<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6924380#post6924380 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by blown63chevy
How do you think corals in teh ocean get where they are? They are broken off of a large coloney by boats, fish, currents, etc and move dto other parts of teh ocean to grow into another coloney. Same thing we do by fraging.
Actually, most are the result of sexual reproduction ... which would leave genetically distinct `children'.
`Looks like' can mean very different things - and while I see that it is a way for people to attach `branding' to a live creature - those who import new corals + name them after named varieties as just as greedy [if not more] than those who started the LE name.
IMO, while there may be a number of women who look quite like my wife - I'm kind of preferential to her specific DNA sequence. Similarly - Montiporas come in a variety of colors + some look like - but that does not mean that a similar looking coral is as hardy, will color as easily, or has the history of captive success as a tank-raised one.
Sure, there may be similar colonies in the ocean - but similar does not equal the same. As I don't buy the wild colonies that look like the ORA tort - I buy the `real deal' ... I don't see how one can throw out some names, without throwing them all out.
And if you're going to argue that a new wild specimen that `looks like' a Cali tort, or green slimer, or Larry Jackson purple-tip - that these will have the same hardiness, coloring, and will perform just exactly the same, that in a year they will be identical ... I'd bet against that possibility, most any day.
Ever had two different individual fish of the same species ... but that act quite differently? [one a bully, one not] ... seems pretty common in this hobby, and IMO leads one to wonder why fish can look the same + act differently ... yet corals can't? They both look the same ....
IMO - people taking wild colonies, naming them after captive-breeds + jacking the price because of that IMO seem more greedy than those who started the naming-trend in the first place. In the end, they're both greedy ... but at least one is selling a known commodity. Those `superman-like' corals could be very touchy, color terribly in aquaria, or be a different species altogether.
Just my take. IMO, the popularity of these I find quite silly when most of the folks pursuing these are unlikely to be keeping stony coral tanks in the 3-5 years it would take to grow a significant colony from a 1/2" frag ... I could be wrong about this ... but IMO sometimes it gets to where without a name, a coral is somehow less beautiful.
Just one more thing I don't get, I guess.