Well, ever since I was a kid, I have been fascinated by saltwater tanks. Loved visiting local fish stores, always has felt like a field trip did just like in elementary school. Each display tank showing such beautiful creatures whether fish or coral. Started out in my 20's with fresh water but forever eyeing saltwater. When my daughter turned 16 which is a long time ago, she begged and begged for a saltwater tank and I finally relented. Well, as one might expect, although located in my daughter's room, it became my responsibility to maintain. Been hooked on saltwater ever since. Tried growing coral in a 40 gallon without sufficient equipment or knowledge and you can guess how that went.
Never gave up and then a hand full of years ago, decided to dump my daughter's tank, switched from her 40 gallon to a 180 gallon bow front with a decent amount of equipment like a protein skimmer, CA reactor, sump, refugium, metal halide lighting, plus, plus plus. Had a crash about two years or so ago, I had tried biopellets and made a couple of mistakes, and made a couple of wrong corrections and made a couple of more mistakes and then made a couple of more wrong corrections and then you know how that went.
So, over the last couple of years, after letting the tank kind of fallow and settle in, I slowly started to repopulate it. I have purchase about a gazillion frags and way over crowded my real estate but if I had a 400 gallon, I am pretty sure I would have done the same thing. How can you ever stop collecting coral, there is always something that you have always wanted and finally found. The nice thing is you can always sell or give away a pretty colony, or carefully frag or do a host of things to keep it all looking wonderful. I have not quite achieved that look of coral everywhere without any visible rockscape but am slowly approaching that endpoint. I prefer pretty coral over rare or expensive. When you have been doing this a long time though, sometimes rare or expensive start to kind of look pretty. So as I share a few pictures with you, you will see how strict I have tried to be with that philosophy and can probably guess how that went as well.
I am new to photography and although I think my colors are true, or atleast as true as I can get them, it is difficult to get quality pictures in a fish tank lit by 20k metal halides. I hate the blue look of many photos because you really can't appreciate the real or correct colors of that coral. It has taken a lot of time and energy to get the pics I have and I will probably retake many of them to get hopefully a better photograph and more accurate colors. I am working on that.
I have posted many of these on another forum but was requested to share on this forum. Hope you like what I show.
This is from a LFS, it is Tat's Psammacora. I think it is really pretty and unusual even if it is all green.
Below is Vivid's tricolor prostrata. I am not sure if they have the mother any more. When this is bigger, I hope to return a frag to its home.
These next two came from Vivid as well. My picture unfortunately does not accurately represent how darn bright and fluorescent the first one is. The second is a wild colony (I almost never get maricultured corals, I have had so much better success with color retention and longevity with aquarium raised coral).
Never gave up and then a hand full of years ago, decided to dump my daughter's tank, switched from her 40 gallon to a 180 gallon bow front with a decent amount of equipment like a protein skimmer, CA reactor, sump, refugium, metal halide lighting, plus, plus plus. Had a crash about two years or so ago, I had tried biopellets and made a couple of mistakes, and made a couple of wrong corrections and made a couple of more mistakes and then made a couple of more wrong corrections and then you know how that went.
So, over the last couple of years, after letting the tank kind of fallow and settle in, I slowly started to repopulate it. I have purchase about a gazillion frags and way over crowded my real estate but if I had a 400 gallon, I am pretty sure I would have done the same thing. How can you ever stop collecting coral, there is always something that you have always wanted and finally found. The nice thing is you can always sell or give away a pretty colony, or carefully frag or do a host of things to keep it all looking wonderful. I have not quite achieved that look of coral everywhere without any visible rockscape but am slowly approaching that endpoint. I prefer pretty coral over rare or expensive. When you have been doing this a long time though, sometimes rare or expensive start to kind of look pretty. So as I share a few pictures with you, you will see how strict I have tried to be with that philosophy and can probably guess how that went as well.
I am new to photography and although I think my colors are true, or atleast as true as I can get them, it is difficult to get quality pictures in a fish tank lit by 20k metal halides. I hate the blue look of many photos because you really can't appreciate the real or correct colors of that coral. It has taken a lot of time and energy to get the pics I have and I will probably retake many of them to get hopefully a better photograph and more accurate colors. I am working on that.
I have posted many of these on another forum but was requested to share on this forum. Hope you like what I show.
This is from a LFS, it is Tat's Psammacora. I think it is really pretty and unusual even if it is all green.
Below is Vivid's tricolor prostrata. I am not sure if they have the mother any more. When this is bigger, I hope to return a frag to its home.
These next two came from Vivid as well. My picture unfortunately does not accurately represent how darn bright and fluorescent the first one is. The second is a wild colony (I almost never get maricultured corals, I have had so much better success with color retention and longevity with aquarium raised coral).