Saltwater reef aquariums are considered by many to be the ultimate in hobby of keeping fish. No other type of tank can more closely represent a “chunk” of habitat from nature. In addition, the bright, vibrant colors of the fish, corals and other inhabitants make a stunning display when kept correctly.

However, as beautiful as these tanks are, many people steer away from them, fearing they are too difficult and expensive to maintain. While there are certainly enough horror stories to go around about cataclysmic failures of reef tanks, far more are kept successfully, and the odds of this increase tremendously when time is taken to learn about some of the processes that occur in a reef aquarium.

The modern reef is a “thinking” man’s (or woman’s) aquarium. They are marvelously simple to maintain if you understand the ins and outs of keeping a reef. However herein lies the problem; it can take years to learn enough to make it simple. There are more texts written about reefs than any other type of fish tank, and reefs are a hotbed of discussion from local fish stores to chat rooms on the internet. While there is a huge myriad of concepts to learn about reefs, there are some basic ground rules that can be followed to move along the path to simplicity.

First, there are several basic “methods” for keeping a reef tank. Everyone has an opinion about which way works best. The bottom line is that they all will work, given the appropriate conditions to establish them and their on-going maintenance.

The Dutch System uses a trickle or wet/dry filter to accomplish most of the filtration. Live rock is not critical to this type of setup, although it can be used. A protein skimmer may or may not be used as well. The Dutch method was popular in North America throughout most of the 80s and early 90s, but has fallen out of favor since the concept of the Berlin system has caught on.