Artificial reef and corals?

[kien]

I have lots of bright fake corals in my son's fresh water tank. He absolutely loves them because they look cool to him and in the end that's all that really matters.

[mrhasan]

There are people who have way too much money and want something which looks awesome but with least maintenance. And for them, FOWLR with fake corals exists along with ATM. And if they ripoffs and have bad reputation (like overstocking leading to dead fishes), people wouldn't be going back to them for business; as simple as that. These are millionaires and billionaires and if ATM messed with them, they would have more lawsuits than apple-samsung patent war.

[Reef_Geek]

There's also what's feasible.

This is a photo of the 27 foot deep main display at the Florida Aquarium in Tampa, where I used to volunteer as a diver/algae scrubber.



There's no feasible way to have a real reef. Think of the lighting, skimming, and labour intensity required, as well as fish disease management... if it were real corals. Just not feasible. Public zoo and aquarium standard practices is to use fabricated displays. There are a few large live coral reefs as well, but those are very ambitious and rare exceptions. I saw this one at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta (the one with whale sharks), kudos for accomplishing this display, but it's rare to see the really big tanks go with live corals.



more details on what's involved in this live reef display: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2008-03/feature/index.php

[Myka]

Daniella, that orange sponge looks great! You have me thinking...I have always liked sponges.