Largest fish tanks with real coral?

The Cassowary

The Cassowary

Well-Known Member
Most aquariums I know of do not keep real corals in their very large tanks, instead opting for artificial corals. I presume this is because it is probably much cheaper and easier to manage than real corals in tanks of this scale, but I am wondering if there are any aquariums that do house real corals in their very large tanks, and what the largest tanks with teal corals are. I think it would be amazing to be able to see a full-on reef with real corals in an aquarium.
 
The Georgia Aquarium has a very large Indo Pacific tank with over 200 coral species, 164,000 gallons of water, and 90+ species of fish. The main tank is good sized and has great flow and is nutrients rich because the aquarium constantly dumps water in large trouphs into the exhibit.
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The largest living coral reef tank is located in Reef HQ, Townsville, Australia. It is about 2.5 million liters in size, but greatly benefits from it's location next to the open ocean, so it takes it's water directly from the ocean and is open-topped.

The second largest is the one already mentioned in the California Academy of Sciences. The third largest is the coral reef basin in Burgers' Zoo, Netherlands at 750.000 liters, which is likely the most artificial, with "fake" sea water, an artificial moon and dozens of lights, but does a great job in replicating a real reef, being relatively self regulatory when it comes to water quality and feeding compared to the conventional tanks. The tank houses over 100 coral species, ~50 fish species and dozens of invertebrate species and is very effective for the corals, several species have also reproduced naturally, instead of the self-cloning that is the common method in captivity.
 
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