Water conditioning by marine invertebrates kept in refugia can help understanding of complex marine ecosystems.
Marine Aquaria
Ret Talbot has already written several articles about ‘Biotope Tanks’ (see Biotope-Based Marine Aquaria, Setting Up a Simple Refugium, Growing Mangroves for Aquarists, Marine Aquarium Biotoping, and The Display Refugium ), and he plans to write more. These are specific ‘how-to’ articles which suggest that hobbyists experiment with the ideas.
Ecological Studies
Each time a new refugium is set up something will be learnt. The experiment might succeed, or it might fail in some respect and lead to either a re-think or modification. This is all valuable information, and it would be good if these experiences could be shared. I have started a discussion forum to allow this sharing of ideas which follows on from the suggestion in my own article ‘Biotopes and Habitats’ that hobbyists can contribute significantly to our understanding of reef systems.
Sharing Information
There are thousands (maybe millions?) of people who keep marine aquaria around the world. If only a few of these experiment carefully with the idea of ‘biotope-based refugia’ much could be learnt. Hobbyists have great enthusiasm and persistence, (it is often said that people work harder at their hobby than their ‘day-job’!), and if only a few of those who experiment share their experiences we could get onto an exponential learning-curve.
So – if you try something new tell the rest of us how it went by adding a comment in the discussion forum.
