Dazed and Confused

NeedBiggerTank

NeedBiggerTank

Not Likely 2 Ever Grow Up
So, I've been in the marine hobby now for 14 months and thought I was finally getting the hang of things... but reading the posts from all of you that are listing your frags that you will have at the swap, I feel, well, stupid.

I have no idea what Mille, Digi, Stylo, Nana are (among others)...

I've never heard of ORA, GARF, ROAB...

Lets forget for a moment that I'm on dial-up, and that for the past month I'm connecting at a whopping 14K... Doing research on just two or three of the corals posted can take hours. I can't find most of the corals in all my books - and that is if I can figure out the actual scientific name.

Some of my searches have yeilded some interesting results. Sometimes the lag is so bad on my connection that what I type doesn't show up before I hit enter - try googling "pink boobies" (vs pink boobies coral). :lolspin:

So, my question is - how many years (or decades) does it take before you can look at a list like Bill's and know what you are looking at? And not only that but know exactly what each coral requires - food, light, flow, placement w/ other corals, etc.

Are there books (that won't break the bank) that I can add to my collection that would help educate me? I find all the different names for the same coral very confusing.

Do any of you hire out as personal shoppers or shopping assistants? :)

I'm just feeling overwhelmed after getting so excited about the swap and thinking that this year I'd know what I was looking at (versus last year, having only had our tank setup for 2 1/2 months). Now I'm thinking all I could identify are zoas... :o

Please tell me that this gets easier!
 
I would say your best friend is usually the internet in the situation. Unfortunatly, since you have been googling pink boobies of another kind on accident then I would say that this would be an exception.

Places like ORA and GARF culture corals. You will see there name attached to corals because that is where they originated. You many also see names like Tyree, meaning Steve Tyree, who have either discovered a coral or where a coral originated from. For example; a few people have listed Rhett's Grape Cap Coral for sale. Obviously Rhett did not go pick it out of the Ocean, but that is what many people know it as locally or that is the last know lineage that the person knows. There are different names for different reasons.

Names such as digi, moniti, etc. simply stand for the genus of the coral. For example; the same purple cap coral of Rhett's is known scientifically as
Family: Acroporidae
Genus: Montipora
Species: Capricornis

As for length of time it takes to become Bill, only Bill knows. :D . I have been in the hobby for under 5 years and have learned a tremendous amount by simply talking to everyone, visiting their setups, and reading as much as I possibly could. Everyone does it different, but at the end of the day it's expensive and pretty if you do it right.
 
Let me clarify that I was trying to search for "pink boobies coral" and thats what I typed, but all that ended up in the blank was "pink boobies". I just had to see what a coral named "pink boobies" looked like. Stupid dial-up. LOL
 
I was just giving you a hard time. I have ran into that issue before when I get a little trigger happy on the enter key.
 
60 years, Thirty of them in this hobby! It takes time and dedication to learn all of the things associated with this Reef Tank Venture you have chose to embark on. It depends how crazy infatuated you become with all of this as to how long before you know a lot about it all. I know a lot about some parts of this Hobie and not so much about other things like scientific names and different genres of all the many types of coral out there, But i know by looking at it what it's needs are in general and if it can or should be even kept in an aquarium just by sheer trial and error over many years. You will learn more all the time by doing what we all did in the beginning, Making mistakes Sometimes very costly ones. Happy reefing, Reading is the best medicine to learn more all the time.
Hope this helps, At least a little
Bill
 
Pink boobies:

Picture059.jpg


Unfortunately, there is no single reference I'm aware of. zoaid is a pretty good spot for zoanthids. zeovit is a good spot for sps as well as the Veron references but do require knowledge of the scientific names. I'm with you and do not like all the designer names but it does make things easier for people to at least begin to get an idea what a coral is going to look like. However, some of the abbreviate names, like "mille" and "cap" get tossed around so much that they really start to lose their meaning. Like Bill points out, it takes a lot of reading, trial and error, discussing with fellow hobbyists, and not being afraid to ask questions (there are no bad questions, BTW). Eventually you just begin to pick it up.

Dave
 
The PBs above are lovely. :D

So, what is "Nana" short for and what is "Digi" short for? I just can't figure those two out.

Milli = Millipora (correct?)
Stylo = Stylophora (correct?)

Bill: There-in lies my problem... I don't like to make mistakes! LOL So, maybe I need to cut myself some slack because I can't learn/know everything about the corals/fish/inverts we put in our tanks as quickly as I thought I could.

We want to make some good decisions on what corals to buy at the swap - but if we don't know what we are looking at, that could be a problem! I feel like I'm missing out on pre-sale from club members, because I simply don't know the corals on ya'lls lists (with a few exceptions, as previously noted, the Zoanthids) based on the names used. A "purple nana" means nothing to me (and I'm just using that as an example, there may not be any such coral)!

So, I suppose I'm asking for help @ the swap in selecting a couple of corals for our tank. Any takers?

Also, does anyone actually "swap" corals @ the swap? We have two we want to trade (an acan frag and a plating montipora frag).
 
Jennie
Nana is short for acropara nana, a thin branched clustering acro that is often purple with green polyps. Digi is short for montipora digitata, a digitate mongo that can be orange, red
, purple or green. Hth.
Dave
 
NeedBiggerTank said:
Also, does anyone actually "swap" corals @ the swap? We have two we want to trade (an acan frag and a plating montipora frag).
Click to expand...

What does the Acan look like and what are you looking for? Several people swap corals, but it is usually a preagreed swap. Let me know and I will see if I can swap with you. I have some lunar eclipse zoas as well as other zoas SPS and softies that I can frag.
 
The acan is my avitar picture. It comes from Steel City Corals - got it at the swap last year (have no idea what it is called - its neon orange, cream and violet). It has 6 heads/polyps. Its not happy with me running phosguard - if I take the phosguard out, the acan looks great and is happy, but then my toadstool leather isn't happy.

The plating montipora I don't have a clue what type it is - it was a trade from jhutton for one of my urchins (I'm sure he told me what it was, but I have forgotten). Its 2 to 2 1/2 inches across, and orange-ish brown. My husband doesn't like it - and says it needs to go. LOL Its his tank too...

The lunar eclipse zoas I googled looked cool - we have eagle eyes, nuclear geen and another I don't know what they are called.
 
Jennie, I will help you guy's with any selections you want to buy at the swap as to what it is and if you should get that particular coral with the equipment you have OK. And simply put i doubt you will, Nor will i ever know all there is to know about this hobby,Fish or Corals it's just to fluid and things change learn new facts Etc.
Bill
 
poolkeeper1 said:
Jennie, I will help you guy's with any selections you want to buy at the swap
Bill
Click to expand...

Thanks Bill - I really appreciate that. :)

Would these books by J. Sprung be helpful for us to have?
  • Corals: A quick reference guide
  • Invertabrates: A quick reference guide

This is what our saltwater library has in it so far:
  • The 101 Best Marine Invertebrates (S. Michael)
  • The 101 Best Marine Fish (S. Michael)
  • Marine Invertebrates (S. Michael)
  • Reef Aquarium Fishes (S. Michael)
  • Marine Reef Aquarium Handbook (Goldstein)
  • Marine Aquarium Handbook (M. Moe)
  • Marine Reef Aquarium (P. Hunt)
  • The Complete Idiots Guide to Saltwater Aquariums (M. Martin)
 
If there are other books that are good for reference (fish, corals or inverts), please let me know that as well. I can read much easier than I can do research on the web with my painfully slow dial-up connection.
 
The Julian Sprung Volumes are a good read but $$$ If you really want to get a headache try and find the book by Albert J Thiel Forget the name of it but one of the old timers will remember. He was considered a God back in the day.
Bill
 
After doing some searching, I see he (Albert J. Thiel) has something on-line and on CD-ROM called "The New Marine Fish and Invert Aquarium". Would this be worth the $40?
 
Your Decision

Your Decision

NeedBiggerTank said:
After doing some searching, I see he (Albert J. Thiel) has something on-line and on CD-ROM called "The New Marine Fish and Invert Aquarium". Would this be worth the $40?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure that is the one i read by him but, You will have to be the judge of what it's worth. He used to be very equipment orientated and ran very costly systems to set up. That being said he did explain a lot about all the state of the art stuff just being introduced in the Hobie back then, Early 80's
to be exact. A lot of his ideas were far beyond the average persons ability to afford all what he said was needed to be successful at keeping coral alive. We do know better now and do it better with less costly items than he thought were needed.
Martin Moe has lots of good books and the 3 volumes by Julian Sprung are good books but very costly. I may have a few that you can borrow I'll have to dig them out as i haven't looked at them in years, I'll bring them to the swap. I even had the Thiel book but loaned it to Mike that now works at the Critter (I'll see if he still has it too) It was like 50.00 back in 1980 something.
I also have a lot of FAMA magazines that you can read, Used to have every issue from when they started but had to toss them for the room they took up over 30 years of mags Hahaha
Bill:wavehand:
I will dig them up and bring to the Swap OK
Bill
 
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