What to use to aquascape

[fish fry]

Hello everyone,
Wow my first post on a new board. I'm looking to get back into salt. The tank is still on the design stages but I'm curious as to what type of tank aquascaping does everyone use.
If I had the money I would love to do LR. But part of the reason I'm doing FO is to keep the cost down a little. As if that's possible in this hobby
Most of the fake corals I've seen look really fake, and the better looking ones are expensive.
I guess that leaves regular rock, or dead corals? Anyone have any good pictures of tanks not using LR? Or does everyone pretty much use LR.
I know a lot will depend on what I want to keep, but I still haven't decided that yet. I've check out a lot of previous posts and I haven't seen this topic. Thanks for all the help.
Tom

 

[mark-24]

Please, don't get bleached coral. It's awful, imo. Would you want a tiger's head mounted on your wall, no. Coral only grows about 1-2 cm a year, so if a piece of coral you have in 4 or 5 inches tall you would have done the same as killing a 10 year old piece of coral. They sad thing is, is that in Austrailia's Great Barrier Reef, there are pieces of coral in upwards of 600 years old. Look around for fake coral, I suggest you get ESU articiall coral, not that much, less than $30 for a piece that is apprx 12"x11" that would have been a 35 year old piece of coral. Also look for Branch's Hand Crafted Coral, Coral Clones, and SigNature Corals.
Here's a list of sites you might want to check out: http://news.fws.gov/issues/coral.html http://coralreef.gov/trade.html http://www.american.edu/ted/CORAL.HTM http://coralreef.gov/pressrel3.html http://www.coralreef.noaa.gov/releases/cr8.html
Please, by purchasing dead/bleached coral, you will eventually be supporting the killing of these magnificent creatures.
-Mark
[ August 30, 2001: Message edited by: Mark-24 ]

 

[aquarius]

I have a 40 gallon f/o with cc and dead coral for decoration and my fish love it. I went with the dead coral because I don't have the money to go with live rock and it seems difficult to keep. The coral I have was previously bleached but after purchasing it I soaked it in buckets of hot water for about a week and changed the water in each bucket twice a day. So far no problems at all and its been 6 months. Remember you don't a million peaces of coral or your gonna restrict swimming room so only get a few large, attractive looking peaces that will provide good cover for your fish. Good Luck!

 

[fish fry]

No I definitely don't want dead coral. Even when I did my reef tank I stuck with only corals that can be sucessfully propogated, and I "tried" to stay with tank raised fish.
Does anyone have any links to good looking fake coral? or pictures of tanks using fake coral? All the ones I've seen can not compare LR.
Thanks
Tom

 

[mark-24]

Here's some pix from the company that makes some of it, so they would only sell wholesale, but they have some great picutres. Also, the coral may appear very virbant and colorful, but when you put it in your tank the water will diffract alot of the color i think, and the lights will wash out the color, not really, but if you put anything under intense lights, it will appear lighter. They have some great pix there and I throughly looked to make sure that they dont sell anything off their site. http://www.aatfabrication.com/advanced/corel.html
-Mark

 

[fender]

Try making your own rock.
Do a search on yahoo for agracrete(not sure how its spelled).
Actually spelled aragocrete.
Basically you mix portland cement, aragonite, CC, and maybe some rubble from a LFS (pretty cheap) and you can make your own rock. You can make it look alot like LR you would buy and it is WAY cheaper. There were some posts about this no too long back and everyone that I have talked to about it that has done it says it is great.
If you seed it with some LR eventually you won't be able to tell the difference.
[ September 02, 2001: Message edited by: fender ]