Red Sea Biotope

[toddlaco]

I got my tank set up and running about 2 months ago and I now have decided to make it an almost 100% true Red Sea Biotope. I say almost because I already have 350 lbs of Fiji rock cured and running in the tank. Aside from the Fiji rock, I will keep 100% true to the biotope.

I am going to let the tank run for at least 4 months with no livestock to let the sandbed critters get a foothold, so I have plenty of time for research to figure this biotope out.

Does anyone know of any good resources so I can figure out exactly what lives together. I need these resources to be very specific. This will be an SPS (leaning towards tabling and staghorn) with corals that are actually in the exact same part of a reef flat. I do not want a hodge podge of the entire Red Sea, only a small portion that actually co-exist and the inverts and verts that would be found with those corals.

Doing a little research so far online I found the book "Reef Fishes and Corals of the Red Sea". Is this a good book and what others would be good. I am also off to the library tomorrow.

This is looking like a challenge, but that makes it all the more worth while.

 

[Steven Pro]

See here for starters, http://www.wetwebmedia.com/rsbiotopes.htm And, follow the other related linked pages for additional information.

 

[toddlaco]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8633948#post8633948 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Steven Pro
See here for starters, http://www.wetwebmedia.com/rsbiotopes.htm And, follow the other related linked pages for additional information.

Steven, sorry for the belated response and thanks for the info. That is an awesome reference.

If anyone else is interested in a Red Sea creatures, "Coral Reef Guide - Red Sea" by Ewald Lieske and Robert F. Myers is a wealth of info on Red Sea Fish, Coral etc....

 

[Angel*Fish]

Todd, are you going to use Red Sea salt?

 

[Jasonincuritiba]

Lol, since it is from the Red Sea (wink wink)

 

[Angel*Fish]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8763304#post8763304 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Jasonincuritiba
Lol, since it is from the Red Sea (wink wink)

Lol - I know, I know....but actually it does claim to be from the Red Sea on the label

 

[toddlaco]

I will probably just stick with good old Reef Crystals..

I really want to use the best of whatever I put in the tank though since the Biotope will be centered around SPS (Pocillopora, Acropora and Montipora) so I may do a little research on salt. I have never been one to go out of my way to reseach or use special salt before. Reef Crystals has always worked good for me.

I think my biggest challenge is going to be finding coral that actually came out of the Red Sea, as most, if not all of my choices can be found in other oceans and almost all commonly available in the trade are not from the Red Sea. I could make it work with coral from outside the Red Sea and no one would ever be the wiser, but I would know!!!

The other small hurdle is figuring out what actually co-exists on a specific reef flat and reef slope. I don't want to mix coral from all over the Red Sea. I want to keep it to one specific area of the Red Sea. I really want this to be perfectly (as realistically possible) natural. I have great resources for info and pictures of individual corals and fish from the Red Sea, but I can't find anything on general pic's and info on a reef flat/slope such as dive pictures or something that will show me a larger section of a flat/slope that I can attempt to recreate in my biotope.

 

[toddlaco]

Does anyone have links to English speaking European message boards?

I would like to contact some European reefers with the hopes of finding some with True Red Sea SPS that I could possibly buy some frags from and have them shipped to the US.

 

[dannyfromholland]

This a dutch and english speaking forum but not so big:

http://www.marineaquarium.nl/smf


But as far as I know only fish is exported from the red sea no corals due to regulations.

 

[toddlaco]

Thanks Danny. I checked with one of my wholesalers from LA and he confirmed what you said. No coral or inverts can be harvested in the Red Sea. I am going to have to use coral from Indo, Fiji etc. that are the same species as the Red Sea coral that I want. They will actually look just the same if I am careful. I was hoping to make this a true biotope with indigenous coral, but that is not going to be possible.