50 http://www.ultramarinemagazine.co.uk

Trans-Atlantic

Reefing

Observations on US and European

Approaches to Reef-keeping

In the past, when I came to

Europe, learned things and

then passed them on to my

friends in the States, I could

not help but notice that there

was a sense of competitive-

ness that my US friends felt.

This no doubt came from the

feeling that, since reef tanks

had been around longer in

Europe, “we” were signifi cantly

behind them in our technol-

ogy and the products that we

had available. In this regard,

at that time, many meetings

here brought in speakers from

Europe to share their method-

ologies in the hope that they

would reveal their “secrets”, and

that would help us to become

as successful as they were. As

a result, over the years the gap

between successful European

reef-keeping in Europe and the

Having been able to travel to Europe since the mid-1990’s, I have been very fortunate

in that the focus of many of these trips was to observe what my European counterparts

were (and are) doing in the hobby. I will not pretend that I have been to every country

but generally, it has been my observation that there still are signifi cant diff erences in

how things are done in each. All may seem successful, but from my point of view, the

hobbyists in each country are all doing things just lightly a little diff erently. During my

travels, I try to learn what each one does best and then try to incorporate these ‘best bits’

into what I am doing with my own tanks.

States has narrowed. Also, with

the advent of the internet, in

my opinion there is now much

more of a sense of the ‘common

good’ and working together

than there was in the past.

However there still are signifi -

cant diff erences between how

reef-keeping is practiced in

the US versus how things are

done in Europe. Again, I do not

want to generalise and these

Images and text by Mike Paletta

observations are my opinion,

but I did ask my friends to

confi rm my observations. The

most signifi cant of these in my

opinion is how most Europeans

approach the hobby versus

how it is approached here.

While both camps are passion-

ate and want to have beautiful,

colourful and thriving tanks,

overall approaches are subtly,

yet signifi cantly, diff erent.