Are Single-Species Tanks Considered Biotopes?

[johnmaloney]

Given that, who defines the 'area'? Organisms from a single bay or an individual patch reef will usually be identical to organisms found in a similar location often hundreds of miles away. Is a location-based biotope no longer a biotope if it goes beyond the scope of an island chain (eg, Hawaii or the Florida Keys) and instead encompasses an entire sea - as in, an Indo-Pacific or Caribbean biotope? Who makes the distinction, and is the distinction even relevant?

 

no your right. it isnt the same to have just species from the same ocean, better is they were from the same habitat, although I don't think it has to be the same exact, just same type. Patch Reefs and Patch Reefs, Bays and Bays etc... I don't think they need to representative though. Otherwise there would be mostly FOWLR type critters.

[AdrianBryce]

Say there is a blenny that is endemic to a certain island chain, like Vanuatu. If you design a tank based on this fish, it will include exactly the same rock, coral, algae and other organisms as most other Indo-Pacific locales, the only exception being the blenny. So, the blenny makes it a Vanuatu biotope. Take the blenny out, and it's an Indo-Pacific biotope, right?

 

I see what you're saying, but my point is that the distinction is arbitrary. You say tomato, I say... well you get the idea.

 

 

Yeah, I agree with this. If you get the blenny from Vanuatu and the other stuff from an island chain 500 or a 1000 miles away, and all the other stuff is endemic to Vanuatu, then I think you can call that a Vanuatu biotope. Because each thing can be represented there. If you do all this and put anything that from that distant chain that doesn't appear in Vanuatu, it loses it's title. If you took 20 "things" from twenty different areas in the indo pacific, each represented only in their respective collection sites, you technically have an Indo Pacific or whatever ocean/sea "biotope". I think that is a little broad to wear the title biotope. And then like the other person said, you have completely different areas of a reef and organisms that only apprear on the fringe/lagoon/barrier/etc. to deal with when constructing a biotope. LOL. I think we are agreeing.

[KMG]

link!!!!!! I love those things, have seen a million of them, but never allowed to take one home....link!!!

 

That is one of those Carrib fans/ pac. xenia/pac. dottyback/carrib. cleaner shrimp biotopes with the different coral thing. I think you may have stretched it as far as it goes with that tank. Everyone does though.

 

Yeah, I did. LOL

 

I actually ended up having to scrap this one...the Xenia crashed, and the Stereonephthya, while partially photosynthetic, were getting too much light under my MH bulb and started bleaching. I'd never kept them before--it was an experiment, and it didn't work out. Such is the life of an aquarist.

 

I donated them and the sea fan to a friend of mine who manages a coral farm. Now I have the couple colonies of orange M. digitata that I'd kept, and my Jakarta live rock, and my Halimeda, and I actually like how simple it looks...now I'm thinking of getting a pair of Banggais and having a Banggai tank (one of their habitats in the wild is among branching corals, including digitata). At least all the corals and rock and fish would be Indonesian, right? (Except for the dottyback!)

 

Links to the AC sea fans currently on offer at DD. Pricey (I only got one because I had a large chunk of credit with them), but really nice:

DD sea fan #1

DD sea fan #2

[johnmaloney]

they really do! Wow...I wonder if I can possess it in Florida... frag will have to do I guess. If they stumble across a colony let me know while I debate this frag.... you are awesome by the way for the link I really appreciate it.