it, and the 66 morphs in the Coral Bluebook would be worth nothing to anybody the day that stopped being true. It is also why we write no live-arrival guarantee of our own: the seller's terms apply, and what follows is the floor those terms have to clear.
One photograph of the exact piece that ships, taken by the seller, with the lighting stated. White balance and brightness may be corrected. Nothing beyond that, and no stock shot of the mother colony.
Why: A blue-light photograph that does not survive contact with the buyer's own tank is the oldest complaint in this hobby, and it is unanswerable once the money has moved.
A coral sold by the head or the polyp states the count. A listing that does not state it cannot be published, rather than being published as one.
Why: Three quarters of torch listings in the weekly price survey leave it out, and assuming one head on a frag that pictures five publishes a number five times too high under a heading that says per head.
Aquacultured or wild-collected, chosen from two options, on every listing. A seller who does not know says so.
Why: Selling wild-collected stock as aquacultured is the specific thing this rule exists to catch, and a free-text box is where that claim goes to hide.
A designer name is carried only where the seller can point to the mother colony it came from. Where they cannot, the listing reads as a grow-out, and the seller is named as the source of whatever lineage claim it does make.
Why: Nobody can verify lineage at the hobbyist level. It runs on the seller's word, so the honest version is to name whose word it is rather than to launder it into a fact.
Carrier, cut-off day, heat or cold pack, and what happens when the buyer's local forecast is dangerous. Livestock ships early in the week so a box never sits in a depot over a weekend.
Why: Holding an animal back beats gambling with it, and a shipping decision made after payment is made by the party who has already been paid.
Combos, packs and mystery boxes are not listings. A price that covers two animals is not either animal's price.
Why: The same rule already governs the price survey, for the same reason: a Rasta and GSP combo at one price tells you nothing about what a Rasta costs.
Cover runs to the end of the day the box is delivered, at least. A seller may offer longer and many will.
Why: A shorter window is a window that closes while the buyer is at work, which is a policy that reads well and pays nothing.
The buyer photographs the animal in the bag, unopened where possible, and files within 8 hours of delivery. The specimen is not discarded until the claim is settled.
Why: A claim without a photograph is one person's word against another's, and the venue has no way to be fair to either of them.
Every listing shows its own live-arrival terms before the buyer pays, in the same place as the price.
Why: Terms published only in a policy page the buyer finds afterwards are terms that were never agreed to.
The buyer is charged when they buy, in full, including shipping. There is no authorisation left hanging on a card for a week.
Why: An authorisation expires in about seven days and a coral held back for weather does not. The payment failing after the animal shipped is the worst version of this for both sides.
The money is held and paid out to the seller once the buyer confirms the animal arrived alive.
Why: Somebody has to carry the risk between payment and arrival. Held payouts put it on the party who packed the box, and leave the buyer's bank out of it entirely.
If the buyer neither confirms nor files a claim, the payout releases 3 days after delivery on its own.
Why: A hold with no deadline is a seller's money held hostage by somebody who simply got busy, and no grower should have to chase a buyer to be paid for a coral that arrived fine.
A claim filed inside 8 hours stops the clock. Both sides' evidence is read by a person, and the outcome and the reason are given to both. There is no automated verdict.
Why: A dispute over a dead animal is exactly the case an algorithm gets wrong, and hiding behind one would be the venue refusing to do the only job it charges for.
Not set. No percentage is published here yet, and no seller will be asked to list under a rate that has not been written on this page first.
Why: The difference between one percentage and another is real money to a grower, and a rate implied by a roadmap is not a rate anyone agreed to.
One term is written above but not settled, collected here so nobody reads the rest and assumes the page is finished: What Reef Frags takes. Nobody will be asked to list under a term that is still on this list.
The fee is the one a grower will care about most, so to be explicit: Reef Frags has not set what it takes from a sale, and this page will carry the number before any listing does.
The people who have to live with them have not read them yet. If you frag and you would list, tell us which of these is unworkable: write to support@reeffrags.com, or leave an address on the page and you will be asked directly.
This wording took effect on 22 September 2026. A change to what a rule means moves that date, and a change to the fee, to the release window or to the claim window will be announced to the grower list before it applies to anybody. Reading this is not agreeing to it, because there is nothing yet to agree to.