different 'looks' your tank can have...

[Sk8r]

Offered just as a suggestion of the types of tanks that are out there, for people hunting for a direction. Sizes of tanks are offered as a suggested ballpark figure, though one can ALWAYS be larger --- ----and one can in some instances manage with a little less.

1. the larger grazer fish, like tangs and angels, anthias, exotics: rockwork and sand. Needs 100g up. High wow factor.
2. larger fish like tangs and angels with select soft corals they won't eat. ditto: 100g up.
3. the reef with damsels, all sorts...100g up.
4. rocks with smaller fishes, 30 up; rockwork. Lots of caves: argumentative fishes like wrasses, dottybacks, hawks, etc.
5. reef with same as 4. A lot of action, fish up to 5"
6. rocks with clowns and anemones: 30g up...
7. reef with clowns and corals, no anemones, some other compatible fish. 30 up...
8. reef with nanofish, caves and burrows: 20 up, even some as small as 10g, all the way up to 100g and more. Corals and small fish like gobies and blennies, jawfish and firefish. You don't see the occupants unless you stop and look. Some fish are an inch long as grown adults: max size fish, as adult, about 5 inches.
9. plain reef, inverts only: usually 40g up, lots of corals, either a mixed reef, softie reef, stony large polyp reef, or stony small polyp reef.
10. specialty or species tank: eels, triggers, lionfish, mantis shrimp, puffers, octopi, sharks and other species that may have special requirements or be non-community. Usually a rockwork tank, but mushrooms are a possibility, and sometimes tankmates...if the species in question doesn't eat them.

Have I left anybody out? Chime in if you've found some good combinations.

 

[KarlBob]

Some people like to replicate specific environments, with corals, fish, and other inverts that could all be found together in a particular section of reef in some geographic area. These are often called biotope tanks. Examples: Indian Ocean patch reef, Red Sea fore-reef, Fiji lagoon.

Others mix and match anything that catches their eye, including fish and corals from many different oceans and types of reef. Most new hobbyists start out this way, then some switch to the biotope approach.

There are also different approaches to live rock placement. Some people build a wall of rock at the back of the tank. Others build piles or towers, sometimes drilling holes in the rocks and threading them on plastic rods. Some like islands of rock amid large expanses of sand, and others prefer rubble fields with very little exposed sand.

Speaking of sand, some like deep sand beds, while others prefer a bare bottom, sometimes with a layer of styrofoam under the live rock. People also debate the merits of various sand grain sizes, from sugar fineness to coarse sand mixed with crushed coral.