What constitutes a Reef Tank anymore?

[BeanAnimal]

I find this entire discussion to be rather silly

Q: "What constitues a roof anymore..."

A1: "Well, I have shingles, but my neighbor has steel and my dad has Ondura, but I would say anything solid that keeps the rain out".

A2: "There are folks who still have thatch roofs and in my opinion they are more green and natural, so I think thatch roofs are still roofs"

A3: "My brother lives in a tent at Zuchati park, are you saying that he does not have a roof? I mean it keeps the rain off of him so in my opinion that is a roof"

A4: "You know, speaking of camping... We sometimes camp in the open without a tent and find a nice rock overhang. I guess that is a roof too."

A5: "yeah but nobody "builds" a rock overhang and I think it has to be "built" to be a roof.

A6: "Well they call Mt. Everest the 'roof of the world' and god built it, so it is a roof even though there is only sky above it."

A7 "I am starting to think that cat means dog... Does a doghouse roof count as a roof?"

Happy Thanksgiving folks...

 

[A. Grandis]

So simple!

Reef aquarium, or "natural system" = an artificial system to represent and reproduce a geographic area of a natural coral reef.
That's all it is.
We build it as we like, using what we want and/or what we can afford.

Grandis.

 

[doctorgori]

I find this entire discussion to be rather silly

Q: "What constitues a roof anymore..."

A1: "Well, I have shingles, but my neighbor has steel and my dad has Ondura, but I would say anything solid that keeps the rain out".

A2: "There are folks who still have thatch roofs and in my opinion they are more green and natural, so I think thatch roofs are still roofs"

A3: "My brother lives in a tent at Zuchati park, are you saying that he does not have a roof? I mean it keeps the rain off of him so in my opinion that is a roof"

A4: "You know, speaking of camping... We sometimes camp in the open without a tent and find a nice rock overhang. I guess that is a roof too."

A5: "yeah but nobody "builds" a rock overhang and I think it has to be "built" to be a roof.

A6: "Well they call Mt. Everest the 'roof of the world' and god built it, so it is a roof even though there is only sky above it."

A7 "I am starting to think that cat means dog... Does a doghouse roof count as a roof?"

Happy Thanksgiving folks...

...the gist of the original post and the last 4 pages is about trends, fads and how different influences affect a hobby...
...but no, there isn't any direct data, design, or step by step application here....this or any discussion is only as deep or rich as the assorted contributors make it...

 

[Agu]

I recall an editorial years ago comparing reef tank aquascaping to fruit stands designed to show off the best attributes of the product. That's still how a lot of tanks are set up. (The tanks with a gazillion 1" frag plugs of decorator coral frags on the substrate make me want to upchuck btw )

However we're seeing a lot more innovation when it comes to reef tanks. There are more shallow tanks, more minimalist aquascaping, and fewer mixed reefs (code for "I have no self restraint and had to buy something even though it's completely incompatible with my current tank inhabitants.")

They're all reef tanks if they have corals but I see a major change. Takashi Amano set the gold standard for freshwater planted tanks. There isn't one individual setting the standard for reef tanks, yet. However there are a lot of people setting higher standards by creating more authentic biotopes and/or challenging what a reef tank should look like.

 

[IridescentLily]

Just adding more thoughts in reference to all posts after my earlier post; they are all valid points. Personally I don't like when the 'baby's thrown out with the bathwater' so to speak.
Meaning there ARE people (myself amongst them) who are indeed thinking about the corals as animals, who don't think about how 'rare' their zoas are or what name it is, who won't pay hundreds per polyp for any coral, but who DO have a dozen frag plugs in the sand. Here's some facts in my defense of that:
I had zoa eating spiders, i had to remove the frags from the rock and put them all in a clustered group so i could perform lugols dips on them, see them through the spider infestation, etc.
Additionally, Zoas grow on the sand and on rock. Palys also grow on sand and on rock. If one puts the frag on the sand (nearest the rock), they will grow up on the rock and spread on the sand. When we see totm members with beautiful sps and zoas, their biggest zoa colonies are always spread out and also upward. So (most) of these same totm winners with zoa gardens started out with frag plugs on the sand lol
Lastly, it's more interesting and fulfilling to see a few little niblets grow into beautiful 4" (and upward) colonies.

All That said, i do have a problem with coral vendors selling only ONE polyp.
I need more than one. For instance, to see if it is ailing or experiencing predation, one needs something of it's own sub species to compare it to.

Thanks for letting me spew my opinion.
back to getting the next totm ready....

 

[Danzig]

You seem eloquent and articulate to me, but what would I know I'm from Cleveland also :smokin:

I'm glad to see discussion on glofish and patented organisms. I dropped that bomb earlier hoping to stir the pot.

While I'm no fan of patents in general I am particularly dismayed that the U.S. patent office has the audacity to issue patents on life. This debate transcends our insignificant little hobby and frankly it terrifies me. The most discouraging aspect is that the general public hasn't the education in critical thinking and physical sciences necessary do deconstruct the flawed premises and blatant fallacies.

All one must do for an inkling of what is coming to the pet industry is to examine Monsanto's round up ready Frankenplants. The upside I guess is that if you have a patented G-mod organism you can probably ship it without a CITES permit since that combination of chromosomes won't have been shown to occur naturally. Of course these man-made-monsters will eventually find their way into the natural habitat at which point it's rabbits in Australia all over again.

We keep our reefs in a brave new world indeed.

Re-read this everyone, this needs more publicity. I have no idea how or why it is legal and/or presumeably ethical to patent life. Down with Monsanto!

 

[doctorgori]

Just adding more thoughts in reference to all posts after my earlier post; they are all valid points. Personally I don't like when the 'baby's thrown out with the bathwater' so to speak.
Meaning there ARE people (myself amongst them) who are indeed thinking about the corals as animals, who don't think about how 'rare' their zoas are or what name it is, who won't pay hundreds per polyp for any coral, but who DO have a dozen frag plugs in the sand. Here's some facts in my defense of that:
I had zoa eating spiders, i had to remove the frags from the rock and put them all in a clustered group so i could perform lugols dips on them, see them through the spider infestation, etc.
Additionally, Zoas grow on the sand and on rock. Palys also grow on sand and on rock. If one puts the frag on the sand (nearest the rock), they will grow up on the rock and spread on the sand. When we see totm members with beautiful sps and zoas, their biggest zoa colonies are always spread out and also upward. So (most) of these same totm winners with zoa gardens started out with frag plugs on the sand lol
Lastly, it's more interesting and fulfilling to see a few little niblets grow into beautiful 4" (and upward) colonies.

All That said, i do have a problem with coral vendors selling only ONE polyp.
I need more than one. For instance, to see if it is ailing or experiencing predation, one needs something of it's own sub species to compare it to.

Thanks for letting me spew my opinion.
back to getting the next totm ready....

this ....a fully developed post

Re-read this everyone, this needs more publicity. I have no idea how or why it is legal and/or presumeably ethical to patent life. Down with Monsanto!

yeah, its one thing to modify and/or circumvent the natural process of genetic change for large domesticated mammals...its quite another thing to genetically manipulate smaller, faster reproducing and less visible species lower on the food chain

 

[mussel and hate]

this or any discussion is only as deep or rich as the assorted contributors make it...

Sig-worthy. For the most part this particular discussion has been both.

 

[Ntvper]

My tank my pets.

Case closed

 

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

As a reefer let me just say, I would love to have a cpl softies and lps mixed in my sps tank.
However, their requirements are much different than my acros and monti's.
The ability to simulate all types of corals natural environment in one, small home tank is nearly impossible, although not entirely. The smaller, the tank the more difficult it is.

Also, I started with softies and lps....but once I saw my first brightly colored acro I was hooked on their beauty.

 

[mussel and hate]

I have shingles

I'm sorry to hear that.

Happy soltice.

 

[NatureNerd]

I'm sorry to hear that.

Happy soltice.

Okay, that is funny.

This thread has excellent food for thought and some good humor sprinkled in there too. We all have to question ourselves sometimes. I was feeling all smug and self-righteous when I commented that high priced designer occellaris clowns were a joke. Why would anyone want an artificially selected fish that does not represent what evolved in nature but instead was what some breeder thought might sell better, or at least be different than everyone's clownfish. Don't we have reef tanks to experience the wonders of the natural world?

So, the other day at a LFS, I saw some juvi clownfish that were in my opinion, stunning. If it weren't for the fact that I already have a pair of ocellaris in my tank, I would have bought them on the spot. They were bred by ORA and were the normal pattern but with more black on the fins and tails. They looked like normal clowns with much more contrast. I realized that, yeah, I had the same desire to have something different and how could I judge folks that want platinum snow whatevers.

We all strike a balance between possessing a display case for our collections of beautiful living bling and nurturing a wild piece of the ocean to marvel at and learn from.

 

[doctorgori]

^this
...some would say that oranda goldfish are ghastly abominations...but I've enjoyed them...
...and to the posters that glance over a topic and post some shallow one liners...try to think a lil deeper than this:

My tank my pets.

Case closed

You can keep frigging Sharks with laser on their heads for all any of us care...but there are influences in the hobby beyond that, and our assorted consumer taste is one of the factors: basically LFS price and sell what the consumers buy

...and if what we buy are gaudy "Designer clowns" and/or "Radioactive Zoo polyps" mounted on fake dead rock, then thats what the LFS will sell, and even more so if we are willing to pay 10-$20 a polyp or $200/pr

 

[larrypoe]

I noticed a similar phenom in the killifish & cichlid areas: I called it "aquatic pokemon cards" and p*ssed a lot of people off with the analogy, but yet it is all too accurate

I have seen the same thing in several different hobbies (3 kids, me, and wife=do the math of how many have been practiced around this house in the last 20+ yrs)

with reps/herps......it was always the latest morph..everybody had to buy one to raise for future breeding while they were hot, then through the powers of reproduction by the time there specimen got old enough to reproduce the several hundred $$$$ morph was worth little more than the "wild/natural" colored ones they had in the first place.(which I usualy prefered anyway) designer herps are BIG business, but the natural ones are beautys in there own right.


I raised and trained top preforming coonhounds for 25yrs. Every year after the world hunt, guys would line up to breed there female to the "new champ" paying hundreds of dollars for the privilage.....with 0 regard to if that hounds style even remotely meshed or accented there owns. same with equipment.......always on to the next shiny bobble. then there were those few of us who slowly built each generation upon the last, making improvements slowely but surely, getting closer and closer to our ideal model along the way. In that entire time I raised exactly 4 litters of pups, and in the last litter there is a female who has won her breed at the world show each year since she was born......3yrs old/3 world titles. plus an overall world ch title in another registry. As far as I know, its never been done before (even though there are others who have raised literaly hundreds/thousands of litters).

my point here is for most people a hobby is nothing more than a venue for there lust for shiny bobbles and new cool toys. when the next craze comes along they drop the current toy or bobble, because the "just gotta have" the next one :/

then there are those who were in the hobby before it was vogue, who do it for the simple enjoyment of the hobby itself. while I have been guilty of both sides, I prefer to be in the latter (even if I am new at it)

for me the draw of SW isnt the reef tanks anyway, its the fish (clowns in perticular) should I ever venture farther into the hobby, I hope its for the sake of an entire nano ecosystem.........not designer shiny bobbles :/

 

[RubberFrog]

I only date ugly chicks.

 

[T Diddy]

I only date ugly chicks.

lol ^^ that is sig-worthy

 

[gp2]

Fun thread!:rollface:

My first "reef" tank was in the early 80's. In those days anything with any life other than fish would have qualified. A dutch guy (Smit) brought crushed coral wet/dry filters to the us in the mid 80's (through FAMA magazine) and there was an explosion and birth of the reef hobby. Almost all of the creatures were collected by the hobbyist prior to this. Although, there were some beautiful all white nems available LOL.

This was one of the darkest times in the hobby IMO and I stopped keeping saltwater altogether by the 90's. (and "decommissioned" the saltwater sections of several pet stores I managed.) The vast majority of imported specimens died very very quickly, their care was completely unknown, and they were mostly obtained with cyanide and dynamite. .....SO, compared to that our little reefs are amazing/astounding/fabulous regardless of your preference.

Now to the question at hand. Our tanks can in no way represent any slice of the ocean. When we look at a reef scene it does not look like any tank I have ever seen. If you look at a 4 foot square section of the ocean it would typically be quite boring to look at. Many of our critters come from different oceans/continents/ecosystems/ depth etc..

(to be continued later:fun4

 

[RubberFrog]

I remember those days. The only thing I could keep alive for more than 10 weeks was a lionfish and a couple of eels. Throw in an anemone, some dead coral, and I had a "reef" tank. The ugly chicks liked it though. Plus I would turn on Miami Vice and wear my linen jacket.

 

[NatureNerd]

I had my first reef tank in the 80's too. One large green sinularia softie and some brown polyps were the only thing that flourished in my tank. My fish were usually healthy but the corals struggled. Tanks today are spectacular in comparison.

You are also right that no where have I ever dived did it look like a nice reef tank. But I still learn from my tank about the critters we keep.

 

[gp2]

:idea:back to this thread
Since we really cannot recreate with any accuracy a reef in our tiny tanks, does our essentially artistic creations of a reef really need to conform to any idea or standard? I continue to be amazed by the array of niche tanks i discover on here (RC) almost daily. Macroalgae , octupus, SPS, zoa gardens, beer can discarded, etc...

In most peoples opinions colorful corals/fish are more desirable. Although this dose not always hold true for the more serious hobbyist, it damn sure does for our spouses and guests to our house! However the high end zoa/chalice crazes for example are probably not motivated by spouse input. Some people like to collect things, or have something very unusual, or just have the "best" of whatever. There is a huge marketing component to this obviously, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Profitable enterprises are sustainable. This is a VERY expensive hobby. The ability to generate income from reefkeeping is a very good thing. A healthy financial supply chain allows the continued importation of live coral from great distances through daunting regulations. It also highly encourages domestic production both on a local hobbyist level and as a larger commercial venture. Being involved in multiple levels of the pet trade through the years I have never seen people be able to earn a decent living until reef tanks were within easier grasp. So even though many of us look on with bemusement at the amazing $$ paid for some of these pieces it does sustain a lot of coral businesses.

I am an aquaculturist at heart so my idea of a great tank is essentially a very stable frag tank, and that looks nothing like a real reef! I can look at frags that have encrusted and sent off new shoots for hours. I get a real high off this. I have a DT I think is very beautiful, and my wife allows me to keep it in my living room which is very good! If I was a bachelor I am sure my DT would have a lot less fish, a bare bottom, and not resemble the stylized mixed reef I currently have.