So, here are four tanks I think are some of the best looking reef tanks I’ve seen. There are certainly many more equally great looking tanks. Although in my opinion it is much more important to have healthy and interesting animals than picture perfect aquascape I certainly wouldn’t mind having a tank such as these.

These will work nicely as a contrast for my tank update I’ll post tomorrow

Japanese soft coral tank:

No related posts.

Marc Kochzius (http://www.reefbase.org)

One thing that has always bothered me is the negativity among the reef aquarium hobbyists. Or, to be more precise, among some of the more visible and insistent experts, old timers and their fanboys.

Hobbyists are often blamed for bad husbandry practices and lack of knowledge for the animals they keep. This habit is common in online discussion forums, a major media for modern reef aquarists. Even some authors of blogs,  aquarium magazines and books seem to have very limited respect towards an average hobbyist. Some of the more arrogant ones seem to even take us as complete idiots that should not be allowed to keep any kind of organism in captivity and the advice and information (most of the time opinion, really) is presented like a parent would present his or hers advice to a child. I know what is best for you, you do like I say! Of course most of the experts are nothing like this and many of them are extremely important part of the community. The real experts, I mean.

I disagree strongly with this depressive description of an average hobbyist: based on more than 10 years of experience in online forums I can say with confidence that the majority of us hobbyists are truly trying our best to provide the optimal care for the organisms we keep or would like to keep. I have never quite understood the logic behind the idea that by scare and distrust you would somehow make the poor hobbyist a better or “enlightened” aquarist. I guess the people using these tactics imply that they know how to take care of the animals in question but the low-ranking hobbyist asking the questions should not even be interested.

The unfortunate fact is that the reef aquarium keeping can be practiced in a less-than-serious way. There is a certain part of the community that is not motivated in improving their skills or gaining more knowledge, some might not even be interested in being aquarists at all. Although I disagree with their motives and objectives, I don’t see why the huge majority of hobbyists should be vilified because of them.

James Oliver (http://www.reefbase.org)

An other particular form of pessimism is the almost compulsive need to deny any success some aquarist might try to claim. I’m sure everyone has read the line about how you can’t say you are successful until you have kept an individual for n years, where the n is always the time the aquarist has kept it plus one? This is so idiotic idea that I don’t know what to say. What committee decided these time frames and at what meeting? If the animal is healthy and grows, what other criteria should be met? Are you yourself a successful aquarist by these same standards? What data you used to come to these conclusions? Could you please compile a comprehensive list of these time frames for each species so that the rest of us don’t need to read these boring comments? And finally, would you please stop already? If you can’t get excited from other aquarists’ accomplishments or you are not interested in learning about a captive care of an animal just don’t say anything. This way the rest of us can keep improving.

The last one I want to mention is the trump card for The Brotherhood Of Pessimism: the combination of the two above mentioned negative ideas: first you are told that it is ridiculous for you to think you have succeeded or that you should stop being so thrilled about it because you have only had the specimen for n months or years. It doesn’t matter if it has grown or reproduced. But there’s more: even if you were lucky (it has to be luck, doesn’t it) and somehow managed to keep it alive (it must be suffering though), it is totally irresponsible to tell others about it because they are so stupid that they all will now run to the closest fish store and buy one. Oh the humanity!

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge”, Charles Darwin

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While sometimes these observations and experiences achieve little else than confusion among beginning hobbyists, most of the time aquarists’ observations really do move the captive coral reef aquarium keeping forward. Sometimes only a little, sometimes indirectly through increased communication but also in rare cases they can take aquariology to a completely new level. I’m sure no one will never forget hobbyists like Lee Ching Eng (1950s, live rock and live sand) and Peter Wilkens (1970s and 1980s, protein skimming, water chemistry, calcium supplementation, HQI lights etc) or some public aquarium curators like Jean Jaubert (1980s, DSB and plenum) and Walter Adey (1980s, refugiums and algae filtration). There has been very little contribution to reef aquarium keeping from scientific community, unless the researcher in question has also been a aquarist.

As said, many aquarists are very passionate about what they think will improve captive reefs but what is not yet accepted by the mainstream. And the mainstream nowadays is much more “main” than it used to be because the ratio of “independent thinkers” to others has declined rapidly as the hobby has gotten more popular. This creates friction in a community as the mainstream really wants to stay mainstream while at the same time you have separate pioneering groups of people on the sides who all are absolutely sure that if only everyone understood what they knew we would all have much better (as defined by said groups) aquariums. These are the kind of people that move us forward. Unfortunately it seems that while the ultimate goal of these groups is to get everyone to accept their methods and ideas their secondary objective almost always is the complete destruction of other groups. And the wars can be truly massive and bloody, like the epic battle DSB vs others that resulted in many brilliant aquarists leaving the online community forever. Some are quick and dirty like the ZeoVit’s attempt to gain foothold  in mainstream. In the end the status quo won and the group was isolated in zeovit.com. It still in this day takes courage to admit that you are using ZeoVit in almost anywhere else. Note that these battles are never won 100%. For example, it is very rare to find the extremist DSBism in the wild today even though that group claimed glorious victory. The reason for this is that mainstream has one of the strongest weapons in their arsenal, common sense.

So, what all this has got to do with the two elements from the periodic table? Simply, both of these are fighting their way into the mainstream coral reef aquarium keeping and both display the common characteristics of pioneers vs. “the old way”. At this moment, the troops of magnesium are very close to claim victory as so many aquarists have purchased Mg test kits and forums are littered with questions regarding the best way of supplementing it. And as always, the original cult members have been very vocal about the issue, claiming deficiency in magnesium to be a reason for a wide range of anomalies, ranging from CaCO3 chemistry to fish health and everything in between. And as always, the majority has ruled that it is probably important to maintain NSW levels of magnesium and yes, it can affect coral calcification but at the same time, many of the other more fantastic claims are mostly exaggerated. Common sense.

Potassium, however, has still a long way to go. There really are no widespread interest in potassium test kits or supplements and although there are now some common sense injected in discussions (linking possible K+ sinks to the need of supplementation) it still seems to have most amazing effects on coral coloration and growth. A certain sign that there is still a lot to learn about potassium and its importance in coral reef aquariums.

What’s Grumpy’s take on magnesium and potassium? Once again, just plain old common sense. There was no single point of time in reefkeeping history that defined the moment between healthy, fast growing and brilliantly colored plating Montipora spp and plain looking, brown slow growing trash. You see, these are some of the properties of the two aforementioned elements claimed they would do if supplemented. On the other hand, both are absolutely critical elements of seawater and both have a wide range of biological roles so the awareness of even their existence will once again take the hobby a notch forward. While it might be a exaggeration to say that the obvious importance of these elements would be either pioneering work or groundbreaking discovery, it’s yet an other example how it’s the hobbyists who develop the science of captive marine ecosystems and no one else.

Sometimes I wonder why the process is so painful, though.

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There are many reasons for this but some I’ve observed are the following. When you start to gain more knowledge about the inner workings of a reef aquarium it’s understandable that you’ll start to get more and more annoyed about the ramblings in most of the reef forums and this can really get you down. Or maybe you have had the same fishes and corals so many years you can’t even remember. Or the lack of new directions in hobby is getting so boring that you are just so sick of hearing the same things over and over again. Well, I think it is still possible to keep things interesting. Some of the things that have helped me:

• Take a break from internet! I did just that, I was almost completely disconnected from the various forums and websites a couple of years. And guess what? The forum posting community didn’t come up with any big breakthroughs during that time. And it’s no wonder since I now see the trend where people might have more than a thousand posts but still has not grasped the most basic principles of reef keeping. Some of these people might not even have a reef aquarium.
• Change those live rocks. Remember how entertaining it was to find new organisms when you started your last tank? Sell half of your existing live rock to be used as base rock and replace them with some fresh reef. And if you haven’t done so in years you’ll find that the average quality and selection has only gotten better.
• Sell or give away some of your corals and fishes – there is absolutely no need to keep the same specimens year after year.
• Try some difficult or “impossible” species. The idea that no one should keep certain animals because someone can’t keep them alive is totally flawed. We would not be keeping marine fish or corals if that was the best way to advance the hobby. You are an experienced reefer and there are no one better to find out how these species should be taken care of in captivity. The “experts” giving these “impossible” labels are most likely worse aquarists than you anyway. On the other hand, remember to correct any egomaniac newbie in the forums if they should try the same species.
• Start another hobby that supports reefkeeping. Microscopy, photography, woodcraft and creating things from acrylic are just a few examples.
• Be creative. Think outside of the box and create a new “method” – we have had far too few pioneers in this hobby for a very long time. I don’t think there have been a single major invention since the 80′s. Just be prepared to receive some flaming as people who have read one little book about reef aquariums are going to tell you that you are completely ruining your aquarium.

Of course you can also quit the whole damn hobby.

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