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Post by ryansweatt2004 on Aug 30, 2014 22:17:20 GMT -5
So something i came to realize last night about my tank is that I really like the direction it's headed. For the first time in my reefing history I feel like it's truly different, original and not like every other reef tank I've ever seen. So that got me thinking about the hundreds of corals I've bought over the years and how my interests have changed. The thing I've realized is I've become incredibly OCD with having corals and fish that compliment each other in colors, shapes, personalities, natural range and and so on all while looking natural and not man made. I always used to buy completely off impulse and was never happy with my previous tanks because I would end up with 200 different corals all crammed together. Now I maybe have 30+ types of corals, predominately gorgonians, ricordeas and zoanthids that I've tried to place as naturally as possible from studying as many dive videos and photos as possible. As much as I want want want every new, rare or expensive coral, I find myself unhappy with them in my tank. Maybe it's just a natural evolution in the hobby to go from a crammed together mismatch tank of corals and fish to a more natural biotope style aquarium.
So for the sake of discussion, this is where I come back to the title of this posting. How do you choose your corals or fish? What draws your interest to a new fish or coral and what makes you pass on any certain fish or coral?
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Post by scoobnoob on Aug 31, 2014 5:20:31 GMT -5
I feel the same way about buying on impulse and I have too many corals in my tanks or want something different so I never get a definitive look or style. I have too many corals I like and I enjoy growing and fragging tremendously so a frag tank to keep my display uncluttered was a must. My newest build (40b) is set to have all hard indopacific corals with a strict limit of no more than 25 different corals I'm aiming for even less so they can get past the frag stage and I can have some amazing colonies. For fish all indopacific again but everything on my stocking list will revolve around a Mandarin so few if any other grazer fish. I think ultimately it will end up being the best tank I've ever done by a mile.
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Post by jasonandsarah on Aug 31, 2014 9:02:14 GMT -5
I have way to many corals! Thing is though is I used to want to pack it as full as I could. Now like you I want to thin it out and only keep predominately sps with Lps on 10% of the sand bed and a high end Zoa/paly garden growing up lower rock work. Also one gorg:)
Fish same thing right now I'm greatly under stocked. I only have 4 fish in my tank and they're all relatively small. I've decided to buy and add fish very slowly instead of buying a bunch of cheaper fish I'm going to wait and add the fish I really want one at a time as money allows it. If I can figure out what ones I really want! Lol:)
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Post by moulton712 on Sept 2, 2014 12:04:45 GMT -5
I'm just dumb, i like all the corals and watching them grow. I'm sure a few of us could buy a new car if we didn't have this habit. I have chaos in my system and i like it. I have more tanks empty than I have running. 90% of my stuff is always for sale. Lately I've been loving expensive zoas.
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Post by gotareef on Sept 2, 2014 12:27:19 GMT -5
I'm just dumb, i like all the corals and watching them grow. I'm sure a few of us could buy a new car if we didn't have this habit. I have chaos in my system and i like it. I have more tanks empty than I have running. 90% of my stuff is always for sale. Lately I've been loving expensive zoas. +1 im in the same category the reason my display tank is now a 40g cube but I also have a 10g,30g and 2x40b running (for now) right now empty I have 13x40b,4x30b,2x33L,3x55g a few 10 and 20g tanks. the new setup is 9 tanks so not sure what im going to do with the rest.... if all goes a planned I most likely will be adding another 5-6 tanks nextyear or building some custom tanks, not sure yet |
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Post by Lance on Sept 2, 2014 17:36:16 GMT -5
In a perfect world I'd have "one of each". You know, a few biotopes, the angler tank, the mantis shrimp tank, the NPS tank, the Acro tank, the tide pool, the colored carpet anemone + clownfish tank, the zoa/paly garden... Right now I've compromised on the 'Let's see how much I can pack into this 75 and garden the hell out of it so all the corals hopefully don't kill each other" tank.  Who knows what I'll be doing next year. |
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Post by speedyron on Sept 3, 2014 17:55:28 GMT -5
right now im happy with my tanks corals and fish they seem to be well balanced in color and personalities. Guess is because I never care wut is high end and just get what I like the looks of. I have a pair of maroon clowns. I know they arent high priced lightning clowns or anything but when I decided to get clowns I looked up pictures of different types and their colors were the most appealing to me and still are. I didnt know they were hard to pair up, got lucky on the second suiter. they live in a 12"green with purple tip carpet anemone and share the tank with a yellow, a hippo, and a tomini tang. this tank is also home to most my corals, cleaner shrimp, harlequin serpent stars, and 5 other anemones. My FOWLER has to diff types of lobster (blue spiny, and purple), Halloween hermit, foxface lo, humu humu, desjardini sailfin, black volitan, snowflake eel, star polyps, palythoas, zoanthids and zenia. everybody gets along great and I think they are beautiful.
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Post by spotfin on Sept 6, 2014 5:54:29 GMT -5
after I had my butterfly for a few years in a mixed fish tank, I decided to go with a strictly Caribbean tank. I had Florida aqua cultured live rock and some pieces of rock I brought back from a Florida beach. Also had a red spotted hawk fish, royal gramma, cherub angels, blue head wrasse, and a cbs.
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