Im so annoyed, that there is no organization to this. Freaking zoa morph so much and are given so many names uhh… i cant identify half of what i have … als i know is
Pinaple passion… i think
Fast growing
Green button
Blue steal
Purple death
Unknown(looks like purple with pink ring… ill post pics…
Well ok thats 1 i dont know the name of… but its frustrating me… I mean some of this stuff is just plain stupid… lol theres my rant…
the more important thing is the genus, zoathinds form a common mat and live off of that, palythoas commonly mistaken as zoas’ are single polyps close in proximity.
color morphs are often just that, color morphs.
i’m not an expert on them but i believe it may be as simple as that, correct me if im wrong.
Ya, i get the whole zoa and paly things its the names. The same coral can be called Pink, purple donut, man bear pig, dark pink cow pie… i mean stupid things. obviously those were made up, but i mean what happen to scientific names… thats better to go by then color looks. its like saying a cow that has a black stripe then a white middle, then a black but is a oreo cow instead of a cow…
[quote=“Marchingbandjs, post:1, topic:2184”]
i cant identify half of what i have[/quote]
I can not identify to species or even specific species industry name about 98% of what I have own. Actually if a coral taxonomist sat in front of my tanks with out a microscope and couldn’t put his hands in the water he or she wouldn’t be able to identify 90% of what I have down to species. Best advice I can give you is give up on getting it perfect, as it won’t happen.
Tim offers some great advice. Try the best you can to identify your corals down to genus. Also when you get a coral from someone, whither it be another reefer, an LFS, an online vendor, or whoever, try to ask them a little about the corals history. Information like where the coral was collected is very valuable and not always easy to get.
I have an excel document on my computer with most of the corals I keep and in that document I have the following columns:
Common Name, Description. Scientific Name. From, Date, Location, Stock Image, Pics, Notes
Here are a couple examples:
Most of the corals I have down to genus. A few which came from ORA and a couple of others that I have no question about have the species listed. The “species” with the 5 letters and 4 numbers is something I just made up to try to keep track of things easier.
Of course this is way beyond what most hobbyist do at home, but might help keep track of things. Many hobbyist often even forget where they got the coral from or when and few even bother to try to ask where the coral came from when they trade for it or buy it.
Some will say the naming stuff and lineage and all that stuff is a waste of time and all bs. I for one don’t want to by the same exact coral over again twice, but would recommend people purchase similar corals to the ones they have if they having trouble getting new things they keep alive. A coral can look very different under different light bulbs and grown in different conditions. You don’t want to buy something and when you get it in your display tank it turns out to be the same thing you already have. There are many other reasons as well.
I think i might try a set up like that jon. i think theres 40 or so diff corals in the 90 would be nice to keep track of them.
o, that sounds organized, im going to try that… Thanks… and ya i figured i would have to just put up wit it lol
One of these days I am going to name a coral a, "Rare crazy super neon bright ultra grade extra limited edition deep water west Australian Tyron collection Quasi-photosynthetic Flash Gordon mushroom Sweet!!!†First I just have to find the plainest looking brown mushroom to give this name. I’ll probably come up with an XXLPS category as well for my extra extra large LPS.
haha… that would be funny… lol that made me laugh
i bought a long polyp tricolor acro simply named “joe the coral”
i think its latin… :BEER
“joe the coral” is an ORA trademark. one of their aquacultured corals. i thought about gettin one, how does it look?
there pretty sweet. i have a look alike and its my favorite coral. i will be getting one in my next tank.
Actually both Joe the Coral and ORAs Red Plannet are both awsome corals on my list to get. Probably going to be a while though before I buy any more corals.
mine almost died when i had it in my old nano, it lost its color. in the new tank its come back alot and regaining its color, full polyp extension.
hey jon whats the last column in your excell worksheet
Stock images, pics, notes
I tried to link to some pictures on my computer(or on an external hard drive over the network), so if I needed to find pictures or remember which was which it would be easy. Then I got locked out of my external hard drive and lost most of the pics, so many of the links are broken images.
you guys should try http://www.reefland.com/ they have a free aquarium log you can use that records your water changes, skimmer cleanings/ logs your water parameter test results and shows a graph history of them , you can schedule maintainance reminders, log purchases by date, location, photo via their invert/coral/fish lists.
its great.
ps, fantastic expert advice to boot! (check leebca’s fish forum)
register then click aquarium log
pps… they changed the site to a transparent blue background that slows it down, scroll to the very bottom and the left side change that to reefland black and viola its much better!1
mkay i started mine, gonna go on that website too
naming is market terms so growers/wholesalers get more $$$$$.
there is a site that has a name lookup tho.
[quote=“addicted2reefin, post:18, topic:2184”]
there is a site that has a name lookup tho. [/quote]
Let me know if you think of that site that has the name lookup.