NY_Caveman
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Check out this R2R thread (features a second tank later in the thread):
"Infinity Tank" #madeinthailand
"Infinity Tank" #madeinthailand
Why is reef aquascaping so unexplored when compared to freshwater?
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Yes that is a good one. I think many times saltwater hobbyist spend a lot of time "collecting" corals and little time thinking about how the aquarium actually looks. I know I am guilty of that. An My wife tells me that all the time.
What happens is that you don't start out with a plan and so you get a jumble of corals. My new tank next year is being thought out right now. These last two years in this small tank I have have been a great learning lesson and will help me develop a more pleasing tank in the future.
What happens is that you don't start out with a plan and so you get a jumble of corals. My new tank next year is being thought out right now. These last two years in this small tank I have have been a great learning lesson and will help me develop a more pleasing tank in the future.
Many of us are here to collect various corals and watch them grow, not create a piece of art. Our reefs are ever-changing shape, color and light, and (to me) that's what makes it enjoyable and exciting.
I feel the purpose of a planted tank is to make someone feel like they are looking through a tiny window into a miniature mountain valley or rainforest. It's not about growing and/or collecting all the different plants. It's about creating a relaxing piece of art. Of course it would not be hard to create a freshwater inspired reef scape using nothing but rock and GSP. But that's so boring.
Beyond artistic concepts such as composition, color, depth etc., it's difficult to compare reef to planted aquascapes when they differ so greatly. I agree, reef aquascapes usually aren't miniature replicas of rolling hill landscapes or fine art paintings. I don't see that changing anytime soon. To be honest, I think most of the reef hard scapes I've seen are seriously lacking. They lack natural shape and feel. They lack an understanding of the basics of composition, applying the rule of thirds, golden ratio, etc... But if they're happy with what they have created, nothing else matters.
Crashing waves and currents built the natural reefs, quite literally by throwing rock and coral around randomly. That's how I did it. Scattered a few round rocks. Yet... Everyday I look at my tank and get lost in it, I could spend hours observing, admiring and soaking in the beauty.
I feel the purpose of a planted tank is to make someone feel like they are looking through a tiny window into a miniature mountain valley or rainforest. It's not about growing and/or collecting all the different plants. It's about creating a relaxing piece of art. Of course it would not be hard to create a freshwater inspired reef scape using nothing but rock and GSP. But that's so boring.
Beyond artistic concepts such as composition, color, depth etc., it's difficult to compare reef to planted aquascapes when they differ so greatly. I agree, reef aquascapes usually aren't miniature replicas of rolling hill landscapes or fine art paintings. I don't see that changing anytime soon. To be honest, I think most of the reef hard scapes I've seen are seriously lacking. They lack natural shape and feel. They lack an understanding of the basics of composition, applying the rule of thirds, golden ratio, etc... But if they're happy with what they have created, nothing else matters.
Crashing waves and currents built the natural reefs, quite literally by throwing rock and coral around randomly. That's how I did it. Scattered a few round rocks. Yet... Everyday I look at my tank and get lost in it, I could spend hours observing, admiring and soaking in the beauty.
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Samnaz The tiny window into a miniature mountain valley or rainforest. Is one type of Planted aquarium. Its not one I enjoy I like the Nature aquarium designs and style of Amano. In a nature aquarium you are going for balance of compsistion with Hardscape and plants to create a pleasing design. Using textures of plant leaves and colors of the plants to get you a harmony of nature.
The problem we have in the reef hobby is we like to collect corals with out any thought to what other corals we have in our aquariums. Or on where we will place them in the aquarium.
We doing a proper planted aquarium you layout on the tank with foreground middle ground and back ground plants and each plant has a different growing form to it.
Every once in a while I see a Reef aquarium that has had so thought put into the layout of corals and their texture and form. They really stand out from the everyday Reef tank that is posted on forums. Right not people are trying to get hardscape in pleasing forms that is the very first step in building a beautiful aquarium. The next step is picking and grooming the corals to a pleasing composition.
The problem we have in the reef hobby is we like to collect corals with out any thought to what other corals we have in our aquariums. Or on where we will place them in the aquarium.
We doing a proper planted aquarium you layout on the tank with foreground middle ground and back ground plants and each plant has a different growing form to it.
Every once in a while I see a Reef aquarium that has had so thought put into the layout of corals and their texture and form. They really stand out from the everyday Reef tank that is posted on forums. Right not people are trying to get hardscape in pleasing forms that is the very first step in building a beautiful aquarium. The next step is picking and grooming the corals to a pleasing composition.
Nami
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I think reefscapes are harder to match freshwater setups because of corals themselves. Compared to plants, corals are finicky, sting/digest one another and grow relatively slower. You can mix and cluster different plants together to create the look that you want without them killing each other.
L Sean Hubbard
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I'm pretty OCD about how my aquascape looks. I'm not mathematically or mechanically inclined. All the plumbing, parameters, and tech stuff is a necessary evil for me.
I'm in this hobby precisely because it allows me to build a living painting that forces me to consider spatiality, lighting, color balance, the compatibility of various organisms, and a host of other factors. When I start up a tank, I love measuring all the asthetic, mechanical, and biological variables in the goal of producing something that looks like a focused and deliberate version of what nature has to offer, while avoiding the appearance of something purely contrived.
I'm in this hobby precisely because it allows me to build a living painting that forces me to consider spatiality, lighting, color balance, the compatibility of various organisms, and a host of other factors. When I start up a tank, I love measuring all the asthetic, mechanical, and biological variables in the goal of producing something that looks like a focused and deliberate version of what nature has to offer, while avoiding the appearance of something purely contrived.
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I am coming from a background in freshwater and have found that everything was most satisfying when you create what could be considered a natural habitat, not some miniature fantasy land. The great aquarist Takashi Amano, may he rest in peace, I believe, would have made an incredible reef aquascape if he had ever been drawn to that "medium". So many times the rock work you see in reef tanks appear to me to be just piles of rocks will little thought to a cohesive aesthetic. I agree that the corals form the basis for the true beauty in the tank, but with some thought and effort I believe that we as reefers could truly have an amazing aquascape at the start, not just when the corals grow in. The rock formations can influence the flow of the fish movements throughout the tank and create an underwater ballet with the coral movement. Having said all this mine tank when I get it set up will probably look like a pile of rocks. I talk a good game, but let see if I can actually pull it off
X-37B
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A pile of rocks or the great wall of china. I have been guilty of it since the mid 90's hence the name. Got back into the hoby 1.5 years ago after some time off. Just moved to new house. Moved mu 18" cube with its pile of rocks. Love that term. Just purchased a 4x2x2 120 with center overflow. This time its going to be rock work no higher than 10", 3ish small groups with 4 to 5 major branching sps that I plane to let grow to the water line. Will take a few years but when done should look different than most I have seen. Plan to start with 3-5 frags of each of the 4-5. There of course will be others but I want to leave alot of room above the 10" line for growth.
AltitudeAquarium
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Hydor koralia smart wave
playapixie
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Time. You can aquascape an amazing planted tank essentially immediately with minimal grow-out time required. That makes designing an implementing an entire visual experience at once possible. Reef tanks take months and months (to years) to grow out coral. You could plan and “plant” a seamless intentional aquascape in a reef tank, but you wouldn’t see it actuialized in quite some time (and your visions could change, corals may not cooperate, things may not grow out as you envisioned...)
Money: fresh water plants & set-ups cost a fraction of coral setups.
Lighting: far less variability in required lighting intensity for plants vs corals.
Materials: more options to aquascape with: plants, wood, many kinds of rock...
That said, reefers could in general look towards fresh water tanks for tank design inspiration.
I have both, and did plan my nano reef based on composition principals, but it has very definitely taken many unexpected turns over the years.
catfishblues
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I've wondered this a lot. I think there can be something more interesting in a tiny acro frag compared to a tiny trimming of ludwigia and reefers often would rather grow the coolest and rarest corals. That's why we see bare bottom tanks, frag racks, and much larger variety of coral in one tank as opposed to 4-5 kinds in a nature style planted tank. I've seen (and had) collectoritis planted tanks which can be cool to have a little bit of everything but it doesn't have the same look as a planned out scape. I'm trying to plan my reef more like my planted tanks right now. My high tech planted tanks had more equipment and complications than my reef one's ever did and now I'm very into low tech/slow and steady and maintenance free. Zen baby!
Just my ramble, carry on.
Just my ramble, carry on.
Stigigemla
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In Japanese gardening there is an extension called Suiseki that is building a model of a fantasy garden on a plate or a low tray. I believe its the origin of Japanese gardening inspired aquascapes. It can have a bonsai or a few but it can also be a model of a dry garden. One thing in common I believe is the wish to do much with a little.
Most reefers that wants their reef to look better has to do with the grow structure and color of corals. So the caretaking of the corals and other animals are the important thing to make it look good. We are so fascinated by the complexity of our little biotope that we dont like the ideer of using less to create more. In the nature and thats the inspiration of most reefers there are often several hundreds of different species in 1 square meter.
Being a reefer and having a Japanese inspired garden I am getting so bored of many of the Amano inspired miniature landscapes. A dutch type aquarium with three kinds of plants per foot (old tumb rule) in different shapes and colours is so much better in my eyes.
A reef with a lot of different corals, fishes and inverts is what I like the most. In front of that I can sit so long that the owner is becoming irritated. A Suiseki I just look at for a few seconds in 3 or 4 different directions and ready. Nothing happens.
Most reefers that wants their reef to look better has to do with the grow structure and color of corals. So the caretaking of the corals and other animals are the important thing to make it look good. We are so fascinated by the complexity of our little biotope that we dont like the ideer of using less to create more. In the nature and thats the inspiration of most reefers there are often several hundreds of different species in 1 square meter.
Being a reefer and having a Japanese inspired garden I am getting so bored of many of the Amano inspired miniature landscapes. A dutch type aquarium with three kinds of plants per foot (old tumb rule) in different shapes and colours is so much better in my eyes.
A reef with a lot of different corals, fishes and inverts is what I like the most. In front of that I can sit so long that the owner is becoming irritated. A Suiseki I just look at for a few seconds in 3 or 4 different directions and ready. Nothing happens.
KenO
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My thoughts exactly. In my one previous tank, and I found this out by accident when I was using some kalk solution to kill some aiptasia, some spilled onto one of my Monti’s. I didn’t want to make things worse, so I left the kalk blob on the Monti. The Monti responded by forming a new plate in the middle of the original plate. So I tried putting another kalk blob on another plate. It did the same thing. So one could influence the Monti to plate and create levels. I circled the areas in the picture.
NY_Caveman
likes words, fish and arbitrary statistics
My thoughts exactly. In my one previous tank, and I found this out by accident when I was using some kalk solution to kill some aiptasia, some spilled onto one of my Monti’s. I didn’t want to make things worse, so I left the kalk blob on the Monti. The Monti responded by forming a new plate in the middle of the original plate. So I tried putting another kalk blob on another plate. It did the same thing. So one could influence the Monti to plate and create levels. I circled the areas in the picture.
That is very cool! Great information. Like a slow motion pebble into a puddle.
