Monday, April 28, 2008

Live Reefs

Someone suggested that I should re-post pictures of our reef tanks since everyone probably didn't see them earlier. A link to an earlier post with reef pictures is here. The tanks are Harry's hobby. We have a 225 gal and a 190 gal tank. The tanks are salt water live reefs meaning that there are no artificial corals in them. All the corals you see are live and growing. There is a growing community of reef keepers throughout the world. The reef keepers (reefers) in Harry's club named the club the North Alabama Reef Club (NARC). There should be a chuckle in there somewhere. The reef club meetings are for members to discuss their problem/successes and offer advice to those new to the growing hobby. They also swap/share small pieces of their coral (called frags) with other members. These corals are tank raised not wild caught. The pictures below were made recently and are of individual corals that are currently live and growing in one of our tanks. None of the pictures below have been through 'Photoshop' - this is the natural color of each live coral.








6 comments:

Brad said...

Those are quite beutiful. Now you've made me curious - off to google coral! - have a great day.

Smocha said...

Well, I never knew such a thing existed.

So are there no fish in the tanks? Just coral?

Amazing.

Mary said...

Thanks, Brad. They are a lot of pleasure for us and the grandkids.

Smocha, Yes, there are fish in both tanks. We try to maintain a natural reef and that includes a mixture of reef fish. Clown fish, pygmay angels, rabbit fish, gobies, tangs, and anthaus (spell??). There is also a vairety of small reef safe crabs and minature starfish. We also have some large serpent stars one of which is bright red.

Cheryl said...

Fantastic pictures. I think I told you my brother has a reef tank. Much smaller than yours but still very nice. He has a few fish and other creatures. Do you?

Is today Sarah's birth-day?

PS..I just read down and saw your reply to Brad. My brother has the stars and crabs too. Those stars multiply!

SOUL said...

they sure are pretty-
happy monday-

bonnie said...

We've had fish for a long time. We had a big cat (bottom feeder) for eleven years until he recently died. I thought I would collapse into my grief. It was awful losing him, he had a personality and was a family member.