OMG! I hear sirens!

[AJ_77]

Just curious, but what would you guys take out of that tank to make it acceptable? If it had a few less fish and items of questionable taste, would it pass muster? Are there visible health issues, or is it the long-term effects of over-crowding and bad aquascaping that cause the alarm?

Is the fact that they have what looks like a large pipe organ skeleton a concern? Do you suppose that as one colony is lost to negligence, another is added? Isn't this sort of thing what keeps MO's and LFS's in business? How many corals are sold week after week to replenish systems like this, and systems like our own?

I agree that as conscionable aquarists we should be "trying to create the most natural looking environment as possible," but when you seen a natural reef, the scope and the wonder of it, isn't it plain that we're fooling ourselves? Even a really good public aquarium, while it gives us a brief thrill, tugs keenly at the nagging frustration of our separation from the source of such beauty.

I guess I'm wondering if we have any rightful say in what others do in their quest for their own piece of "beautiful reef." I love my own tiny water-box; it's a fistful of paradise.

Cheers,

AJ