This masterpiece coral aquarium is a reef system belonging to Urbain Appletan, a Belgian reefer who has made somewhat of a name for himself. This same aquarium with a different lighting configuration had already been voted the best reef tank in Belgium, perhaps not a big country but filled with some amazing reef tanks, something that we have heard a lot from Dutch and German aquarists.
This updated video was made in part to highlight Urbain’s switch to all LED lighting provided by 12 AI Sol fixtures. In addition to having excellent results in the switch, Urbain’s reef is simply a work of aquarium art, with beautiful well-chosen livestock. The schools of anthias and fairly passive reef fish are exquisitely backdropped with a perfect background of colorful, growing, thriving corals.
The use of negative, open spaces and contrasting shapes and muted colors of the soft corals adds eye-catching heterogeneity to great effect. We had to watch the video of Urbain’s reef twice; once on the small screen and a second time thrown up on the bog screen to really take it all in. Urbain’s reef tank is approximately 2400 liters, 600 gallons, and the fact that he was able to have such impressive results at this scale is an accomplishment any reefer would be proud of.
