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Last Login: 9/12/2008 8:34:40 AM
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Greetings Anthony/All:
I have been planning my new reef tank since before Hurricane Katrina. Thanks to the storm, I have lived in hotels since August and will continue to until March (just for work $$$, my condo is fine). I broke down my 65g freshwater planted tank as I was going to convert it over to reef, however now with time away and cash in hand, I am going to upgrade to a 90g AGA.
My condo is small so the aquarium and equipment has to work well with my trimline and AGA as a great off the shelf stand/canopy that is perfect with my furniture and custom trim through out the condo, plus I have always liked the brand.
I have wanting to try something different that does not restrict itself to the mainstream garden style SPS tanks. I setup my freshwater plant tank as an Amazon biotope and it worked well. I would like to do the same with my reef tank. I have the books "Corals" (E. Bornman) & "The Natural Aquarium" (J. Tullock) for reference.
I would like to try and do a Caribbean or a Gulf of Mexico theme (if they are feasible) as these are both in my part of the world. Coral availability is very restrictive as collection is illegal for most. This will be the biggest challenge for these themes.
I am also open to try different things, even if they are ‘experimental’ or a different direction than most, but I assure you the last thing I want to do is anything reckless or ill-fated for my inhabitants.
Anyway, six months is a lot of time to plan an aquarium by our hobby standards  so at month 4 this is the two options of what I have come up with and would like some guidance as to if they are doable and what coral species I could use to supplement these.
Idea #1
Caribbean Mushroom Coral Tank
The corals would include mostly mushroom of Disocsoma species (D.neglecta, D.carlgreni & D.sanctihomae - sp?, difficult to get) & Ricordea florida; three of these would dominate the tank. Assorted Zonathus & Palythoa polyps, which are generically speaking worldwide distributed (individual species seem indistinguishable in appearance to me) would top off the rocks and Gorgonia - photosynthetic - just one or two for 'texture' in the aquascape. A sun coral colony or two for the caves - again the hobby available variety are from the Pacific but there seems to be no distinguishable difference from the Caribbean variety - also, because this one will need to be hand fed, it will be added last so the system can establish itself for the nutrient load. An assorted SPS or two would be added if appropriate, although I don’t know what I would add that would blend with the theme.
Idea #2
Gulf of Mexico Patch Reef Tank
This on is a little tougher and need some help with. The tank would be more sponge and tube worm oriented. The only SPS I know of is Porites, which is difficult to come across. All the other corals are illegal to collect. As far as I know, this biotope would not lend itself to soft corals such as the mushrooms, polyps and Gorgonia. I do not know what SPS could be used in this tank to 'substitute' the native species as I planned above in Option #1.
So all please elaborate on the exercise above so I can get some opinions on what other corals that are available would work with either of these options. Which option would you prefer? Do you think either of these is not feasible and I should be looking at other biotope options?
Just for additional information:
Equipment is more or less decided as space limitation dictated most of these. The tank is a 90AGA with Mega-Flow, 30g sump with Mag 7 return (estimated about 450gph). Lighting will be 550W VHO (I don’t want the heat or space needed for MH, can’t buy T5 locally, don’t like PC). Skimmer most likely to be AquaC EV120, I liked this brand on my last FOWLR tank. No closed loop as I wont be able to run the pipes behind the tank (against the wall) so will be using powerheads, probably Maxi-jets (Tunze is outrageous for price and refuse to pay it and I will not give any money to TAAM, I don’t care what they come out with). Will be topping with RO/DI and Kalk reactor.
Fish list
Will include a mated pair of Cherub Angel, Blue Chromis (single or shoal), Red Lipped Blenny, Swissguard Basslet. Additionally, I will choose one of: a Royal Gramma Harem, a pair of flamefish (flame cardinals) or a single bluehead wrasse (don’t know if this guy is truly reef safe) depending on the biotope I go with. Overall, I want to keep it light as I did with my last tank.
Other inhabitants
I would like to keep peppermint shrimp (where the wrasse is questionable) and sponge life (I have been reading up on this). The sponge may require phyto, rotifer and silica dosing, I think I can handle that. Either ReefKeeping or AdvanceAquarist has a great article on this subject.
Feeding
I will have a small refug in the sump for pods. The sump will be to small for my needs so I will be supplementing it with homegrown phyto, zoo's and brine shrimp in batches. I also would like to experiment with using Mollies in the refuge for algae consumption and a source of food for the tanks. Surprising to many, these fish are of fresh/brackish origin and are (rarely) seen in the gulf outside the reef zones (I am not aware of them being spotted at reefs). I have seen one or two posts on Reefcentral with good results so far with this.
So thanks for taking the time to read this long thread, as you can see I have put much time into the planning. It will take creativity to pull these themes off and I will need the help of knowledged reefers to let me know what corals I can keep in these themes with my given equipment. Because of the lack of availability of corals from the region, please let me know what corals are available and what Pacific corals are of similar species and would work as substitutes.
Also, my plans are not set in stone, I would greatly value any experience from anyone who has tried to do a biotope of this sort or at least researched it.
Thanks,
Chris 
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Last Login: 11/19/2009 1:09:50 PM
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| cheers, bro... the Atlantic theme (any biotope theme really that gets you/us away from the dreadful unnatural hodge podge garden reef tanks) sounds fabulous! Kudos. As for Atlantic stony corals.. its a non-issue. Please forget about them. Even if they were legal or plentiful, they are frankly unremarkable to most folks (other/better choices to be had). They also may require a water flow that just cannot be safely or adequately provided foir while you are trying to keep fishes and other inverst as well. My vote would go to a display featuring Gorgonians and sponges. It would be legal, amazingly colorful... and really open up your species selection since both the aforementioned inverst are so noxious that few reef fishes will niible on them!.
. Anthony Calfo
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Group: Forum Members
Last Login: 9/12/2008 8:34:40 AM
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Thanks Anthony,
I do hope to separate myself from the mainstream, even if my husbandry is not as refined and its never achieves a TOTM status; it takes more patience and planning to execute this hobby with discipline. I see quite a few threads on the main reef boards regarding people starting out wanting to do a biotope, but then the LFS got that 1 coral head they had to have...each payday...and I am really amazed at how fast people 'fill' their tanks, particullary when they preach to others to take it slow...
So I did some re-reading in the Tullock book and he describes the Gulf patch reef biotope as scattered gorgonias, particullary knobby sea rod (I actually had this in my FOWLR) and P.grandis polyps along with porites, feather dusters, sponge and macro algae.
I know the Christmas Tree Rock is porites, but have not seen other species of it for sale and I have found mixed results caring for this coral on the boards. What is your opinion on porites in the hobby? From what I can see in the Corals book, the pacific species would be close enough to the Atlantic species along as I stay with the more 'muted' colors. Should I venture here or stay away? Eric's comments regarding care was pretty much they dont do well with acclimation, but get it past acclimation and it wil be fine. So any suggestions?
Also, was checking out the Flower Garden Sactuary site and they state that there are no gorgonias or other soft corals on within the sactuary, but that I believe is cooler water and a little further out than what Tullock had in mind in his example, so I may go with his guidance on the inverts.
The sactuary has an excellent fish inventory based on three main expeditions, plenty of information for me to refine my list by.
Unfortunately, the Keys Sanctuary does not have any fish or invert inventories on their site, but I suspect for fish they will be approx the same.
I think I am leaning toward the Gulf Patch Reef, it will be unique and will more likely keep my long term interests.
Chris
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I agree with Eric indeed on the summary of Porites for hobby use - Porites often ships poorly and may be slow to acclimate, but once established is actually very hardy and long-lived (one of the the hardiest in aquaria!) providing it gets adequate water flow. While they are adaptable to a wide range of lighting schemes, they are not very forgiving about water flow. Moderate to strong flow is critical. I lean towards the higher end of flow for them. Heavy blue lamps will often make many Porites species turn a typical (and handsome) dark green color. Lower light may only support a chocolate brown appearance (lack of FPs revealing rich zoox populations). High light is always risky in shallow reef aquaria butmay support some of the other pretty colors we see in this genus (yellow, pink, bluish)
.Anthony Calfo
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Last Login: 11/19/2009 9:42:09 PM
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| Chris, I think your idea is great to focus on a gulf of mexico or caribbean setup. While most corals are illegal to collect, you might be able to find one of the aquaculture companies willing to work with you on harvesting LR that has corals attached to them. Unfortunately red tide damaged many of the companies in Florida this year, so selection might be spotty for a while. I ordered from Tampa Bay Saltwater and when I ordered I said I wanted some of the "mini" brains that I had seen other people receive. I received 3 in my order and while one died, I soon traded for another one. While my tank isn't strictly gulf of mexico, some of my favorite corals and inverts were the ones I received on the LR. Here are a few pictures: Cup coral (possibly Phyllangia americana) 
Christmas tree worm (bisma worm) - added benefit, no porites to keep alive, just focus on the worms 
Filter feeding cucumber: 
mini-brain#1 (possibly Manicina sp.) 
mini-brain#2 (possibly Manicina sp.) 
mini-brain#3 (possibly Manicina sp., but looks different from the other two, so who knows) 
mini-brain#3 under actinics  
Of the things above, I would say the hardest to keep alive are the Christmas tree worms. I've placed all mine in moderate flow and try to feed phyto twice a week with the skimmer off. I have one worm 1 year old, the others are 7 months old, the one year old one doesn't look as healthy though. Good luck on your selection and finding things. I hope to turn this into a gulf of mexico/florida tank when I move to my next house and order more specimens of the Manicina species, I would like to see if I could get them to sexually reproduce in captivity. Brian
7 years FW, 5 years SW
Education is the solution to pollution, not dilution.
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FWIW re: the fan worms in Porites corals and their kin, I am having (too much) success with these feather worms and vermetid (mucus net feeding) sessile tube-snails like many other folks because of regular(daily) feeding IMO of phytoplankton and super fine zooplankton substitutes including DTs Natural Diet (oyster eggs) and fresh hatched baby brine shrimp (decapsulated Artemia in liquid suspension from Seahorsesource.com). Not all these foods are directly feeding all filter-feeders(hardly so), but the overall benefit is clear. My snails and feather worms are spreading and flourishing.
.Anthony Calfo
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Glad to see you are having success, also glad to see my plans are parallel to your habits
DT's both phyto and Oyster Egg will be my mainline everyday feeding to promote sponge and worm health. I will attempt culturing zoo's in the refug, but I dont know how large that will be till I get everything setup. Once I have my laundry room completed, I will do small batch cultures of phyto, rotifers and brine shrimp.
Chris
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