Captive vs Wild Corals

His Coral Highness · Aug 10, 2023

Here is a dumb question I’ve had for a while and never gotten around to asking, especially to anyone with SCUBA diving experience. I feel like there is a major discrepancy between the corals I see in stores, in pictures of peoples tanks, and in my own tank with videos I see of wild coral reefs. Every documentary I see about saving the reefs has some “ok” looking corals, but I feel like I never see anything as incredible as when I see nicely set up reef tanks. I know that in the wild there certainly must be a lot of “boring” corals, but I feel like wild reefs look nothing like reef tanks. How is this? Is the percentage of “beautiful” corals really that low? Can corals be bred to be better looking than their wild counterparts? I thought they only reproduced asexually. Do undersea cameras not capture the coloration on video well? I’ve always felt so out-of-the-loop for thinking this..

Jason_MrFrags · Aug 10, 2023

Its all about the lighting. If you take the incredible looking corals in people tanks and put them under 10k sunlight they would look bland. Its using the blues and purple spectrum to get the corals to glow in the tanks.

PeterEde · Aug 10, 2023

Reefs are huge. Corals are spread of far larger areas than out tanks.

We pack our tanks tighter than any real reef.

CoastalTownLayabout · Aug 10, 2023

There’s a few factors at play here. As mentioned, contemporary LES lighting is definitely transformative in terms of colouration in corals. Have a look at reef tanks in the ‘90’s to mid 2000’s.

The other issue is location. A lot of the habitat where recreational diving operations frequent are not where high end LPS and SPS species are routinely collected.

Lastly, you need to really focus in on a dive to locate some of the desirable aquarium specimens. Thriving reefs can be overwhelming, the detail can be easily overlooked.