Japanese tanks...(revived)

[clwnphish]

Awsome Tanks

I hope that link works. Those are three really nice tanks. The first two are more typical of American reefs, but the last one is really nice. It is aquasaped like the japanese tanks.

 

[Bay Area Reef Design]

I think I found the easy way to have a Japanese style reef tank. I was playing around with photoshop to put together 3 pictures of our 300 gallon reef and found that I dont need to scrape coraline every day to have that clean look. I just blacked it out. LOL

It kinda has that clean Japanese look!

 

[Skipper]

clwnphish...That last one is Tanu's tank. He has responded in this thread only 5 posts up.

Here is the link that clwnphish meant to post.

bluereefs...Thank you. I am flattered.

 

[clwnphish]

Ha, I didnt even notice, thanks Skipper. Tanu that is amazing tank

 

[Leonard]

Some (civil) fodder for you folks:

Having been to Japan and personally knowing a few Japanese aquarist, there's definitely a remarkable difference in their reefkeeping philosophy - some good, some bad.

They are far more willing to spend money on their systems (e.g. the vast majority of rare fish are shipped to Japan). And yes, their equipment is nearly double the price of what we pay for in the States. The Japanese are also far more meticulous in their design and aesthetic maintanence. It's hard to fault them for their dedication and patience.

However, the one thing that truly preturbs me is the majority of the Japanese aquarist I know regard their livestock as commodities rather then organisms. That's why you see so many tanks with ahermatypic Dendros (no, they do not have a higher success rate with this order), Centropyge bolyei (as notoriously hard to keep as it is expensive), and flying fish (you think a Tang in a 100 gallon is bad!). Aesthetics and the acquisition of rare & exotic species trumps all other concerns. Sometimes having too much money is a bad thing. NB: This is merely my generalization based on personal experience.

This is my current concept of things:
Germans pioneer reefkeeping technology.
Americans pioneer reefkeeping methodology.
Japanese pioneer reefkeeping aesthetics.

Combine the three, and you've got the holy grail.

 

[Terra Ferma]

Here is a pic of a more simple setup

 

[Skipper]

Nice! Love those cubes.

 

[Terra Ferma]

For those who were interested in the little cardinal fish, here is a pic of blue line cardinals. Not a very good pic, though. Anyway, I really wanted to get these fish when I first saw them. I did a little research, and they are sort of hard to get in the states, and thus their cost is a little bit high for a fish which you would want to have at least 10 of to make a nice school. If anyone has an inside tip on these fish, please tell me! Not to be confused with the blue line snapper, which looks very similar at a small size.

 

[Tanu]

clwnphish, I don't regard my 'tank design' to be Japanese, but I would I wish i had such a beautiful tank. The aquascape was done very easy. I just drawed a little, and after a few weeks thinking, re-combining drawings, I decided to do it this way. The main LR structure was made in only 2 or 3 hours, working with pvc tubing and a rock drill.
I'm planning my next tank (I study biology at a dutch university) to be larger (about 5 times the current size) and more square, also with a higher water level of about 2-2.5 feet..

Today, I'll try to make some new pics of my tank.

Tanu
www.tanu.nl (for more pics of the ACTUAL tank, go to my website, click on the DUTCH flag, and click on gallery...)

 

[DJ88©]

Thought I would dig this thread up again and add this site I found. This guy goes and collects his own fish with pictures of what he catches. This part of his site its in english so you can get an idea about his tank. Reef tank

 

[Terra Ferma]

Syun has a neat site...he catches some neat fish to boot. I wish I could catch similar fish where I live.

This is sort of a tangent, but check out:

http://www.hamptonroadswebpages.com/fish/index.asp

A neat collection site that people on the East Coast might be able to take adavantage of.

 

[Tha Sultant]

That picture of the small flying fish was one of the trippiest things I've ever seen in a reef tank...wow....anyone have MORE info on these?

 

[finn]

Those flying fish are caught during summer. They are easy to catch and are usually only kept for a few months before being released. I caught a few this past summer.

The VIE Salt that you see is about 50 bucks for 700 liters. The bottle in front is dechlorinator. The salt is liked for it's disolvability combined with it's almost perfect imitation of real sea salt. If you have any questions about this salt I can answer them (My friend is the distribution manager for the company). The reason why alot of them don't like I.O. is it doesn't disolve well. I had some I.O. air mailed and it matched Vie salt's disolvability to everyone's astonashment. The normal route for I.O is by ship over a month or so. Could that be the reason?

As far as the corals go...........half of the coral pics posted are mine.........I should say used to be mine.............They al perished in power outage. The highly colored big ones go for 220.00.

The inside of most of the shop tanks shown are wiped down by hand only on a daily bases. An acrylic scraper is used once a week. Most of the tanks shown have less than half an inch of small sand and that is smoothed over by hand every 4 days or so. Alot of times a benthos Goby will take care of that for them.

keith

 

[JerseyReef]

You know, this was a great thread and I believe it deserves another round. For those who may have missed it, read it, all 7 pages. It's really worth it...

TTT

 

[mr9iron]

The Japanese sure have some beautiful tanks. I thought that I stayed busy with all the maintenance I had to do.

 

[ReefDragon]

http://www.reefaqua.com is my personal favorite. The creator is an awesome guy, too, and tries his best to answer any questions you email him.

-Jon

 

[ReefDragon]

Here is some eye candy.

This is Yasuhiro's tank as it looked earlier this month:

Oh, yah. That's what I'm talking about. :eek1:

And a 1 year growth comparison:

Before:

After:

The pictures speak for themselves.

-Jon

 

[skylsdale]

I have only made it through the first 4 pages of this thread so far, but really wanted to add something. Many members have said how "fake" these tanks appear. While they are extremely clean and some of them look very planned, I am actually blown away at how natural they really are. You could give me 10 American tanks, and I'll bet only one or two of them would show a resemblance of an actual reef. Most of the tanks I've seen are a showcase of corals--and by this I mean things aren't placed naturally...tiny frags and softies spaced evenly throughout the tank. It looks like a decorated mantle more than anything. This pic for instance:

While it is a bit "planned", the left side of the tank looks like nearly every pic I've ever seen of a reef and the shelf after massive shelf of plating acros. In most American tanks, you'll often see a plating acro here and there....but I've never seen them lined up like this. I think it looks fantastic.

Also, like it's been said, their philosophy of aquaria isn't always on replicating things on such a small scale like we do (i.e. a 4 foot tank is replicating a 4 foot area on a reef.) They shoot for actual aquascapes--recreating larger objects in miniature. Look at some of the first pics posted in this thread....and they will start to look more like mountains with trees rather than rocks with corals. It's all in the point of view I guess.

 

[Wind]

i too believe some looked plan, PICTURE TAKING is an art in itself

All I can say is that, it is nice, then again its hard to accept something if it really is better than what we have

But i dont' wanna begin stereotyping domestics vs imports type of things ..

 

[Reef_l33t]

The debate between import and domestic tanks seems pointless? Why, because if you take for instance "America's" greatest tank and "Japan's" greatest tank than you are left with two completely different and in their own way unique systems attempting to preserve the same goals. I believe the pictures we see of Japanese tanks are among the best of the best.

We see all the beginner tanks on this thread, people just starting and attempting tanks. But the tanks I have seen from Japanese sites are all top notch breeders and care takers, who I am positive have extensive knowledge in the art of reef keeping. This is why I feel it is hard to compare, America's tanks are just as unique as Japanese. I am sure the eastern influence admires our tanks as much as we do their's.


-Mark