These days a lot of corals are sold by a marketing naming convention, the problem with this is theres no defacto standard when it comes to naming corals by fancy names and a lot of reef keepers get caught up in the naming hype.

Some reef keepers will say that the standard is set by lineage and if its called something by one shop in the US of A for example its only truly that name if it comes as a frag from that particular mother colony. The issue with that however is that the mother colony in the shop in America ultimately often came off a larger mother colony from the ocean parts of which may have been futher grown on and sold to other shops so whos actually right, do all the shops buying from that same mother colony have the same named coral because it follows the same lineage and will be ever know if they are from the same parent coral or not?

Its all in the hype. The issue now is multiple vendors and indeed suppliers use the same or similar names to describe ever so slight variations of the same coral. This is to give it a unique name or to identify it came from themselves. A hellfire torch for example is the same colour and variation as a dragon soul its just a name somone gave it to sell it better. 

Lets look at the "Holy Grail Torch" as an example now we have seen several variations of "Holy Grail" to add to this we have now seen variations like 24k Holy Grail, ASD Holy Grail, Ultra Holy Grail, Fake Holy Grail..... when does it stop.

The holy grail torch is generally a Green and Yellow stemmed torch with the green being more towards the centre of the coral the ends of the tentacles turning to yellow and then theres the all important tip colour choice. Is it pale blue / white or is it dark blue ?

The holy grail we sell for example was actually purchased as a "Master Torch" its got the green and yellow colouring but has pale blue tips. Its lovely looking. However some people refer to this as the OG Holy Grail, however, looking on google the OG Holy Grail is blue-tipped in the USA so what's right?

Just to throw a spanner in the works more recently there's a new name called "Banana Torch" now this is predominantly yellow with less green on the stem and has pale blue to white tips. Does this make our Holy Grail a banana, We keep it in high light, and consequently it's reduced the amount of green on its stems and grows more yellow.

Banana torches at the time of writing sell for approx £600 per head, whereas a holy grail fetches £350, so by giving our torch more light and reducing its green color have we increased its value by £150 a head, we don't think so.

Lighting plays a massive part in these marketing names as do close-up photos. A fancy chalice is usually photographed as a frag so it shows all the colors on the coral as the edges of the chalice usually have a different color. But when this coral has grown out it's still only the edges that have that color variation so the reality is it doesn't look as good as when it was a small frag. (jellybean is another one that has 1000 variations, red jellybean, green jellybean, wwc jellybean, rainbow jellybean, you name it)

So don't get caught up in the hype, if you like the coral, if the price is to your budget and you are happy with that, buy the coral. If it's not... don't. It won't be long before the fancy names are applied to other corals. It used to be just zoa, now it's torches and chalice, and sometimes it's goniopora and SPS (don't get started on Walt Disney Acropora) before you know it we will be giving names to Pulsing Xenia.