REEFING VISION: Do you have a vision and how do you make it a reality?

Do you have a VISION for your reef tank?

  • YES a vision and a plan

    Votes: 180 49.6%
  • YES a vision but not much planing

    Votes: 69 19.0%
  • NO vision just creating as I go

    Votes: 107 29.5%
  • Other (please explain in the thread)

    Votes: 7 1.9%

  • Total voters
    363

jeffrey750750

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My vision is to restock corals after dreaded dinos wiped out most stock. Just trying to keep everything stable for a few months because we all know nothing good happens fast. Set aside that I'll be planning a new bigger home for my vlamingi tang. Still cant decide if I'm going to do another reef or keep it Fowlr
 

Victor_C3

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My vision is to built a system that will eventually look like a scaled down version of these two tanks

4E9DB8B3-CCD4-4BA2-BDCD-0A33C67F7D34.jpeg


8F9E1556-D190-490E-9E2F-885C43314E9E.jpeg


Except that I want that built into a 115 gallon 3’ peninsula that is tied beautifully with my apartment.

11 of the 19 fish will be ignitus anthias

E3C8BC96-C833-49B7-A2B6-EA8E5AE0912A.jpeg


And these fish will contrast sharply with the mostly blue, purple, and green Acropora that will dominate my tank. Staghorn corals will he kept on the tops of my rock structure, wile Acropora that grows into bushy and tabling shapes will dominate the middle and lower areas.

So far, this is what I’m looking at after 4 months of a lot of money and work.
CA2878F7-A1BA-4C69-9344-778377591417.jpeg


5C43F8A0-CB74-4DE3-A80E-6882DC9BC039.jpeg


I figure it’ll be at least 2-3 years before the vision I have of my tank will be realized.

Behind the tank, I have a 175 gallon sump, a 50 gallon tank divided into 4 sections to grow out live food, and way too much equipment. The system is running without any sort of mechanical filtration or filter socks, in an effort to maximize biodiversity.

BBABC3D8-8695-429B-A615-4A9A25B6B366.jpeg


As far as how I came up with my vision, I spent the last 10 years without a tank due to financial pressures, frequently moving, and my two daughters being born and requiring a lot of hands-on attention. During this time I kept a running PowerPoint presentation of various notes, images, and thoughts about my ideal setup. I read numerous books and articles. My wife leaving me really gave me the time and money to finally make it all happen.

Daydream, plan, and learn...
 
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Shawn_epicurious

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1. What is your vision for your saltwater reef aquarium's future? What does it look like?

SPS dominant with a few clams and a few LPS in the bottom of the tank... and an anemone or two

2. What plans do you have, what are you doing to see the vision become a reality?

I am knee deep in my plan right now. My 200 gallon tank is almost 5 months old... My bioload is fine for now. A healthy sized CUC, 15 Fish and an assortment of softies. My LFS has already agreed to buy all the softies I want him to buy... so... tank needs maturing time. While that is happened I am back in equipment mode. I just bought, Apex a Neptune, Trident, Apex DOS dual stage doing system and a nice Octopus calcium reactor. I have not quite finished getting all of that hooked up and calibrated, but am very close. ...then on to a refugium.... then I am in wait mode until I see some coraline.
B22CB329-F0D0-4D1E-BDD4-216D9BF5589D.jpeg
 
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Victor_C3

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Yeah, tell me about it.

I have a full google slide on what I need, what I want, and the goal of the tank. I have a slide that includes everything I need and the prices of the equipment I am buying. Still not finished but I love researching.

I’m glad I’m not the only one who does that. I have a working PowerPoint presentation where I keep pictures, drawings, and notes about what I’ve learned, liked from other systems, and thoughts and ideas. I revise it quite frequently, but it has ballooned to a 60 slide mess. I’ve been putting my thoughts like this for more than 10 years.
 

Albertan22

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I have a vision of a mixed reef, heavy on the SPS side and heavily stocked with fish. Filtration will be via socks, fuge, skimmer, and an awc system. It’s mostly frags right now and I don’t have the fuge online or the awc. I have everything I need for the fuge but I don’t have the nutrients to warrant setting it up yet. I’m delaying the awc for the same reason. Fish shortages are keeping me from stocking enough fish to get the nutrients up high enough to even warrant water changes. It’s been a struggle to get detectable nitrates.
 

ca1ore

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I have a general vision of where I want my tank to go ….. not static though. Plans vary and adapt. The only thing universally true about any plan/forecast is that it will be wrong ….
 

Mr sikes

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I have a vision of what I think I would like but I'm learning new information everyday(a little overwhelming)this is my first go at coral so as I learn of different corals and care methods for them that vision is always evolving.
 

Opalmoon

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Right now I only have a vision about where I want my tank to go. I want to go from the 20 gallon nano I have to a 65 or 70 something tank. I love looking at the massive aquariums, but I am not dreaming that big. My future may change a lot within the next year or so, so all I can do is envision what I'd like, then when things finally settle down, I can begin planning to make my dreams come true.

I love LPS so I hope to have a tank dominated by LPS and maybe a few SPS, maybe an anemone or two. I love movement and like seeing things change and flow and what a lot of color, so corals are definitely in my future, Elegance, torch and hammerhead corals. At least one bubble tip anemone. Some toadstool. I also want my current corals to be able to thrive and grow.
 

kevin318

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My vision is to built a system that will eventually look like a scaled down version of these two tanks

4E9DB8B3-CCD4-4BA2-BDCD-0A33C67F7D34.jpeg


8F9E1556-D190-490E-9E2F-885C43314E9E.jpeg


Except that I want that built into a 115 gallon 3’ peninsula that is tied beautifully with my apartment.

11 of the 19 fish will be ignitus anthias

E3C8BC96-C833-49B7-A2B6-EA8E5AE0912A.jpeg


And these fish will contrast sharply with the mostly blue, purple, and green Acropora that will dominate my tank. Staghorn corals will he kept on the tops of my rock structure, wile Acropora that grows into bushy and tabling shapes will dominate the middle and lower areas.

So far, this is what I’m looking at after 4 months of a lot of money and work.
CA2878F7-A1BA-4C69-9344-778377591417.jpeg


5C43F8A0-CB74-4DE3-A80E-6882DC9BC039.jpeg


I figure it’ll be at least 2-3 years before the vision I have of my tank will be realized.

Behind the tank, I have a 175 gallon sump, a 50 gallon tank divided into 4 sections to grow out live food, and way too much equipment. The system is running without any sort of mechanical filtration or filter socks, in an effort to maximize biodiversity.

BBABC3D8-8695-429B-A615-4A9A25B6B366.jpeg


As far as how I came up with my vision, I spent the last 10 years without a tank due to financial pressures, frequently moving, and my two daughters being born and requiring a lot of hands-on attention. During this time I kept a running PowerPoint presentation of various notes, images, and thoughts about my ideal setup. I read numerous books and articles. My wife leaving me really gave me the time and money to finally make it all happen.

Daydream, plan, and learn...

I'm impressed, well thought out!
 

Treefer32

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I've got a vision, a plan, and a strategy. The problem, is that individual parts of the plan are tried and true methods. But, combining the individual parts of the plan together, do they equal a good strategy? Or if poorly executed, does the plan fail and not meet the vision?
 

Reefer Reboot

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On my first tanks (before computer/internet days) it was add here, remove there, move this then that , just a never ending mashup. Getting back into this time around we have the benefit of cad programs. So to avoid the previously learned mistakes I did a virtual mock up of the entire setup thinking that would make it easier. Well I still ended up tinkering around with it constantly trying to improve it but now I have to do it in virtual mock up first (even more work!).;Facepalm;Inpain
 

ReefGeezer

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1. What is your vision for your saltwater reef aquarium's future? What does it look like?
Quality SPS dominate reef with as little maintenance as possible.

2. What plans do you have, what are you doing to see the vision become a reality?

Plans... Well, I wouldn't do my best Al Pacino bit about the lack of need for a stinkin' plan, but really, mine keep changing. Just found out the plan for lights I implemented two years ago was a total bust. So, guess what? The new light plan involves the use of a PAR meter and a boat load of cash!
 

kevin318

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I’m glad I’m not the only one who does that. I have a working PowerPoint presentation where I keep pictures, drawings, and notes about what I’ve learned, liked from other systems, and thoughts and ideas. I revise it quite frequently, but it has ballooned to a 60 slide mess. I’ve been putting my thoughts like this for more than 10 years.

I actually bought 8 frags to add to my tank during the sale this weekend R2R off of my plan.
 

Victor_C3

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1. What is your vision for your saltwater reef aquarium's future? What does it look like?
Quality SPS dominate reef with as little maintenance as possible.

2. What plans do you have, what are you doing to see the vision become a reality?
Plans... Well, I wouldn't do my best Al Pacino bit about the lack of need for a stinkin' plan, but really, mine keep changing. Just found out the plan for lights I implemented two years ago was a total bust. So, guess what? The new light plan involves the use of a PAR meter and a boat load of cash!

Money is great for fixing a lot of things in this hobby.
 

Birthisel

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In life, in business, in finances, in your home in whatever you are doing it's good to have a VISION and a PLAN for the future!

What do I mean by vision? If you were to look into the future and see your reef tank, what would you want to see? What would you want it to look like? If you don't have a plan maybe you're just adding fish and corals in more haphazardly. Maybe you've arranged your live rock in a way that won't allow for corals to have room to become a colony? Maybe you've not put together a proper filtration system to allow for that fully fish stocked aquarium to be able to handle the nutrients? If you do have a vision, and you can see it, what will it take to get it there? What do you do now and every day to make the vision a reality?

Whatever your vision may be, without a plan then the vision may perish! So let's talk about that today and if you don't have a vision and a plan maybe today you should start seeing and planning.

1. What is your vision for your saltwater reef aquarium's future? What does it look like?

2. What plans do you have, what are you doing to see the vision become a reality?
 

ReefGeezer

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That is the truth.
Money alone isn't the answer though. If that were the case, I've spent enough money that people would be beating my door down to take pictures of my magnificent reef! My "Planning:" has obviously been based on inadequate knowledge and experience. I guess that comes by trial & error. I should be an expert by now though! Guess I'm kinda slow.
 

Birthisel

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Inspired by the ocean, my goal is to develop a method in which we feed our reef tanks with pulses of live food in the form of plankton which we grow and maintain in the system. So far we have focused in soluble nutrients and chemical parameters, flow, light, temperature, etc., and all of that is essential to a degree, yet we are missing a large part of the natural reef biota, especially plentiful and diverse filter feeders along with the zooplankton and phytoplankton that characterize the majority of biomass in the oceans.
I think that once we succeed, reef keeping will become much more interesting, robust, and simple process- and equipment-wise because the full biodiversity of life is immensely powerful, and ecosystems inherently seek equilibrium, vs. us trying to tweak it into existence by artificial means.
I became especially interested in this aspect a few years ago when I was holding some leftover live rock from my Keys farm. I had two 5 gal buckets of natural seawater and live rock that had never been taken out of the water that I would move from my garage to the driveway every day, leaving them uncovered in the daytime in the dappled sun/shade of a big Sycamore tree beginning in mid May. Working 9-5 in Ohio in those days, all I did was to add top-off water as needed, kept aeration going via PVC lift tubes in each pail, and bringing the buckets into the garage at night or when rain threatened. Temperatures ranged from 60 to 90+ F during the period after which I found a happy buyer, about mid July. I will never forget rapping on the buckets around the 4th of July and seeing the photoplankton sparkling like turquoise embers, same as I see diving the reefs in summer. Various crabs, shrimps, conch, oysters, etc. were alive in the rock after about 9 weeks, and the coralline and sponges looked great, no hair algae, some macro.
On the practical side, the pace of marine biology progress is grindingly slow and expensive, due to the cost and inefficiencies of working in the field. If we can bring a fully functioning reef reliably to the scientists in the lab, we may be able to speed up the pace of work to a degree that could really help save our planet. Meanwhile, I need a bigger boat, weather is getting fierce in FL due to global warming, and the farm is too big to move.
Maybe someone has had success on scaling this, if so I would appreciate any ideas. Dr. Bill Hoffman at the Smithsonian in Ft. Pierce has the closest I have seen to a successful system like this. I am exploring diaphragm pumps (to avoid killing the plankton) to elevate water and already have seen where the turf algae scrubber filters out dead plankton from live. The ubiquitous protein skimmers and high shear pumps are plankton killers from what I have seen.
 

A worm with high fashion and practical utility: Have you ever kept feather dusters in your reef aquarium?

  • I currently have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 66 37.5%
  • Not currently, but I have had feather dusters in my tank in the past.

    Votes: 59 33.5%
  • I have not had feather dusters, but I hope to in the future.

    Votes: 25 14.2%
  • I have no plans to have feather dusters in my tank.

    Votes: 26 14.8%
  • Other.

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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