Does anyone have a Fish Only tank with no LR? I live in Hawaii and I can't get LR or Corals. I am able to get a select few SW fish. But I am just curious on what a tank with out LR looks like. It seems to me like most people have LR in their tank.
Definitely sucks living here sometimes. My fish selection FW and SW is rather small, and I can't order live aquarium items from online. Oh well.
So yeah if I can see pictures of FO tanks with no LR, that would be cool.
I spent the better part of 30 years keeping fish only tanks with no "live rock." While it is true what some of the other posts were referring to that "all rock becomes live rock over time", I understand what you are asking as the live rock being sold today contain many organisms that would not be found if not exposed to the natural ocean environment.
That all being said, there are certain steps you need to take when dealing with fish only tanks without the benefits of these missing organisms. Water quality is an issue that must be dealt with consistantly. Diets need to be supplimented. Lighting is not as much an issue unless you are trying to keep any natural plants in the tank. Hiding places/ shelters need to be provided to make the fish feel at ease in their new home.
All in all, a very nicely decorated tank can be made without the use of natural "live rock." My picture below is of a 75 gal tank I had. (One of the few tanks I have pictures of. lol
) It was formed using Hawaiian Lava Rock as a base structure and supplimented with natural coral decorations. (Now, before anyone jumps on me for using natural coral, these were pieces that have been out of the ocean for over 30 years so they were all taken legally at the time.
) One of the benefits to using natural coral decorations was that the ph and alkalinity remained high in my tanks because if the ph or alki dropped, the calcium carbonate makeup of the natural coral would be released and would bring things back to normal. You can see this in some of my older pieces that were in tanks for many years. They became more smooth over time. The use today of synthetic decorations don't have this ability so that's more work for the aquarist.
You'll notice the corals are densely packed because I had many fish in this tank that liked to hide (Blennies, Gobies, Dottybacks, Angelfish, etc,) The more secure these fish felt, the more out in the open they would be when the lights were on. Just something to think about when you are decorating.
One note: you do need to be mindful of water circulation with a decor like mine. I installed 2 power heads into the mound to insure that water was constantly being circulated. They were not visible from the front view but were easily accessible from above. I used some artificial plants as a guide to show me that the pumps were working. If the plants stopped waving, I knew I needed to check out the powerhead. (These are all just little tricks I learned along the way
)
Hope this helps
