hey guys so over on Nano-reef.com they are having a contest for new nano tanks. tank has to be dry right now but can be filled as soon as you post a thread with a FTS of your dry tank with an object of your choosing in it.
im gonna be doing it (thinkin a 20l) and i thought it might be fun to include some of you…especially those of you who were just talking about tanks on the 1$ petco sale…ohh yea 40breeders are allowed even tho they are like 46 gallons
im breaking down and modding my Solana this week and completely overhauling it and was stoked about this post…after reading it though im not so stoked…
maybe im missing something, but whats the point of any contest if you can pretty much take the entire contents of another tank and put it in your nano? whats the contest? who has the best big display tank that they can use to fill their nano? >LOL< i dont get it. also sort of defeats the purpose of a monthly FTS. i could leave my tank empty for the entire year, take FTSs of an empty tank, and then the last month fill it up with trick colonies from my DT.
eh, if they had the stipulation of frags only and growth shots i would be “bout it bout it”!! >LOL<
Man, I had managed not to spend too much time on the forum for a while. You guys had to bring up something I couldn’t resist commenting on…
Thinking about this. Especially after Shawn’s post. I agree and disagree with some of the points above. Talking about this contest could actually turn into a VERY interesting reef discussion.
I have to respect that they stepped away from the fts, single fish/coral, macro shot categories and came up with a unique contests.
I didn’t realize it was a year long competition when I first read it.(Actually I don’t have much time this month or next to put anything together so that is why I originally dismissed personally getting involved)
One extreme:
If you were to set up a tank fully and then not be allowed to move the rocks for a year or add any corals for a year, and it was the only tank you could afford would you really even be a hobbyist? No trading, fragging, no additions, no changes… Having to show pictures of the frags with growth pics every month all the way up to the final product in a year might be a cool contest, but it would exclude the MANY reefers and many reefers would back out or give up on it when they tire of the rock scape, get over run with a pest, or have to have that animal they just saw on some website or LFS. I can agree for those people that could stick through it that would be cool to see images through a whole year and see what people came up with. It is just about impossible to come find with any kind of decent time lapse photography of a tank grow out. That would be pretty freaking cool.
The other extreme:
One thing you have to realize is what many FTS shots online are. They are very often a picture immediately after an upgrade.(ESPECIALLY in America) Can’t tell you how many of the tanks featured in ReefKeeping magazine have somewhere in the text, “this 300g tank was an upgrade from the 200g system I had running for two years until I did the swap last monthâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ, or something similar. Perfect example, Bonzai Tree inspired Aquascape. Shawn and I both said about a year ago this was one of our favorite threads. Take a look at the before and after. The linked build thread shows water in the tank on 9/29/2007, upgrade to the shots we loved 1/5/2008. This rock scape was truly inspirational even though it was likely only set up for a matter of days or a week or so before the photos were taken. There might be 1 in every 50 million people in the planet that would stand in front of that tank at that time and say, “I doubt it’s sustainable, we’ll see if you can keep up with it, at this point I’m not impressed.†If your note impressed you’re a ……
Where is the compromise?
Well the last thread linked about was sweet, now… you might argue is just as, or even more, impressive. This tank still looks cool and I have to say the creator of the tank deserves even more props for his tank because he was able to sustain what he created for more than a couple of weeks. Take a look at a tank we ALL should know, newbies to reefing might want to start another thread to discuss why, this Japanese Style Soft Coral Reefscape would be VERY difficult and possibly impossible to sustain in its’ current condition. While the first video is newer it only has a quarter of the amount of people approving of the video(in the form of YouTube’s “likesâ€ÂÂÂÂÂÂÂ). Taking this into consideration…
While I agree as a … no other way of putting it, a hard core/ live to keep reefs hobbyist, there is a certain validity to a tank that is sustainable. At the same time you can’t take away from the beauty of these other tanks or the skill involved in a well laid out, designed, and rock scaped tank. Xenia, anthelia, GSP, mushrooms, palys, and yellow polyps are simply beautiful. Yeah once they are put in place they fill in their space in a week, and would require constant pruning to keep from reaching the eventual mono-crop. It is true the few if any people would keep a tank filled to the rim with these corals for long and keep it as attractive as it was before things become massively overgrown, but for a short time it is amazing and unlike anything else on this planet.
It would be pretty bad to see the winner of the contest linked above to be a 10g tank that was just full of rock for an entire year and then all of a sudden filled to the rim with deep sea yellow and red gorgonains, sponges, carnation corals, and coral cat fish. Seriously could be beautiful for a couple of hours for some high res photos with actinic lighting, but would be a pretty crappy thing if hundreds of hobbyist voted on it as a prize winning tank.
Added comment/vent:
I’ve seen tanks set up such as beautiful custom acrylic systems with beautifully handcrafted wooden stands, or zero edge aquariums with lighting suspended from the ceiling, or 300g aquariums with massively large filtration systems in the basement… Ok the day 1-7 pictures were amazing and the potential! Oh, the potential… but then… death. Set up by self proclaimed “professionals", that couldn’t even keep clownfish and leathers alive, or damsels! This would be another type of contestant I REALLY would not like to see win a contest like that.
How do you make the nonphoto, venomous animal, set up in a day and won’t live 48hours tank illegal, but make the bonze inspired reef legal? While it might sound simple it wouldn’t be easy to define the slippery sloop between. Maybe a certain percentage of animals had to have remained in the tank the entire time and those running contest push that people should vote on something that was sustainable the entire time and now empty for 11 months? Perhaps a better solution would be to select a very knowledgeable unbiased board of judges to select the top 5 and the rest of the board can vote on the winner.
Lots to think about, regardless, I think I’m going to try to enter.
I was already planning to do my new build before this contest but i was planning on entering it just for fun. I really like the idea of contests but sometimes they just dont work, either the rules are too strict or not strict enough. I dont know how fair this contest is going to be because there is no budget limit and no growout period. Which means that whoever has the most money or another really nice display tank is going to win, not necessarily because they are a skilled reefer but because they can spend enough money to put really cool stuff in and get it to last long enough to take some nice pics. I have seen some other contests done by nano-reef that seemed really nice. There was a specific size tank you had to use and they usually had a stock category and a custom category. The stock category usually had a budget or at least limitations to what you could put on a tank. Custom is just fun because then you can go crazy and do whatever you want and keep people interested. I feel like the stock categories of contests really show the true skill of a reefer. When everyone is using the same 10 gallon tank and the same amount or type of lighting it really proves how big a role husbandry plays in a reef tank. Pretty much everyone has access to the internet now days so everyone pretty much has access to the same corals, just maybe not at the same prices.
I agree, i also dont believe this competition is going to go that way. I dont think someoen is gonna stock a tank in the last month, i believe it will be fair, and be more of a grow out comp…
while i agree on some of these points and dissagree on others, im mearley just using this contest as a reason to set up another tank ;D
i do agree that this could go either way but hey…deep down do you really care if you were going to set up a tank soon anyway or were looking for an excuse to set up another tank. why not just do it for S’s and G’s and see what happens.
for me im using this as a lighting experiment. as most of you know my tank is run soley on LEDs, so im gonna use this opportunity to use more conventional lighting methods (prob T5ho or VHO) and test my main system against it.
and if i win a few frags out of it from Pismo_reefer (one of the sponsors of the comp) then that’ll be icing on the cake…cause damn that guy has some nice stuff and he is very generous.
i wasnt suggesting that someone would throw a tank together in the last minute i was merely pointing out that it was allowed by the rules. the emphasis of the contest seems to be on the “reefer’s skills” yet i dont see how thats going to be the case at all.
Jon - i wasnt suggesting that the tank couldnt constantly be tweaked throughout the year or have livestock added only that adding colonies shouldnt be allowed.
i think the emphasis should be put on system building, then livestock selection/placement, then husbandry and in that order.
if anyone is going to sign up ill follow and vote for you!
[quote=“logans_daddy, post:11, topic:3091”]
i think the emphasis should be put on system building, then livestock selection/placement, then husbandry and in that order.[/quote]
That would define the type of reefer you are very well. You love the DIYS, gadgets, top of the line, technical, automatic, set ups. You would love a contest that puts system construction and lay out above husbandry.
To me, I don’t care how many gigs of ram are in your computer or how high def your monitor is, if you only have a DOS operating system with white text on a black screen it’s not yet impressive. If you have a 30’ tall skimmer that would strip every ounce of crap out of the water with every cycle through it, it is really pointless if you only have a single damsel in your tank.
eh, you misunderstood what i was saying. the order was chronological. not by importance.
You would love a contest that puts system construction and lay out above husbandry.
hmmmm. really? what makes you say that?
To me, I don't care how many gigs of ram are in your computer or how high def your monitor is, if you only have a DOS operating system with white text on a black screen it's not yet impressive. If you have a 30' tall skimmer that would strip every ounce of crap out of the water with every cycle through it, it is really pointless if you only have a single damsel in your tank.
Misunderstood that it was chronological not importance.
What I was saying in the end if you have a seemingly kick @ set up, but can’t keep anything alive it’s pointless. As ponies stated above if you took two reefers and gave them the same tank and lights then you can better see who is the better hobbyist vs two very different set ups. Or like I described the 300g set up above with a massive filtration room and top of the line equipment, but the people taking care of the tank couldn’t keep tangs, frogspawn, or colt coral alive. Set up looked awesome, but the cloudy FTS a week later due to death of corals wasn’t really impressive.
Tried to use a computer analogy to bring it home. If you had an amazing super gaming computer that didn’t do anything, but run DOS or allow you to play atari games such as pong it wouldn’t be as impressive as a less powerful computer that actually played some cool games. If the importance was more on the set up then what you could do with it.
