Reef Aquarium Gardening Part 1
By Elizabeth M. Lukan to Critter Corner on Saturday, December 29th, 2007.By Reefs UK, edited by Elizabeth M. Lukan.
Introduction
Welcome to the first edition in a series of articles which will describe how we at Reefs UK have created our own reef aquarium garden and hopefully encourage you to create your own. The following articles will provide an in-depth look into:
- What a reef garden is and why it differs from a traditional marine aquarium.
- How we set up our reef garden, what equipment we will use, and the cost of our reef garden.
- What livestock we will introduce, the living requirements of this livestock, and the reasons for keeping this type of livestock.
- How we will maintain our reef garden, what tests we will perform, and the additives we will use.
- How we will trim the corals in our reef garden so they do not overgrow the aquarium and allows us to propagate these corals.
- How we will encourage the livestock to spawn and hopefully attempt to raise the fry of this livestock in the hope we can produce captive-raised specimens.
We hope that by providing this information on our own reef garden, people can learn from our success and mistakes. Most importantly, we hope to show how to properly care for the livestock that we have chosen to keep. We also hope people will learn how to nurture their reef aquariums to a stage where they propagate the corals and encourage the spawning of the fish they keep. Due to budget constraints, Reefs UK were not in a position to set up a reef garden with all the latest gizmos and gadgets. However, setting up the aquarium in this manner will represent the average budget most hobbyists may have when committing their finances to their own marine aquarium. At the end of each article in this series, you will find a section headed "Cost To Date" which will detail what we have purchased and the amount we have paid for each item. This will be updated when we purchase different items but will also provide newcomers with what equipment is needed and the cost of the equipment. We hope you enjoy this series of articles and more importantly we hope it helps you set up and run your own reef aquarium garden successfully.
Who Is Reefs UK?
First of all, we should explain who Reefs UK is for those people who may not have heard of our organization. The organization was originally created in 1998 with a mission to encourage all within the marine aquarium hobby to reduce the impact on the worlds reefs by using sustainable livestock. Reefs UK promotes the use of coral farms as sources of purchasing corals, we also promote propagating corals and producing captive breeding as a means to supplying the hobby with the livestock it uses. Reefs UK quickly became a well known marine aquarium organization providing hobbyists with free forums to discuss all their marine aquarium problems and more importantly find the answers to these problems. We also provide free articles on how hobbyists can propagate their own corals and encourage their livestock to spawn. Reefs UK is an organization promoting the use of aquaculture within the marine aquarium hobby and we are pleased to see many marine aquarium stores selling their own propagated corals and captive bred fish.
The Importance of a Reef Garden
Treating reef aquariums as reef gardens ensures that we all appreciate the importance and value of the corals and marine fish we keep. Although by removing corals, fish, sand, rock etc. from the natural reefs has little impact on the overall destruction of these coral reefs, the marine aquarium industry is an easy target for government policies to focus on. Creating a ban on certain species of corals or limiting the quantity of living rock being imported into the United Kingdom could be all too easy for a government in power to legislate. Even worse, as a collection of countries, Europe could come together and create a European ban on livestock. Where would the hobbyists buy their corals from? How would we continue in our hobby? The good news is that this does not need to be the case and such things as coral farms are being created on the shores of natural reefs and within captivity here in the UK. This provides our industry with a way to show these governments that we are becoming self sufficient in the livestock we use.
Keeping a reef aquarium garden not only properly cares for the corals we keep but over time will actually produce more corals than have been used to set up the aquarium. Producing fragments of corals (known as frags) as cuttings, hobbyists can feel happy in the knowledge that they are giving back something that they have taken. By trimming a coral it not only provides room for other corals to grow but also provides someone else with a coral taken from a reef aquarium and not a natural coral reef.
Reefs UK feels that it is now not only acceptable to keep corals in the best conditions possible but that each coral we keep should turn into 2 or more corals by propagation. Every coral we produce in captivity is one less coral taken from the natural reefs.
Summary
Hopefully we have now informed you of the benefits of a reef garden and wet your appetite to help the natural reefs. In the next article, we take delivery of our new aquarium and start to set up our new reef aquarium garden. We will provide you with the information on why we have decided to choose the aquarium we have and start to list the cost of our reef aquarium garden.
Liz’s Notes: Editing was limited to spelling and grammar corrections and formatting. Please note that this article is at least two years old and while some of the information in it may dated (like the costs mentioned to be coming in future parts), the principles discussed are still viable and worthy of passing along. The images were provided by Reefs UK along with the article and are copyrighted to them. Thanks to Mark Taber of Reefs UK for his permission to use this article in Fish ‘N’ Chips. Don’t forget to visit Reefs UK for more information, articles, and forums.