I am confused on naming coral

[Brandon Smith]

So I have reading/seeing a lot of threads recently about coral anming and pricing. I am confused though because I don't see the point in naming corals with the exception of commonly known corals (rasta zoas, Walt Disney, etc.), but a lot of times people won't even look at a coral without a name lol. Is this really driving up the cost of coral? I know basic supply and demand, or is it because of Indonesia, Hawii, Tonga, etc. closing down really the cause behind rising prices?

Does the ability to be able to keep coral in the home aquarium getting easier allowing this new fad of naming coral? I am newish to saltwater, started in 2012 and had to take a break when I went to Korea. Got back into it about two years ago.

 

[bubbaque]

Naming a coral helps know what you're getting. If you are looking for the coral that looks like a Walt disney you’re not going to make a post with ”want to buy a Tenuis“, you’re going to say “want to buy Walt Disney” and everyone will know which coral you’re looking for.

As far as the price complaints lately I don’t understand them. There are tons of corals for under $75 but they have less colors or more common than something that is $350. If money is an issue or don’t feel like paying so much for a Walt Disney then they shouldn’t buy it and stick to the cheaper corals. I would love a Ferrari but it’s out of my price range so I stick with cheaper cars. I don’t go out asking why is a Ferrari so much money. I understand a coral is a coral and a Ferrari is just a car. Some corals are prettier than others which makes them more desirable. There is a high end and a low end for most things in life.

 

[jda]

Don't forget about trends and fads. A decade, or more, ago, acans were going for $100+ a head. Trick-light tenuis are hot lately, but appear to be trending down in the near term... somewhat because everything phases out over time and also because they are easy to grow and frags are getting more and more available.

Old school and classic named stuff is always in demand and the prices usually go steadily up a bit over time. These are sure things to resist fads and whims.

 

[zoasaholic]

I don't believed reefer buy corals because of the name

Naming a coral helps know what you're getting. If you are looking for the coral that looks like a Walt disney you’re not going to make a post with ”want to buy a Tenuis“, you’re going to say “want to buy Walt Disney” and everyone will know which coral you’re looking for.

As far as the price complaints lately I don’t understand them. There are tons of corals for under $75 but they have less colors or more common than something that is $350. If money is an issue or don’t feel like paying so much for a Walt Disney then they shouldn’t buy it and stick to the cheaper corals. I would love a Ferrari but it’s out of my price range so I stick with cheaper cars. I don’t go out asking why is a Ferrari so much money. I understand a coral is a coral and a Ferrari is just a car. Some corals are prettier than others which makes them more desirable. There is a high end and a low end for most things in life.

+1
I don't believed reefers buy corals because of the name

 

[Fishfinder]

I think naming corals has a very important purpose. I helps you catalog pieces. It also lets you know exactly what your getting. Because it is a clone it will be exactly identical.

Take plants or fruits for example. do you want a rose? Or a tulip? And what color? White, yellow, red? When you ask someone to get oranges what if they bring you peaches?

I don’t buy “coral”. I buy specific items based on color and growth. Names let me identify them

 

[fcmatt]

I am not a fan of this whole naming thing because many sellers online force me to look through pages of sps just to find, for example, montipora digitata. Why cant I just search for that and get results? Nope. Silly names. Cant be bothered to use something consistent.

 

[Thales]

I think naming corals has a very important purpose. I helps you catalog pieces. It also lets you know exactly what your getting. Because it is a clone it will be exactly identical.

Take plants or fruits for example. do you want a rose? Or a tulip? And what color? White, yellow, red? When you ask someone to get oranges what if they bring you peaches?

I don’t buy “coral”. I buy specific items based on color and growth. Names let me identify them

There are uses to names that are given that make some kind of sense over time - if all the vendors agree on naming conventions (which they don’t). Walt Disney Acro is only useful for a time. Then it becomes original Walt Disney acro In order to deal with other versions and no one can really say what they have. There are so many ‘named’ corals that the names have fallen away into nothing, yet the corals are still atrund, just no one cares about the names so much because they aren’t hot sellers anymore or because more wild sources have made them less sexy.
Corals already have names. Imo, best would be to use scientific name, followed by vendor then discription. Acropora tenius, wwc, Walt Disney. Or something similar that gives info that is useful over time.

 

[Fishfinder]

There are uses to names that are given that make some kind of sense over time - if all the vendors agree on naming conventions (which they don’t). Walt Disney Acro is only useful for a time. Then it becomes original Walt Disney acro In order to deal with other versions and no one can really say what they have. There are so many ‘named’ corals that the names have fallen away into nothing, yet the corals are still atrund, just no one cares about the names so much because they aren’t hot sellers anymore or because more wild sources have made them less sexy.
Corals already have names. Imo, best would be to use scientific name, followed by vendor then discription. Acropora tenius, wwc, Walt Disney. Or something similar that gives info that is useful over time.

I understand your point about people selling knock offs. But that is a different subject/problem. all the names are important to me. Walt Disney, home wrecker, inner core, fruity pebbles, acid trip, and the list goes on,,, all describe individual pieces that I can exactly identify.

 

[jda]

You can bet that people buy stuff for the name... they want to grow it and cash in while the cashing is hot. This does not work by the time that corals are well known, unless they are really difficult or really hard to grow... if you wanted own and sell Walt Disney when it was still a $500+ piece, you needed to be near one of the first people to get it from Big R since it is now not even a $50 frag around here. There are people who want to profit who care for names quite a bit.

If you are buying a piece without lineage, then nobody should be selling it as a legit piece for any price. This contributes more than anything to the hatred of coral names since people get burned. We have a guy locally who clowned me for selling true, legit Tyree LE Purple Monster that I got directly from Reef Famers for a few hundred when he got a whole colony for like $50 from some unknown person on Craigslist, but his was an Indo Purple Nana and he just happened to believe that it was a PM... and nobody could convince him even though the difference were very clear. If he sold frags of his as Purple Monster, then that hurts everybody.

 

[Sailfinguy21]

I certaiy dont buy em because of the names.. alot of shops i go too dont even know the names of 80% of the corals they have. All they know is they are acroporas leathers whatever.. I usually have to do digging online to find names.

But i buy corals based on price and looks.. i dont spend more then 70$ for a coral and thats ONLY if it looks good.. most ive spent on a coral was 160$ and that was a basketball sized green bubble coral.. and that was a smoking deal.

Other most expensive was a thumb sized hawkin acropora for 70$ and it died... So yea i refuse to spend more then 50$ for acroporas now. Or most corals for the matter.. I usually spent 10-40$ and thats it... I usually wait to find a great deal.. like my bubble coral.

And i got a teal.greenish.blueish candycane coral half the size of a basketball probly 50 heads for 50$.. i got a fist sized red planet acro for 50$ once.

Im tired of little nubs.. I feel if more of us dont buy the nubs the more itll force them to lower prices or grow em out more.. but thats just me.

Anyone wjo spend 100$ or more on a frag plug nub is insaine. Take zoanthids.. they grow fairly fast... So why are the galaxy starlight rainbow unicorn skittle named ones 50$ a head ? Screw that


Another thing is I DO use names only to find it onky and look it up... but i dont believe any these online websites.. except maybe ORA. The problem with these other sellers as we all know is they filter the corals when taking pictures.. They ramp up the actinic or blues and take crazy pics eith yellow or blue or whatever filters.

Acroporas also change color based on ligjt intensity.. One fruity pebbles or even red planet in one tank wont look the same in another tank.

Specially overtime with higher or lower lighting.. corals specially sps change colors

 

[Pdash]

I think naming corals has a very important purpose. I helps you catalog pieces. It also lets you know exactly what your getting. Because it is a clone it will be exactly identical.

Take plants or fruits for example. do you want a rose? Or a tulip? And what color? White, yellow, red? When you ask someone to get oranges what if they bring you peaches?

I don’t buy “coral”. I buy specific items based on color and growth. Names let me identify them

They won't actually be completely identical, they will be as similar as say identical twins, which is not perfectly identical genetically. No differences from inherited mutations, but there will be a few copying errors in dna that they dont share, they are different copies of the same original after all. I agree with your point though.

 

[SeaDweller]

The names are just that: names. The name doesn’t make it more or less expensive, it’s how rare the piece is or how colorful it is that makes it more expensive, let’s be real. Naming it just makes it easier to call it something instead of “red, pink, blue, yellow acro with purple polyps”. Who wants to write that all day?

Did anyone have an issue with ORA naming their pieces: Red Planet, Pearl berry, Borealis, joe the coral... did anyone have issues then with names? It isn’t because JF or ORA or WWC or TCK or whoever throws a name on it and it’s more expensive, it’s how the coral is portrayed to express certain colors that people are willing to buy them for the price.

And what’s driving the prices up is the shortage of the supply coming in, and realistically the fact this is a niche hobby and there are really few skilled enough to want to keep sps and enjoy it.

 

[vanpire]

I am not sure if it is me but many of the new tenuis looks really alike but now have different names. Sometimes from the same vendor.

It is crazy but not only do u have to have blue lights but also orange filtered glasses to see the corals as they are shown in the vendors’ web sites.

 

[KStatefan]

I think names are good to identify what you are purchasing. But what is lacking is any control on the names.

 

[Fishfinder]

They won't actually be completely identical, they will be as similar as say identical twins, which is not perfectly identical genetically. No differences from inherited mutations, but there will be a few copying errors in dna that they dont share, they are different copies of the same original after all. I agree with your point though.

You are actually incorrect. They are genetically identical. The same as plants when you take a clipping to grow a new fruit tree. That’s why you should never grow a fruit tree from seeds. The seed is genetically a different plant. The clipping is genetically identical. Coral is the same way. If you clip a coral and move it to a different location it is genetically the same and will be the same as the mother

 

[mtfish]

They won't actually be completely identical, they will be as similar as say identical twins, which is not perfectly identical genetically. No differences from inherited mutations, but there will be a few copying errors in dna that they dont share, they are different copies of the same original after all. I agree with your point though.

I do like names if it really is the coral they say. I bought a coral recently with a old school name. When I asked the vendor they said he could not prove lineage but that is what it was sold to him so he kept the name. In that case they should not be using the name. I see some vendors change names of the same coral and that just confuses the issue. But I do not agree with this statement on clones. Although a coral may look quite different from one tank to another for several reasons, if you clip a piece and sell it, it is exactly the same genetically. Now if it spawns in your tank, that changes the genetics. Identical twins (more than one original) could have some DNA errors, but if you clipped the finger off of one twin and grew it out, it would exactly the same.

Just saw Fishfinder post about genetics after I typed this up, ha!

 

[jda]

Frags are genetically identical.

I also think that there might be 5 to 8 actually different rainbow tenuis that are renamed many times and kept under different lights and sold as different things. I have seen three or four that are just the SC Orange Passion under different shades of LED and with different lens filters.

 

[Pdash]

Frags are genetically identical.

I also think that there might be 5 to 8 actually different rainbow tenuis that are renamed many times and kept under different lights and sold as different things. I have seen three or four that are just the SC Orange Passion under different shades of LED and with different lens filters.

Why plant 'clones' aren't identical

A new study of plants that are reproduced by 'cloning' has shown why cloned plants are not identical. Scientists have known for some time that 'clonal' (regenerant) organisms are not always identical. Now researchers believe they have found out why this is the case in plants: the genomes of...

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[Pdash]

You are actually incorrect. They are genetically identical. The same as plants when you take a clipping to grow a new fruit tree. That’s why you should never grow a fruit tree from seeds. The seed is genetically a different plant. The clipping is genetically identical. Coral is the same way. If you clip a coral and move it to a different location it is genetically the same and will be the same as the mother

No I am not. They are not perfectly or as you said "exactly genetically identical", they are close, but not perfect. If they were perfect clones evolution would be impossible.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(11)00771-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982211007718%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

 

[mtfish]

No I am not. They are not perfectly or as you said "exactly genetically identical", they are close, but not perfect. If they were perfect clones evolution would be impossible.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(11)00771-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982211007718%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

We are going have to agree to disagree. Evolution is due to sexual reproduction, not cloning.