New Fish

[BlueAbyss]

Originally Posted by WuHT

Corals look the same to me.

I suppose this is the difference between a pet owner and a gardener.

One can be both a pet owner and gardener... most reef tank owners seem to tend toward the gardener side, with beautiful aquascaping, colorful corals, etc. Those that don't have FOWLR tanks, where the fish involved would simply devour any and all invertebrates, and the aquascaping is lower-key but since the focus is the fish anyhow, this is rarely an issue.

All aquarists are both to some extent however... we want the best for the creatures in our glass boxes, but also want the tank to be attractive. The difference is in the pets... Chihuahua that eats plankton or German Shepard that eats chihuahuas? The chihuahua will do little damage to your garden, but a german shepard can destroy said garden in minutes.

Originally Posted by my2rotties

I am not at this same level of experience to even be able to make much comment aside of the tank and fish are beautiful. As an observation from gardening though, we pick back buds, stems and stalks to enocourage more growth from our plants. We divide plants to allow them space to grow or they snuff themselves out. If we pick back one bud, two will grow back in its place. If we divide one plant we can make two or more, since it is not fighting for space and food.

Could it be possible that adding this fish to his tank will be beneficial to the corals growing in it, since the fish is essentially doing what a gardener does to promote growth? I dunno, it's just a newbie observation and I have no proof or knowledge that it might happen, but it could.

I noticed the parallels between the two hobbies in the first 5 seconds of having a freshwater tank years ago... corals and many other marine organisms are just too similar to plants in many ways to not see other parallels. That's why I'll be mixing corals and plants in my reef