Blog Comments

Corals are looking amazing....

Wow, that last picture shows how cramped they are in the 215

Very Beautiful. I like last fish shot.... Love anthies.

Beautiful, Marc!

Happy New Year Marc,
Kudos to you and your helpers to not have shared it online before giving the manufacturer the time to fix their mistake. we're all humand in the end and mistakes happen. I'm glad they didn't reship and fix it on their expense as I honestly would doubt that a tank thats disassembled and reasmbled 3 tmies would last long. microcracks would happen for sure even with the best care.
In the end as you said you'll look at that tank for the next 10 years so what's a couple of months!!!
Now that tank would fit exactly in my cabinet, only wish shipping wasn't that expensive!!!
what the heck you've been through a lot lately so Id say treat yourself with 2x400 tanks hooked to the same sump.
I'

Wow, what an ordeal.

Wow.Well at least you don't have to return it.Thanks for the update Marc.

My hat is off to you Marc for keeping this whole tank issue on the high road you could have easily made this into huge black mark for Marineland, doing the hobby no good. Also on the positive side at least you will probably be able to help someone else get a great tank that has been on the fence of doing an upgrade. Only wish I lived closer as it may have been me

Happy for you but I can't believe they don't have any supervision when building their tanks. Glad they stepped up to the plate and made it right for you. You have a lot of patience.

I'm happy they are doing the right thing, but sorry its going to take longer. Happy New Year!

I'll give ya a bottle of Crown for it.

WOW words couldnt explain for me.

That's awesome

Originally Posted by cyano

I have always wondered if since tank raised corals are more hardy could we actually transplant them back into the ocean with them being more capable of handling the changing climate? and potentially more hardy against human contaminates? or is it all going to die and we are in turn keeping the futures past alive in our homes?

My concern is the opposite if we were to seriously consider transplantation back into the wild. By "natural" selection of whatever survives in our tanks, we've selected for traits in corals that are adapted to thrive in our aquariums, but make them maladapted to ocean conditions and a changing climate. We have a near constant 78-80°F temperatures year-round, running skimmers, carbon, GFO, LEDs, with the lack of human waste products, tides, predators and possibly diseases...we're on the path towards domesticating our corals like what happened to dogs and cats. Variation is the fuel for evolution, and we've diminished that variation to the relative handful of coral lines that look fantastic in our tanks. Then theres's the issue that Gram has brought up.

Restoration projects I've read about try to raise wild-captured coral larvae for transplantation. There also is a project (I can't recall the name) to cryogenically preserve wild corals, the key element is that they're sampling a wide diversity of corals, increasing the odds of capturing the genetic variation that may be needed to survive future climate.

Been waiting a long time for this post!

That is interesting, I did that surgery on a figure 8 puffer but it didn't swallow a clam, it had a large tumor growing inside it's gut and he also stopped eating. The fish was a little over an inch long. After the surgery that I did in a few minutes being I didn't put the fish to sleep, I had to force feed him for a week, then he got up from the bottom and resumed his normal routine. He lived another 8 or 12 years (I forget as it was 35 years ago)

I can understand the concern with that Gram but if it comes down to no corals in our oceans and potentially introducing an invasive species then we have one tough decision on our hands. I do think though that the benefit of an aquarium propagation to transplant allows us to monitor the corals to see whether they are clean before a potential transplant.

melev I love that corals are not all being pulled from the oceans and one reefers success is another reefers beginning and the propagation and continued hardiness of corals to the reef aquarium hobby can do nothing but help the continued survival of corals in nature.

Sadly, I just learned that Bubba didn't make it after all. How unfortunate considering the level of care that was administered to him.

There is always that potential issue, but at this stage we are doing much better at propagating corals to share amongst ourselves and not taking from the oceans. Later, we may be rebuilding reefs like the Coral Reef Restoration Project in Florida. Another quarantine method could be employed prior to exporting them to the wild.

I think one of the biggest concerns about transplanting captive corals from our aquariums back into the ocean is the same issue we typically are concerned with when putting something from the ocean into our aquariums; what else are we bringing with the coral? Are we bringing critters not native to the area, or even some disease from another part of the world that that area has never seen?