"Real" weeping willow rant

prokhk · Mar 19, 2023

I know this topic has been covered many times, but I wanted to share my thoughts on why I think the reef builders weeping willow is not unique and why I think it's fine to call the long polyp leather in your tank a weeping willow if you want to.
(Link to the video where Jake talks about the coral: )

For starters, I think coral "strains" and trade names are a little ridiculous, especially considering how most frags are clones of the mother colony, and not genetically different. In addition, corals can behave very differently and look very different depending on the conditions (flow, lighting, nutrients, etc) that they are being kept in. Therefore, I think the test to see if your toadstool is a weeping willow is useless. You could have an exact clone of the same coral in a different tank and it would fail the test. You could move a coral from one tank to another other and it would go from passing to failing the test. A great example of this is a frag of Jake's toadstool in Sanjay's tank that has shorter polyps seen in this video:
(link to a blog with the willow "test": https://reefbuilders.com/2019/07/30/video-details-the-attributes-of-true-weeping-willow-leather/)

I am no expert in genetics, however, IMO separating coral varieties by genetics (either of an individual or a species) is the only legit way to do it since the coral's appearance is not consistent.

Jake claims that he knows everyone he has given a frag to and that they have not shared their frags. However, he says he got his frag from Daniel Montez who may have shared other frags with other people in the hobby. Who knows if Daniel shared other frags with other people that have made their way around the hobby? There might be 100's of tanks with genetically identical weeping willow toadstools.

I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this and see more pictures of weeping willow corals you have in your tanks! It is definitely one of my favorites.

I've also attached an image of the weeping willow toadstool I have in my tank and a picture of a frag I gave my brother. I think it looks pretty similar to the other "real" weeping willow images I've seen.

Spare time · Mar 19, 2023

People are obsessed with labeling and categorizing things into boxes that often don't exit

elysics · Mar 20, 2023

Trade names are useful if you want the same genetics without paying for sequencing. So you know that a ****** looking coral has the potential to turn out great because it has the trade name genetics.

The problem is copycats wanting to profit off of that. I have seen plenty of generic toadstools advertised as weeping willows (with double the price that they would usually cost) that are 100% obviously miles away genetically. For example because they are neon green.

spsick · Mar 20, 2023

For crying out loud, the man is dead maybe just leave it be and keep that opinion off the public forum.

Sailaway · Mar 20, 2023

spsick said:
For crying out loud, the man is dead maybe just leave it be and keep that opinion off the public forum.

Agreed.

Cell · Mar 20, 2023

The author has died therefore his writings are irrefutable? This post was about the subject, not the author. It's not disrespecting anyone.

hart24601 · Mar 20, 2023

I am going to exclude Jake from this since he is gone but I will post my thoughts on the weeping willow as I have on other threads.

I really doubt it’s a unique individual, there are so many wild and cultured toadstools coming in the hobby all the time I doubt it is unique as in never imported again.

that being said I think the conditions it’s kept in and chemistry are unique which gives it that phenotype and have proven hard for others to replicate. Light intensity, flow, size, age, trace elements, and more factor in.

to this point it’s not uncommon to have frag systems plumbed together with display tanks and even with the same water and PAR the frags can develop amazingly differently phenotypes such as colors and growth patterns enough that it’s hard to even tell they are from the parent colony in the display.

While I think it’s unlikely it is possible none others have been found, some strains of acro like purple monster took decades to find more and I am not sure alternate fox flame has been imported, however the long polyps and falling in flow have been seen in a few others and I myself have seen drastic toadstool polyp length just varying light and flow.

Spare time · Mar 20, 2023

elysics said:
Trade names are useful if you want the same genetics without paying for sequencing. So you know that a ****** looking coral has the potential to turn out great because it has the trade name genetics.

The problem is copycats wanting to profit off of that. I have seen plenty of generic toadstools advertised as weeping willows (with double the price that they would usually cost) that are 100% obviously miles away genetically. For example because they are neon green.

The point was that, in many cases, are likely still the same species of toadstool, regardless if its from Jake's line or another. Plus, there is probably variation in the appearance of all these weeping willows despite being the same species. This is the problem when trying to use old taxonomic methods whereby organisms are grouped by physical appearance

elysics · Mar 20, 2023

Spare time said:
The point was that, in many cases, are likely still the same species of toadstool, regardless if its from Jake's line or another. Plus, there is probably variation in the appearance of all these weeping willows despite being the same species. This is the problem when trying to use old taxonomic methods whereby organisms are grouped by physical appearance

The whole reason that fantasy names came up in the hobby is that "same species" is not good enough.

If someone wants to buy a chihuahua and you sell them a german shepherd, they are going to be upset. It's the same species, but classification doesn't end at species level.

Same with some corals. Some genetic freaks look better or more interesting than others.

prokhk · Mar 20, 2023

spsick said:
For crying out loud, the man is dead maybe just leave it be and keep that opinion off the public forum.

I did not mean for this to reflect poorly on Jake, and I apologize if it was in bad taste. Jake was a huge advocate for the hobby and I respect him and his legacy as an aquarist.

The point I was trying to make was that using physical appearance is not a great way to distinguish coral types, and I am frustrated by coral name gatekeeping of which weeping willow toadstool is a great example. That being said there is no realistic way for hobbyist to classify their corals outside of how they look.

elysics said:
The whole reason that fantasy names came up in the hobby is that "same species" is not good enough.

If someone wants to buy a chihuahua and you sell them a german shepherd, they are going to be upset. It's the same species, but classification doesn't end at species level.

Same with some corals. Some genetic freaks look better or more interesting than others.

I agree that same species is not good enough, however, with dog breeds, it's not like you can grow your chihuahua under brighter lights and have it look like a german shepard. There definitely are dog breeders that are misleading about the breed of the dogs they are selling, but it is rare. I just wish there was a better way to tell coral apart besides how they look.

I realize there is likely not a great solution to this, but I just wanted to see if anyone else shared my frustration.