Tell me guys, ive noticed for many years now that people really dont know when to stop adding to their tanks. Theres some dark mysterious force fueling the constant drive to add more rock, more sand, more corals, more fish ect ect.
I'll ask a reflecting question thats addressed to all of you that care to listen
> have you ever reached that pivital point in your reefing career where you look into your tanks thats wall to wall with rock & lifestock & ask yourself

'did i over do it somewhat'?

I've seen so many examples, examples even on this site where there's so much displacment with rock that in reality the free swimming areas are seriously compromised. And an unspoken notion that we need to create a reef wall of sorts in order to have a reef setting in the first place. After seeing thousands of tanks there is only a very small handfull that are both spacious & well designed in placement to have a last effect on my memory.

Im not attacking anyone or being critical of your ways or choices. All im asking is that you at least give it some thought. http://www.alexander-oberg.de/smileys/hiiillfe_2.gif

Where some see beauty, i see over kill
http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/images/greatreeftanks_saxby.jpg

I agree, I think alot of aquirums have way to much stuff or stuff that shouldnt belong. During my night of surfing the net looking for info i have seen pictures of peoples tank and all i can think of is they need to split that tank up into three diferent tanks . Speaking for myself it was hard for me to stop adding corals but i realized that i will have issues later in the tanks life and i dont want to put anything threw that so i traded off some frags and sold some fish.. I think people need to realize that there tank isnt going anywhere and the corals will just keep getting bigger and overtake the coral next to it. Or they need to think about researching fish before they add them to there tank.. Im done rambling :) lol

I simplified it, I made a list of everything I wanted and went thru the list 5 or 6 times deleting things that don't get along. I ended up with 5 SPS corals left on the list 1 LPS a few Zoanthinds (ok like 5 but I can frag them out to friends) 3 softies, 1 clam, 2 shrimp, and 4 fish. That may sound like a bunch but it's 75g with 30g refugium and a stand alone frag tank for when things get a bit too big. Here is the key to it and I must admit the hardest part.

STICK TO YOUR LIST!

out of the 50something views already, im glad both of you have a voice. im not just interested in hearing the supportive views though, throw you view point in general, cause this current thinking is imbeded in all of us, i think its time to set it free.:sick:

You know I was thinking the same thing when I attacked my aqua scape this go round. When I first set the tank up the info I had was fill it with as much live rock as you can. So I did. I haven't been happy with the way it looks. I wanted to change things around but was afraid to touch it since everything was happy. I ended taking out about 15-20 lbs. and put it in the sump. I tried to open it up a bit. I am still not happy but it's progress.

Before:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/PonderosaSnakeHouse/Saltwater/PICT1795.jpg

After:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v669/PonderosaSnakeHouse/Saltwater/PICT1832.jpg

Next project is to either add a DSB or take it all out. I am still on the fence about this one.

He,he I guess I'm a typical overdoer:cool:

I agree things can be overdone! When I first started my current tank there were tons of opportunities to get free or cheap frags from my reef club. So I went bezerk adding things!

I think a lot of people overdo things because they don't have a plan, which is what happened in my case. Of course for some people it is fine to not have a plan and they are perfectly happy with it. Not trying to knock that :D

Then I started planning and realizing a lot of the things I had weren't compatible or were not as important as some other things I didn't have. So after almost 2 years of being up I'm currently exporting corals left and right to make room for my desirable corals.

I also recently decided to attempt to breed corals, so now I have to make even MORE room so I can have multiple genotypes of each coral I'm trying to breed. I'm currently down to 15-18 "species" of coral and need to reduce that even further.

Personally I think it is all part of that strong desire to tinker with our setups that many people seem to have :D

Brian