is there any way to know if i have a Holy Grail

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Ballyhoo

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I know, I know - I'm late to the party again.

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I think he still wins the fight without his legs. Or at least he intended to. He definitely won the name calling contest.
 
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IDK, i'm seeing yellow in this green torch.
 

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Well, $75 for that torch seems reasonable at least.... and I'm glad I read this thread. I was sold a holy grail, and after reading this thread, its very suspect and likely not a HG, but its bright neon green with pink/purple tips, and is getting quite a bit bigger the last couple days!

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Could also be a low grade grail if you don’t see a lot of yellow making it clearly different from the green

This is what your green might be
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And a grail should be a different more flourescent neon yellow green with yellow accents along the entire tentacle

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IDK, i'm seeing yellow in this green torch.
Keep squinting. It might get yellower. :beaming-face-with-smiling-eyes: Not a HG. Goes by several names, cotton candy (but usually with pink tips), Hulk, Todd’s torch (but with typically long tentacles) or my bet, green torch with blue tips.
 
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any opinion on what is the most reputable online seller of torch coral and other torches etc? anything good on the west coast?


I guess now that I bought this HG coral I think I should deliberated more because I would like to see more yellow in it. maybe i will ask for an exchange. anyways, I can definitely see some yellow, but I can't make it come out in my images. I suppose I would like stronger yellow tones.

update. I asked the seller of my coral he said the Malaysians are the ones with a stronger yellow, which I guess I didn't get Malaysian, i think i must have got Indo.

not sure what it is about these species (Torches) that are so alluring to me. but at least i can be focused on an easier coral than an SPS. now I can see myself spending hundreds or thousands of dollars in exotic coral rabbit hole. God help me.
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The two torches look different. The second one is brighter and has some yellow highlights. Is it a HG?? Beats me... there are degrees of yellow...and if you are happy with it for the price you paid that is what matters.

Coral photography with the crazy lights running these days is very challenging. phone cameras are not designed to get accurate color representation under these aquarium lights unless you turn them all white. But then you don't see the colors you see when the blues are turned up.

Check out the photography forum! They make inexpensive orange filters for phones. These give a pretty reasonable representation of the colors in the photo with the colors you are seeing in person.
 
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The two torches look different. The second one is brighter and has some yellow highlights. Is it a HG?? Beats me... there are degrees of yellow...and if you are happy with it for the price you paid that is what matters.

Coral photography with the crazy lights running these days is very challenging. phone cameras are not designed to get accurate color representation under these aquarium lights unless you turn them all white. But then you don't see the colors you see when the blues are turned up.

Check out the photography forum! They make inexpensive orange filters for phones. These give a pretty reasonable representation of the colors in the photo with the colors you are seeing in person.
it's like a Rolex watch. You pay for the humming of the seconds hand. when the coral store owner was showing me a torch colony that was selling for $12,000 and being sold to a doctor from Ohio I understood it's jewelry and all I looked at was mixtures and blends of different colors within each head.

so I'm gonna pay $12,000 so I can have six heads of torch each with different blends of color. Now that is a discerning customer with money to spend. I hope his phosphates or alkalinity never fluctuate too much.
except everybody understands what a Rolex watch is. The doctor paying $12,000 for the torch colony is probably the only one who will ever see it and understand its value besides the one we sold it to him.

now I see how corals have become like jewelry, but again jewelry is appreciated by other people. These expensive torches their valued by the buyer or the owner alone. How are you gonna explain to somebody visiting your home "oh look this colony of torches it was $12,000. "
it is a solitaire gratification

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it took me a week of comparing and seeing them on a daily basis to notice the difference. The green torch is nothing as flamboyant as the name brand HG I had more recently purchased. They're both nice. But the HG just has a certain vibrancy of color that the green torch does not. so now I guess I'm in this torch obsessive phase and I bought an ultra 24K from Lucky Coral, which seemed to be the best price as I could find online but in the future I'm definitely gonna go to my local coral shop in the because I still don't think I'm getting dollar for dollar online that I can get at my local coral shop. that ultra 24K cost me about $350 and included shipping though but also I got a little hammer My much larger HG cost me $550, locally bought.
Lucky Coral appears to me the best online vendor in terms of price but still does not compare to local Shop, kung fu coral in San Diego. (But also if I'm looking for online coral since I live in San Diego, I would wanna purchase from somebody on the West Coast. ). Perhaps because I'm able to stand there with the owner of kung fu coral and he explains to each individual coral and ends up giving me a little personal discount that is where I should be buying my coral, but I bought also this three headed hammer which was very much smaller than I thought for $150 I guess that's about the going rate purchased online. I was just surprised how small it is. I'm going to be loyal to my local coral guru kung fu coral and Aquatic warehouse is also very reasonable. AQUA SD has a great reputation, but I think their priced quite high. I can't blame how much any of these vendors charge because it must be a very difficult business given the cost of electricity and water. I personally make sure my lights are dim by 4 PM because Sdge charges more between 4 and 9 PM so LED go on in the early morning and go dim down around 4 to 5 PM

Also, the online concept of WSWIG makes no sense there's always disclaimers and there's no way you can tell from the image with the size of the species is.
just to get a sense of what I purchased from kung fu coral for $550 HG coral, the tentacles spread about 4" x 2" which is quite massive in my opinion compared to what I've seen online for a similar price. Actually most HG's I've seen for two heads are about 750 or $800 and I'm sure they're not this large.

another point is that apparently torches like up to 200 par and with my red sea led 90 to get between 150 to 200 par I have to bring the torch up close to the surface. I have seen that my other torches have done OK down low in about the 75 to 80 par range but I also think my par meter measures on the low end.
I know I've been buying a lot of torches, but if you're gonna work and make money and only live once you might as well buy what you want.
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