Florida Biotope Resources

[Rene]

Now that the 2006 nano-reef competition is winding down, I thought I’d take a chance to list some of the resources I used to make my Florida biotope tank. I think someone asked me earlier in the competition, but I couldn’t find the post later and didn’t have the time to make a list just then anyway. Hope this helps for anyone interested in Florida/Caribbean biotopes!

 

Books and Magazines

 

Natural Reef Aquariums, John Tullock – This has two whole extensive chapters on the Florida Keys/Carribean, and also the Gulf of Mexico. Great!

 

AFM Nov. 1998 “Biotopes for the Marine Aquarium: The Caribbean”, Scott Michael – Good descriptions of the habitats and typical corals

 

AFM Dec. 1998 “Biotopes for the Marine Aquarium: Marine Biotopes”, Scott Michael – Fish suggestions for these habitats

 

Reef Fishes: Vol. 1, Scott Michael – This has some good information scattered through it. A large section before the fish encyclopedia covers all kinds of biotopes, and under the Serrannus section, there’s also suggestions for an atlantic biotope. Volume 2 has information on gramma species and biotope tank suggestions. All of the books published so far are also generally useful for looking up the typical habitat of any fish, Caribbean or otherwise!

 

The Reef Set, Human and Deloach -- Some of my favorites for getting ideas of what’s out there and what it looks like. These are good books for getting pictures of local organisms as well as information on where they’re found, how deep, and what habitat. Not to be missed! This is actually three different books, “Reef Creature Identification”, “Reef Coral Identification” (it also covers plants and algae), and “Reef Fishes Identification”.

 

Marine Plants of the Caribbean, Littler, Bucher and Norris – Of interest to the plant keepers. Many Florida habitats have a lot of plant material, and this is a good guide for details and pictures.

 

In all these books, there are a lot of closeup pictures of the organisms, and very few distance shots which give you an idea of what the habitat looks like. For that, pick up a diver’s guide to the area. I can’t remember which ones I’ve used, but many of them also have some information on fish and corals of the area, water temperatures, turbidity and lighting and other useful information.

 

Online

Florida Museum of Natural History Ichthyology Department – a GREAT set of basic pages on Florida marine habitats, covering both the bay areas and the keys areas. A few decent pictures. A few organism lists telling you what’s common in the area.

 

Saltyzoo Photo Logs

For pictures of the habitats, the collections I liked best were all dive pics on saltyzoo. Many other sites have pictures, but many only have a few, or only feature close-ups of organisms. These three were some of my favorite pages. Make sure to view the whole gallery.

Gallery 1

Gallery 2

Gallery 3

 

There are plenty of others online and I may list some later, but this should be a good starting point for anyone who’s curious about US native reefs. Happy reefing!

[SeeDemTails]

Cool post!

 

Gimmie some please!!!