livestock planning

[goshel]

Greetings!
I'm getting underway with my first attempt at a reef tank. 8O I've kept assorted FW tanks for a while now. The goods: 80 gal tank, w/external overflow to 30 gal sump(old tank) 85 lbs of live rock, 100lbs sand, AquaC EV120 in sump skimmer powered by Rio 2100, second rio 2100 as return pump, 3 Maxijet 900 powerheads, 2 200watt ebo Jager heaters, self built canopy with 2 55W PC actinics, 1 250W 6500K MH. I have plans to add another MH as soon as I can get a little more cash.
I'd like to add SPS and LPS corals down the road. I'd kinda like to try and stay within a single biotope as closly as possible. (althogh I haven't definitively decided on which one yet) I'd also like to try and purchase aquacultred livestock as much as possible. I just started cycling my tank, so I have time to do some more research. My question is this: Does anyone have a suggestion as to a good biotope to try and emulate that I might be able to find aquaculted livestock for? Thanks!
-Greg

 

[Anonymous]

Welcome to RDO.

May I suggest Florida/Carribean? First, you can get the aquacultured live rock, and you can get some color coral such as Ricordia floridia easily in past few months. There are other SPS coral that you can stock you tank with too.

 

[Len]

I believe Walt Smith is not exporting aquacultured Fiji Rock as well. It's not hard to create a S.pacific biotope that is fully captive bred. Captive orals are very easy to come by nowadays, with fish being the greatest limitation (gobies, clownfish, and basslets being the only one available).

I prefer Pacific biotopes, mainly because of the diversity in corals. Caribbean hard corals are off limits :?