So many beautiful tanks, but are all of them stable?

BrokkenTWolf

BrokkenTWolf

New member
I often wonder when I see pictures of some member's tanks and see these beautiful colonies of zoas and rics living in what appear to be shadowed areas - or next to corals that would surely sting them shut. Tanks with large, thriving colonies and nay a trace of coraline on their tubing or aquarium walls and wonder how many of those are basically put together in a week or two with only the purpose of looking good and not the viability of those creatures.

And I wonder if we encourage this behavior by incessant posting pictures of prize tanks that everyone wants to emulate - even if it means taking shortcuts like having to replace colonies that die out JUST to keep the tank looking good for the moment.

Anyone else get the feeling that this might be the case? Rarely? Sometimes? Often?
 
I have been observing that behavior for some time. I just do not praise any tanks that are of what you just described. I remember a series of threads recently, where a guy moved everything over to a new bigger tank and said he would 'take things slow' as he grew into the new tank.

Within days he completely changed the lighting twice, tinkered with the flow, doubled the number of corals, pulled out a large fish to 'lessen the bioload' and the added several small fish in its place...

About a week or two later there was a post that the tank does not seem to look right and therefore something must be wrong. I pointed out that a lot had changed in his tank and got run out of the thread.

All the authors of the books and magazine articles that we read are in consensus with this subject. Too fast and too much!

I am trying something different, sharing my story and hoepfuly it will be a success. I have a year long stocking plan and and limited selection of corals and fish. And although the tank has hair algae, I have not added any cleaners and continue to dose phyto on a daily basis. Slowly the tank will become able to process this food and the hair algae will receed; I am already seeing this now. Invert and pod life is up, way up. Halimedia and Coralline are beginning to take hold and hair algae is receeding. My tank is now 7 weeks old.

In the typical tank on this thread, snails and hermit crabs would have been added to attack the hair algae (prevent the micro invert population from increaseing), I would have stopped feeding (more detriment on the micro-inverts) and corals would already be added to the tank.

BTW, because my post count is under 500 and I have no corals in my tank when, look at my photo gallery, threrefore I celarly have no idea what I am talking about.

Chris

My bad, my post count just broke 500. Don't know if I know what I am talking about yet.
 
My goodness! Your dosing system is SECOND TO NONE that I've seen. Kudos to you my friend! :)
I just take the low tech approach to my husbandry: Elbow grease and daily routine. :)
 
In my gallery, you can see pic's of my tank over the last 3 years as it's matured. The tank was actually 7 years old recently when I moved everything into a larger 72G tank. I have corals in that tank that I have had for the 7 years, one of them being the green pearl bubble which has spawned in my tank.

A couple of the corals, green bubble and toadstool, have been moved into my larger 400 G tank becaue they out grew the smaller tank. The toadstool leather you see in the pics was moved the other day into my 200G holding tank while I move my 400. It barley fit into a 5 G bucket even after it had deflated some. ;) It wasn't that big when I got it.

I strive to keep my animals happy and living a long life. I currently have a large tank that I've had for a year now. It has some large fish in there that were in the tank for 3 years before I got it. They seem happy and have continued to grow as I've kept them.

Maybe I'm out of the norm as I strive for longevity in my animals. Paul B on here is another who does the same. His tank is over the 35 year mark now. ;)
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7658247#post7658247 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by blown63chevy
In my gallery, you can see pic's of my tank over the last 3 years as it's matured. The tank was actually 7 years old recently when I moved everything into a larger 72G tank. I have corals in that tank that I have had for the 7 years, one of them being the green pearl bubble which has spawned in my tank.

A couple of the corals, green bubble and toadstool, have been moved into my larger 400 G tank becaue they out grew the smaller tank. The toadstool leather you see in the pics was moved the other day into my 200G holding tank while I move my 400. It barley fit into a 5 G bucket even after it had deflated some. ;) It wasn't that big when I got it.

I strive to keep my animals happy and living a long life. I currently have a large tank that I've had for a year now. It has some large fish in there that were in the tank for 3 years before I got it. They seem happy and have continued to grow as I've kept them.

Maybe I'm out of the norm as I strive for longevity in my animals. Paul B on here is another who does the same. His tank is over the 35 year mark now. ;)
Click to expand...

Well, definitely kudos to you and Paul B. I praise you on your dedication and constancy. :) Your tank definitely has a well lived-in-look however, and things like plastic that has turned milky and is covered in a little bit of hair algae, coraline in the background, etc.

I oft see tanks that look PRISTINE, crystal-clear water, absolutely NOTHING growing on the glass, perfectly white sand..... and well-established colonies of corals growing happily next to each other - where there should be none. There are many tell-tale signs of what I call "tank-decorator syndrome" and it's sad to see because not only is it obvious that these people have spent a good deal of money on their tank just to have bragging rights, but it is also obvious that some of these systems are not sustainable - either because of coral incompatibilities, adding things too quickly or excessive bioload.

IMHO, the responsible way to stock an aquarium would be to always get frags. If they are able to grow in your tank and cover up your rockwork, then fantastic - you're a good reefkeeper and an example to all. People buying entire colonies of corals gives folk a chance to fall into the pitfall of playing decorator.
 
Thanks for the compliment.

I had a friend over once who say the tank and said the same as you did, that it had the "lived in" look. I asked if that was a bad thing and he said no. Funny thing is, the longer you keep a tank up and running, the more you learn and see how things evolve. Paul and I both have been able to see how things go in cycles.

Since I moved the contents of the 45 in the 72, I had a major hair alage outbreak, more so than what was groing in the tank already. I would just pull it off the rocks each week when I did maintance. Now there is hardley any alage in the tank at all. I haven't changed anything except for dosing Vodka a few times but I stopped that long before the alage stopped growing. I've seen my tank go thru these blooms befoe. One day it's fine, the next I get alage growing everywhere. Thne months later, it all disappears.

I too like to grow my corals from frags. It's more interesting to see how they develop in the tank. In the small tank, I've watched my 4" pagoda cup coral grow into a nice 12" Pagoda plate coral. ;)In my 400G that I'm moving, it will be dominated by Monti Cap corals. I want to see how they grow in my system. I've got just about every color of them that I could find. The only colors I don't have are Red and Blue. I think I have every other color though from purple to yellow. ;)
 
I just take the low tech approach to my husbandry: Elbow grease and daily routine
Click to expand...

Dont let the picture fool you, I am not a dosing freak, but I believe that the environment should be as stable as posible with smaller additions over time as opposed to large adjustement sonce weekly/monthly. On top that , I travel for work, up to a week at a time and it is nice that all my wife has to do is 'feed the fish' and not add 14ml of this and 9 ml of that.

Chris
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7658707#post7658707 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by clsanchez77
Paul B's tank is nice, the beer bottles are a little too wierd for my tasts though.

blown63chevy, yours is also nice.
Click to expand...


Beer bottles? This I have to see!

Pics?
 
Paul B's tank. ;)
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=727454

Thanks clsanchez77. I like they way you are letting your tank "mature". You'll have a ton of life in there before you know it. You'll see stuff crawling around verywhere until you add in some preaditors. ;)

In my 400G, all I had at first was some big fish that only knew to eat sinking pellets. So when I moved out the lava rock and replaced it with Live rock, after a month I had a massive explosion of pod's etc. It was great looking at the tank before the lights came on. The sand bed looked "alive" as it was moving everywhere. After adding in some "pod" eaters, the numbers have dwindled as to what I actually see but I know they are still deep in the rocks reproucing as I have seen them more than ones. Also I have some monster ones growing in my skimmer sump along with a ton of baby snails growing IN my skimmer. ;)
 
It's particularly rewarding that no frag in there started out bigger than about an inch too. :) To me, that's where the fun in the hobby lies.
 
Paul B's tank is nice, the beer bottles are a little too wierd for my tasts though.
Click to expand...

BEER BOTTLES, I will have you know that I only have the finest liquer bottles in my tank. Chevas Regal and Couvassier.
That is a Grand Marnier bottle next to that clam. $45.00 a bottle. Only high class stuff in my reef
:lol:
Actually, I am putting in a Budweiser can, but that is just for experimental purposes.
Have a great Fourth of July.
(Hello there Chevy)
Paul
13094Copy_of_DSC00913.jpg
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7665675#post7665675 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Paul B
BEER BOTTLES, I will have you know that I only have the finest liquer bottles in my tank. Chevas Regal and Couvassier.
That is a Grand Marnier bottle next to that clam. $45.00 a bottle. Only high class stuff in my reef
:lol:
Actually, I am putting in a Budweiser can, but that is just for experimental purposes.
Have a great Fourth of July.
(Hello there Chevy)
Paul
13094Copy_of_DSC00913.jpg
Click to expand...

It's a great job you've done with your tank - and running it for as long as you have, you probably are keenly aware of how many tanks seem to be "put together" almost for the purpose of looking good for the pictures. The animals treated as if they were cut flowers - made to look good for a couple of weeks and if they die, just replaced with another colony.
 
BrokkenTWolf, I am well aware of that. You see a lot of tanks like that in dealer's stores. A lot of tanks that are wall to wall corals will not last long. Corals grow like that in the sea but when they do, they are all the same type. There is a lot of warfare going on with these animals and as Chevy pointed out there are cycles. The chemicals these animals put out determine to an extent which corals will survive and become dominate. The rest of the corals may shrink over time. A couple of years in a reef tank does not prove much. If you have trouble keeping certain things alive it could be that that animal is loseing the war. Even if a coral lives, it may not thrive or grow. For many years I could not keep gorgonians or mushrooms, now gorgs and mushrooms are all over the place. I have a green soft coral (don't know what it is) that was tiny for about eight years, then almost overnight it grew about six inches. Sometimes, leather corals get huge then for some unexplickable reason they collapse and fall apart.
I think my reef is now in a phase where everything finally tolerates each other. But it took three decades.
This coral under the fire clown is the one I was talking about.
Have a great day.
Paul
13094copperband___gorg.jpg
 
Paul B,

Awesome! I believe that there's something to be said about stability and longevity and yours certainly is an epitomy of both. :)

The green coral looks to be a green nephtea. I too have a frag of it. It used to grow like mad in my tank. It now seems that the balance in my tank has changed to favor coralimorpharians and it has stopped growing as quickly as it once did:

<IMG SRC="http://www.critter.net/~brokken/dendronephtea.jpg">
 
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