Well, I posted this on another thread, but since it is being discussed here too...........
Why scrape it? Only reason I see to scrape the coralline off is on the viewable sides of a tank, like the sides and the front. Why do people scrape the back wall?
Ive got coralline growing on top of coralline on the back wall. It wont grow on the sides and front because it doesnt have a chance to from me using the mag float on it often.
I know some people like the look of a clean back wall, but why? All those hoses/power head cords and such showing....thats what is ugly for me to see when I see someones tank with cleaned up back walls. Sumps are used to hide equipment, no? Well, if you are going to go through all that trouble to hide stuff but not do anything to hide the rest of the ugliness, whats the point?
Personally, I wont tell you your tank looks good if I see cords and hoses and drain pipes and the like blaring at me when I look at the tank no matter what the scape looks like cause that stuff is an eye sore to see. Distracts from the beauty that may be in your tank.
I even allow the coralline to grow on PH so that it blends in the background. You cant even see two of my pumps in my tank because it is camouflaged by the coralline. The power head cords going up and over my tank wall is camo'ed by encrusting gorgs or coralline too, so it doesnt even look like I have any sort of equipment in tank.
The stuff isnt hard for me to clean. Sure it may take some time to clean it, but impossible? no, just takes a little effort to get it off, and even that isnt "work" if you drop whatever it is into a bucket of vinegar for a while before trying to clean it.
I think to many people are trying to take too many easy ways out in this hobby. Its starting to get more about whats easier than whats necessary. So you have to use a little elbow grease to get something done. Thats where a persons pride comes in. If youre proud of your tanks or just being part of the hobby in general, you wont mind that extra effort it takes to do a particular thing.
Heck, the shape of some people sumps makes me wonder what is going through their minds for it to be in such shape. A sump should look as good as the DT in my opinion. But many feel that it isnt important to clean the salt creep off stuff in the sump or clean the yuck off other things in there. I take as much pride in cleaning my sumps as I do my DT.
Ok, that did drift a little off topic, but one does lead to the other
=) jess sayin