Realistic Reef Tanks?

[vikubz]

Someone who has actually been to a reef, like Anthony, might best be able to answer my question.

As reef tank enthusiasts, there is a tendency to want to recreate the colorful and varied panoramas we see in pictures of real reefs. As a result, we try to cram a variety of corals into a tank that would never be found together in the wild in such close proximity.

Let's say I want to do a 75 gallon reef tank which is 48 x 18 x 20 if IIRC. What would a wild reef have in this same area?

2 or 3 coral species? A handful of fish/inverts? Then lots of smaller flora and fauna?

Thinking my next tank might be a species tank.


Mark

 

[CarlaW]

Have you ried doing a search on species tanks here?? I think it would look great!!! Good luck.

 

[Krish]

Besides the fish, this is my realistic setup native to me. All of these corals, snails, zoos, and my shrimp are from here in the Bahamas that I harvested and fragged. Only my fish were given to me from a friend who "snuck" them in for me. The deepest water any of my corals came out of was about 8-10ft at the most, but most of them were harvested in waste high water. You can click on the link in my signature (my cube) to see closeups of the different corals I have in there as well as you can look at my Bahamian photo log in my signature as well to see other corals and fish I just took pics of. I wish you the best with it

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Your tank is looking great!

 

[Krish]

Thanks Mike

 

[steveweast]

When I dove Tahiti, I was surprised at how many different species there were so close to one another.....not a huge variety.....but not singly dominated either. Here are some poor pics that were taken at a 100 ft.....I didn't have a flash, but the color variety wasn't bad considering the depth.

 

[Krish]

Nice shots Steve! Do you still have that huge tank ( http://www.oregonreef.com/ ) and the extremely cold one?

 

[ronj]

those are some nice shots!!! are those purple tangs in the background?????

 

[JaxReef]

most of us are keeping "coral gardens" and not realistic reef tanks. I tried to create a pacific reef at first but did not have the will power when I saw those must have pieces

 

[vikubz]

Now to my untrained eye, in the Tahiti shots, while it is a vast carpet of corals, it looks like much of it is comprised of 5 or 6 main species. Are these species that tolerate each other well and compete for different types of food? Have they out-competed everything else?

 

[ronj]

Nice shots Steve! Do you still have that huge tank ( http://www.oregonreef.com/ ) and the extremely cold one?

THAT IS THE BADDEST TANK I HAVE EVER SEEN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM VERY JEALOUS!!!!!!!!!!

 

[ronj]

i just keep going back and looking at this tank!!!! i can't get over it!!!that is some serious time, money, and effort!!!! and those tangs !!!!!! i couldn't even imagine being able to keep all those tangs!!!!

 

[Krish]

Yeah...I have that saved in my favorites. The first time I saw that I couldn't believe it! The aquascaping is amazing as well! He did a great job with that tank!

 

[ronj]

yeah, i was just sitting here trying to figure out how you would aquascape that tank!!! it is so wide...you would have to set up walkboards above it or something!!LOL ! what are the dimensions of it???

 

[Krish]

Check the first sentence here

http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_tank.htm

 

[ronj]

that's crazy...i didn't even see that...i still don't see how that would be easy to aquascape!!!

 

[Krish]

LOL...I just looked back on 2 threads Steve posted on, but the images are un-available, but if he checks back here and see's this post, hopefully he can add some photos again of his cold temperature tank! That is un-real! There are fish and corals you have never seen from cold climates aand if I remember correctly, the temp is kept like in the 50's!

 

[ronj]

i would like to see that...how big is the tank???

 

[Krish]

Not sure but here are the 2 threads they were discussed on. Some photos of the fish are still up



http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11453


http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10241

 

[steveweast]

Now to my untrained eye, in the Tahiti shots, while it is a vast carpet of corals, it looks like much of it is comprised of 5 or 6 main species. Are these species that tolerate each other well and compete for different types of food? Have they out-competed everything else?

I wouldn't say 5 or 6......maybe 10 -15.....and it varied a bit at each location......especially whether I was in the lagoon or outside the lagoon. As a result of that trip, I decided to drastically reduce the number and density of my corals and rocks in my tank to create more open space. I have maybe 10 species of sps these days in my system (although I still have quite a few of anemones that I'm addicted to) No matter how big a tank is....it eventually will become overgrown and unsightly......and....some corals will grow to the point that they shade themselves off resulting in the death at the base as the coral reef builds in our tanks. Several times I've had to break up large pieces and begin anew in growing out the colony.

IMO, our tanks will never be truly realistic.... a bonsai replica is the best that we can hope for.

As for my cold water system....I really don't want to derail this thread....but some recent photos can be found here on pages 1,3,4.

http://www.thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73323&highlight=cold+water+reef