Artificial Decorations? Yes? No?

[SWnewby]

Ok so when we had a freshwater tank, we had this piece of log, that was fake.

And im not looking to put real coral in my saltwater tank just yet, (want to be alittle more expierience before i do that), and i was at PetCo, and i saw that they had aritifical coral,

So my question is, can i put those kinds of things in my saltwater tank? Or will the salt eat the paint off? Here is what they look like......

PETCO Blue Brain Coral Aquatic Décor at PETCO
^ that is the coral i was takling about

Top Fin® Dark Driftwood Ornament - Décor - Fish - PetSmart
^ and that is the driftwood!


Thank you!

-Jen

 

[mfdrookie516]

you can, but they end up looking nasty after a while... natural stuff looks way better imo

 

[Mitchell0605]

IMO if your going to put any decor in a SW tank put something that would be found on the ocean floor. As I said in another thread my LFS did a 4x2x2 with a large shipwreck in it. Looked fantastic. Check out this thread. This person is using a plane wreck: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f71/starting-up-my-first-sw-55g-126384.html

 

[nxb161]

I see you don't want to put real coral as in "live coral" yet, but why not some real "dead" coral. Last time I was at the beach I spent time looking through the water and took dead coral, shells, driftwood, and sea glass. Of course as the tank cycled I got a nice film of algae covering them that is now starting to be cleaned up by my crew )

 

[Innovator]

I would want to examine the fake decor for cheap paint and also soak the decor in saltwater (50ppt-100ppt) and then bleach them to see how they hold up. If they begin wearing I wouldn't trust their chemical make-up and could possibly be toxic if ingested. Most companies are getting better about this at least. You could very well use coral skeletons (dead coral), but then again using dead coral skeletons this day in age is rather taboo and imo not exactly what you want to show off.

 

[SWnewby]

the only problem i have with using dead coral, is that the only fish store i've seen it at, it has been extremely expensive, like..over 100 dollars for a medium sized piece...ill probably end up just putting more live rock in it than i was thinking, and then see how that goes, then probably get some coral

 

[roka64]

$100 is way too high for "dead" coral. Are you sure it's isn't a coral frag?

 

[thincat]

Fake is okay like roka stated, do the test he mentioned and it should be okey. The problem is that they get covered with algae and look pretty bad after awhile. I posted this picture in another thread. This is my Clarkii clown hosting a silicone "Green Rubber Tip" fake anemone. I have to remove the fake when I do a PWC to clean off the algae. This is done twice a month and becomes a real pain.