High End Coral Names

PaulS · Feb 21, 2018

Sorry if this has been beaten to death. I keep looking at high end corals from some of the top suppliers and others. If I look the name up and pull up images and it is very rare to see a large one. A lot of the time you can not find any hits on the coral name. Most of the time you only see the image of the frags they are selling or possibly one picture of the colony they cut it from. I would expect to see pictures of the corals that people bought and grew out but that is the exception surely not the rule. What gives?

hybridazn · Feb 21, 2018

Most ppl who buy them try to recoup the initial cost by selling frags quickly. Obviously this leads to the coral never really reaching a colony size.

ontop27 · Feb 22, 2018

That and 95% of the time its a wild coral that the vendor just named so you will pay 50% more. Whats better acropora 1 or unicorn rainbow death acro.

ca1ore · Feb 22, 2018

Coral coloration is also highly dependent on water conditions, flow and light. Two frags, under different conditions, can look completely different. I view these silly names and claims to 'high end' as foolishness, pure and simple. I will occasionally pay $$ for a scarce or unusual fish, I will not do it for a coral frag. I much prefer going the trade route for frags.

happyhourhero · Feb 22, 2018

www.battlecorals.com

Great vendor. Usually has 1-5 pics of each type which includes the mother.

KJoFan · Feb 22, 2018

The unfortunate part of the whole name game is that one might end up with a tank full of gorgeous sps colonies, but if they're not named something extravagant or a name everyone knows, you can't sell frags for much, which is a shame.

Not that the point of having a reef tank is to sell frags, but I think we all probably endeavor to sell a few frags to help offset the cost to run our reef.

jda · Feb 22, 2018

Most of the current set of name, high priced corals need tricks to look good... either a very specific type of blue-only lighting, or just plain old photo filtering. This has somewhat been happening for a long time... but stuff fades and nobody remembers the acan craze anymore where people were paying $100+ a head for some crazy named acan.

If you look at the tried and true stuff, you will see colonies... and no tricks. The current phase will fade too, with a few long-term winners like maybe Fox Flame and SC Orange Passion as the only real winners since they are legit, need no tricks and lots of people can keep them alive.

User1 · Feb 22, 2018

Isn't residual income a problem? All things being serious people buying the stuff is the problem. Like a few said here color isn't a guaranteed thing and a lot of other factors make that happen. I think it is more of a disservice to this hobby. Especially when it can be self sustaining with regards to corals. But if people want to pay - more power to them. Doesn't impact me since that isn't my thing.

taxiem · Feb 22, 2018

I actually sat today and worked my tank out. I have mainly zoas in there which we know are stupidly expensive for what they are at times especially when the latest glitter farting unicorn fairy dust come out!!

I have paid in total £200 including shipping on the few that have been shipped.

Were I to follow the trend on the names ones and sell them polyp by polyp ( such as rastas, red hornets, darth mauls, utter chaos etc ) then I have in my nano in excess of £2700 worth of zoas!!

how insane is that - they barely cover a third of the coral space in my tank as well! xx

jda · Feb 22, 2018

For those who were around, the last economic downturn did sort all of this out pretty well. They next one will cleanse again... in a somewhat unwelcome way since I never really welcome and economic downturn.

BoomCorals · Feb 22, 2018

All these unicorn names. I have one called unicorn snot. Does that help.

But seriously these days most customers want a name. So that doesn’t help. But on the other end it doesn’t help that the “creator” of the name often charges crazy prices for it, and people pay it.

For what it’s worth, you’ll never see a “boom” named coral with some astronomical price. I want coral to be affordable as much as is reasonable for a business to do.

BantyRooster97 · Feb 22, 2018

I get that names sell, but what bothers me is to see similar frags at different places with different names....

BoomCorals · Feb 22, 2018

BantyRooster97 said:
I get that names sell, but what bothers me is to see similar frags at different places with different names....

There are two ways that can happen.

1. The seller can not verify lineage, so they give it a different name. But they don’t charge any more than the “lineaged” coral sells for.

2. The seller can’t verify lineage and/or simply wants to name it something else, AND knowingly charges more than the “other” coral. To me this is deceptive because it’s exactly like the other named coral, but they get more money by changing the name.

Garf Bonsai is a good example off the top of my head. It’s been around forever and is very affordable. But there are identical corals with a different name sold for excessively higher amounts.

jda · Feb 22, 2018

I like how all of the mockingly made-up names always have "unicorn," "fairy," and/or "dust" in them.

User1 · Feb 22, 2018

Here is another take on it. To the scuba divers here. When you are out diving, and you are at the pre-dive meeting, does the guide or dive master(s) tell you to be on the look out for a coral with a cool name such has Bam Bam or do they use the name? Right, they use the name the locals know it by or part of the actual coral / scientific name. Just like they do with fish...

jda · Feb 22, 2018

Most of these fancy-names acropora are wild collected in just a few feet of water, or sometimes in the air. We watched dudes collect, and we collected our own, with masks in waist deep water with shoes on to protect our feet. You can bet that the collectors know that a strawberry-shortcake type of microlados will bring a pretty penny... or a multi-colored spath. I just care about acropora and there is no need to dive for most of them... even the so called "deepwaters" can be found in less than 10 feet of water where we were at. I have no idea about softies and LPS.