looking for link

[ibjmg]

reading most of the fourms most of you guys use scientific names when talking about spieces.

link to names?

[Reefland]

The best advice I could give here would be to pick up a couple of books. For corals I would recommend Aquarium Corals.
http://www.reefland.com/rho/1104/medprod.php

[Ninong]

Fishbase is a good search engine for finding scientific names for fish: http://www.fishbase.org/search.php?lang=English

You can enter a common name, cross your fingers and hope that you pull up the right fish. Unfortunately this seldom works because fishbase uses common names that are often unknown in the hobby. I guess that's because their common names actually make sense.

Another trick is to enter the genus, assuming you know that, and then they will give you a list of all the species in that genus. Just start clicking on each of them until you find what you're looking for. For example, if you're trying to identify a fairy wrasse but you have no idea which species it might be, just enter Cirrhilabrus in the genus and go with that. Then start going through the three dozen different species that will pop up. Or if you are searching for a dwarf angelfish, just enter Centropyge as the genus.

Obviously this won't help you if you don't know either the genus or the species. Then you will have to try common names and hope for the best.

Here is another site that you can search: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/index.html

Here is a scientific search engine that is great for hard corals but it probably won't be easy to use until after you have a fairly good fundamental knowledge of the various corals: http://whelk.aims.gov.au/coralsearch/coralsearch.php