Different Reef Style

[Miami Reef]

My new tank is going to have this “shallow water theme”.

For lighting: about 14K
Animals being kept: acros and Tridacna clams
Rock work minimal and open. Not too tall.

Fish: this is where I kind of sway away from the theme. I really enjoy tangs. But I am planning on adding chromis.

I think chromis will look really cool swimming in and around the acro branches as they do in the wild.

The background is black though. I probably should have went with blue, but I think blue is too distracting from the organisms.

 

[Sean Clark]

My new tank is going to have this “shallow water theme”.

For lighting: about 14K
Animals being kept: acros and Tridacna clams
Rock work minimal and open. Not too tall.

Fish: this is where I kind of sway away from the theme. I really enjoy tangs. But I am planning on adding chromis.

I think chromis will look really cool swimming in and around the acro branches as they do in the wild.

The background is black though. I probably should have went with blue, but I think blue is too distracting from the organisms.

One of the reasons that I made my scape so low on my new build...

 

[Miami Reef]

One of the reasons that I made my scape so low on my new build...

Haha. I like messing with you!

Your build is awesome! Love that scape!

 

[Miami Reef]

 

[Sean Clark]

Imagine having 100 of either of these swimming around a central bommie.

 

[Miami Reef]

Imagine having 100 of either of these swimming around a central bommie.

No need to imagine

 

[Fishfreak2009]

No need to imagine

Even that. Take out the 2 rock piles on the sides, just leave the middle one. Replace the magnificas with a giant Acropora colony

 

[Sean Clark]

No need to imagine

That is fantastic. Plus those three yellow bellies!

 

[WheatToast]

Anyone ever set up a tank that's mostly open sand, like a patch reef, with one small rock structure, just 1 or 2 giant acropora colonies (tenuis or one of the staghorns) at the top of the rock structure, and a plating Montipora or tabling Acropora below them. Add a big school of green chromis and juvenile humbug damsels, maybe even a school of dispar anthias? Add a single larger aggressive fish like a niger trigger and a single tang like a powder blue, and a sleeper goby on the floor of the tank, maybe a shrimp goby with pistol shrimp as well. Add a couple cleaner shrimp, and maybe even a cleaner wrasse. Always thought it would look great, and a lot more like what one would see on the reef.

This would be an amazing setup in a 180 gallon.

Stolen pics from google to show inspiration:

Here is the most minimalistic bommie aquascape I know from @buzzy:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/buzzys-reef.62002/

Those Damselfish schools seem to be mildly popular in larger Elasmobranch systems:

Hanwha Aqua Planet 63 in Seoul, South Korea:

Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay in Paradise, Nevada (Damselfish are left of the Green sawfish (Pristis zijsron)):

Really not the best setup considering the size of the elasmobranchs , but the minimalism and Damselfish school concepts are used well to build a strong, peaceful aesthetic in my opinion:

Chromis in an eel tank:

I know I am somewhat biased (I love planted marine tanks), but Star grass (Halophila engelmannii) seems like an awesome addition to “minimalistic” tanks:

 

[Miami Reef]

Buzzy’s tank has a really interesting concept. I just feel like something was missing. I can’t put my finger on it.

I think the yellow tang makes the rock scape not look proportional.

 

[pledosophy]

I saw a 90g cube once with a basketball size pink birdsnest and about 20 chromis in it. That was all. It was a very cool looking tank. I keep thinking of doing something like that myself, but the diversity is where it is at for me.

I might do a tonga branch rock tank for seahorses if I ever do them again. Very nice and simple and easy to clean.

 

[damsels are not mean]

I think the patchy reef look is just hard to do justice in a tank. Wall of coral evolved naturally out of the size of tanks that is typical + the tendency towards collectoritis. I've never really liked the look personally. My goal is not a "mini reef" but a "chunk of reef". I want to pretend I've cut a chunk of the reef the size of the tank and put it in my house to observe and enjoy it and watch it grow.


My dream would be a huge huge tank with a few small bommies covered with real full grown colonies, a huge stand of staghorns, and lots of tiny fish to recreate the sort of natural "Coral garden" look.

It's not at all impossible to grow colonies this big in a few/several years, just not something you'd likely see in a typical "mixed reef".


My other idea is a cube (maybe a 90?) with just a big carpet anemone and a colony of clowns. This is certainly feasible and may be my next "big build". It'd be so low maintenance. A water change here and there and keep the fish fed. I'd put some cool inverts like hermits and conchs on the sandbed and maybe some seagrass or something. I want to do clarkii because I like the look but they are too big and aggressive to go in a regular tank IMO.

My next tank for sure is going to be a pico florida keys biotope. I want to use it as an invert QT but when there are no inverts to QT it will remain a display for caribbean corals + pederson's cleaner shrimp. Rock flowers, ricordea, zoas, maybe a small photo gorg. And a mangrove.