Our Garden Gate

Posts Tagged ‘yellow leather coral’

Mushroom anemones with pink coralline algae on rocks

Once, years ago, when we were having dinner in a New Orleans restaurant, I was mesmerized by a very large reef tank that was located near our table. I could barely take my eyes from it, it was so beautiful. With the beautiful rock formations and the colorful corals growing on them, it looked like an underwater garden. There was a variety of colorful fish gliding by, but they seemed insignificant compared to the corals. I was smitten.

A few years passed and then one day we passed a reef tank shop and stopped in. There was a large, used tank set up (80 gal. tank, solid oak stand, sump pump and tank) for sale, and since it seemed so cheap we bought it, with the idea of gradually building up an  reef tank. We later learned that the tank is the cheapest component, and the “live” sand and “live” rocks to be added, more than doubled the cost of the tank set up. This was all before special lighting, super charged filter systems, chemicals and a large complicated chemical testing kit. (I know nothing about chemistry but thankfully, the whole thing was color coded.)

Green closed brain coral

The reef tank shops mostly sell “frags” which are fragments of living corals that have been broken off during storms etc. These are then attached to the “live” rock (live because it has many organisms and creatures living in it that will eventually reveal themselves) and if the conditions are right, the corals will grow and spread or multiply. In the shops there may be very large corals for sale that they have allowed to grow in their tanks, but of course these will cost much, much more than the frags.

clown fish and yellow tang in salt water aquarium with purple coralline algae

These are some of the pictures of the corals in our tank. We had very few fish, because we were mainly interested in the corals. We enjoyed this underwater garden for a number of years but because of so many hurricanes (3 in one season) shutting off our power for prolonged periods, we lost most of our corals. We sold the whole setup to someone who was just as happy to get it as we had been.

Red open brain coral

I still miss that reef tank.

Long-nose hawkfish and green open brain coral

variety of Euphylias with purple coralline algae on rocks

Salt water aquarium with corals and fish

Red open brain coral

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