The saltwater aquarium has always been regarded, as the pinnacle of the hobby, and with advancements in equipment, and better knowledge is now as popular as ever. Having a living reef within your dwellings makes for a stunning centerpiece, and easily becomes the focal point of any room. Reefs around the World are in great danger nowadays, and the hobby itself has become a stem to conservation. Aquaculture of corals insures that life on a coral reef survives, if not in the wild, in the captivity of our own homes. This also inhibits the practice of collecting coral from the wild, making sure your hobby is an ethical one.

As beautiful as the reef tank is, there are a number of marine fish species which are detrimental to the reef system and are therefore much better suited to “fish only” tanks. The advantages of fish only tanks is that your choice in fish species becomes much more open, allowing you to keep as many fish as the aquarium size and filtration system allows you to, with regards to waste levels. The harmful ammonia which fish produce adversely affects corals; this greatly limits the number and size of fish that the reef environment can handle. On top of it all, more specialized systems allow you to keep such oddities as Seahorses, and Cephalopods; species that otherwise wouldn’t fair well in community settings. Although marine tanks do take a little more care and maintenance, whether reef or fish only, a well-maintained marine tank will always catch the attention of any onlooker, making it a stunning achievement.