Artificial Corals

[carrera mike]

Image Coral Reproductions is what Marine Depot calls them.

Those of you guys with Fish Only tanks, anyone have or uses these?

How realistic do they look?

http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_searchItem.aspx?IdCategory=&SearchText=image coral reproductions

Thanks

 

[JustinReef]

They do not look realistic at all in my opinion. They look really fake when you first put them in and then they look really bad when algae grows all over them. My brother tested a few out for a month and then took them out. They looked terrible we though.

There are some other kinds that look a little better from what I have seen but they are super expensive...Like $120 a coral. My LFS has them but I still think they look really fake.

 

[limitedslip]

you could put some peices of dead bleached coral in the tank...thats another option.

 

[WuHT]

But bleached corals don't have the colours.

I guess you're also purchasing a peace of mind, as you're "contributing" to less of the pillaging of coral reefs lol ... but with aquaculturing as it is ..i don't think so heh.



It would be awesome if they could incorporate coral replicas as the outside shell of a heater/powerheads..etc.. Someway to get rid of the look of technology aside from obscuring it.

 

[tmc1313]

Here's what my artificial coral tank (92 gallon corner) looked like when I first set it up. I'll try to take a more recent pic stocked with fish.

 

[LisaD]

Personally, I only use artificial corals as hitching areas for seahorses. It's really just a matter of preference. I did buy some branched artificial coral for seahorses similar to the one on the right in the previous post. It bacame covered with coralline algae and looked pretty nice. If you can keep the nuisance algae off and promote coralline growth they can look okay IMO, but not really different from live rock or dead skeletons, and without their bio-filtering ability.

 

[RayAllen]

Ive seen some nice aquarium with fake corals, but again as mentioned above the paid a lot of money to get realistic corals. My 210g just has 170lbs of Live rock and im happy with that especially now that its all turning purple.

 

[carrera mike]

Thanks guys!!

Those ones in the picture, although small, doesn't look bad. Specially the green acros!

 

[Dave Cox]

I ran a fish only with fake corals for a couple of years. Barring the first few months, I hated every minute of it. The 'corals' were a complete bugger to keep clean of algae, and although they were pretty expensive they never looked realistic to me - or anyone else that viewed my tank.

Never regreted biting the bullet, trading in my Angels and switching to a full-blown reef....

 

[lesleybird]

If you are going to spend all that money it is better to just buy a lot of live rock and let the coraline algea grow on it. Decorate the tank with colorful fish and formations and caves in live rock. Fake coral is right up there with fake fish in my book. I am trying to find some algea plants that my fish will not eat....or maybe some sea grass to grow in the tank. I also thought that maybe some live brain corals might not be bothered by my large angels, but not sure. Lesley

 

[carrera mike]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11412338#post11412338 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by lesleybird
If you are going to spend all that money it is better to just buy a lot of live rock and let the coraline algea grow on it. Decorate the tank with colorful fish and formations and caves in live rock. Fake coral is right up there with fake fish in my book. I am trying to find some algea plants that my fish will not eat....or maybe some sea grass to grow in the tank. I also thought that maybe some live brain corals might not be bothered by my large angels, but not sure. Lesley

Thanks Guys!

I do have lots of rocks now fully covered with coraline. Also have few softies like star polyps, green button pollyps, Xenia, green Frog Spawn, and a couple of Rose BTAs. I'm just curious with these products if anyone has em and how they like/hate them.

anyone have more pictures?? appreciate it.

 

[RoWall]

You can find some pix on this site: http://www.aquariumdesigngroup.com/#mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&s=0&p=2&a=0&at=0
It would look good if there was 2-3 kinds of corals, not so much. I also think it'd look better if covered with coraline algae.