So i think this one was from ken,
Was a zoa, kindof looks black/brown and its speckled with what looks like white… anyone know the name its given
And jon,
What kind of mushroom was fragged last night
Thanks
i have no idea what all the shrooms were. one was a velvety purple color, one was purple with green in the center, on was a bigger brown one. not a hairy, not a ric. but kinda bumpy if that makes sense…
Mhm, kindof lol… its still not happy so ima let it grow and then i will try to get an ID…
Marchingband, you are interested enough in this stuff… Think you are interested enough to pick up a book? Most hobbyist would rather ask a random person on the net for information then read through a good book, but part of the problem can be in finding a good book. With forums there is tons of misinformation out there and there are some great books that can give you a good foundation and then if you have specific questions we are here to help. Not saying don’t ask questions until you finish reading three text books, but if you really want to get to the point where you can ID things or really understand what is going on… it would help to own a couple of good books.
Reason I brought this up is I was going to tell you if you wanted to try to roughly ID your mushroom that you should learn the differences between the genus, Rhodactis, Discoma, and Ricordea. A google search would be a little rough, but I believe Eric Borneman’s book on Aquarium Corals would help. There were both Rhodactis and Discoma in the raffle last night and if I remember correctly you ended up with a Discoma, but thanks to the generosity of the fish bowl there were more then a couple of corals going out and I can’t remember who got what.
There are many other books I can recommend on specific topics. The Reef Aquarium Volume Three by Sprung and Delbeek is a very good general foundation read. It is the size of a text book though. So how into this reef stuff are you really? 
… I think i over reacted this morning, so i edited this…
I wanna learn more but i cant afford 35 bucks a pop for books. Does anyone have these books, or any good books for that matter, that i can borrow? Thanks…
I have some crappy books with horrible information in them you can borrow… Steph is currently reading “The Reef Aquarium” and I am reading Borneman’s book over again and use it as a reference almost every other day.
You can use the forums and read 6 hobbyist views on something before forming an opinion, but most of the people willing to share information on the forums are just spitting out the info they heard on another forum or from an LFS employee. There is so much to learn and many people spend too much time doing research for their tanks in forums.
You don’t have to read through the books cover to cover, but if you really want to know if you need a calcium reactor you could read the section on reactors and calcium additions. If you would like to see the different methods to create waves in the tank you could flip through the picture till you find something interesting and then read the page about it. They are often better reference materials then most forums can be.
Okay i see what your saying. Just to play devil’s advocate, how do you know that those authors arent forming opinions. I mean everything is bias no matter what, so wouldnt the books also be bias to a degree. So how are we sure that what those authors say are the way to go… just saying. I think they know their stuff, lol, so i think your right the books, in the end, are better…
Alright, off to the internet to find some used copies…
half.com and amazon.com are the ones I typically use to look for books. Get used to searching for cheap books in a couple years when you enter college at least twice a year you’ll be doing the same, lol. BTW you get a lot more money if you sell your books online at either site then you would if you traded them in at the vendors that set up around school to rip you off.
As far as the authors well yes of course they are biased and not 100% of what they have written will hold up to be the best advice in another 30 years from now, but as you said vs random joe on the web… Those two authors I also have met in person, one of them I know on a first name basis.
I really would like to talk about this for a bit at the next DRC meeting. Been planning a while to give a presentation on where to go for good information. I’ll put together some sort of slide show to steer a group discussion on the topic.
if u want a good book with TONS of information. pick up coral propogation by anthony calfo. it brushes on just about everything, with a HEAVY tone on propogation. I personnaly own this book and its my BIBLE.
it has information on pretty much every genus of coral.
also marchingband, not all corals have a “name”. they all have a species and a genus, but “names” are just marketting terms and dont hold any value in my eyes.