"Japanese" Style Reef Aquariums

Ive seen a few pics and a vid now that display stunning "Japanese" style reefs on 3reef.

What makes it "Japanese" style? and to add are there any other styles such as American, German, Australian etc ?

 

I think they were Japanese style because they were Japanese tanks....

That said of course tanks tend to differ across the ponds... Many Euro tanks tend to be much smaller than ours(not many 210's) and for a long time the bare bottom tank was huge in Europe. T5s are pretty popular in Europe as well....

Not sure about Japanese tanks.. Couldn't read it?!

 

The one thing I noticed from the pictures I've seen floating around is the light set up. A lot of the tanks have many spotlights pointed at different areas. Other than that, all of the aquariums I've seen have been CRAMMED full of coral. This is to be expected though with the constraints on space existant in Japan. That being said, I'm not sure that any of this is what makes them Japanese style, these are just differences I've noticed.

 

I noticed the lights as well... but otherwise they seem to be really nice SPS tanks.. Surely there's people there with a softy tank and pile of rocks aquascaping.

 

Iv also noticed they seem to run very blue lights. I think they also look at aquascaping and coral layout more as an artistic composition.

 

yup. They all seem to have very blue purple-ish or pinkish lighting and stuff it full or corals. lol

 

The coral spotlights you see are not "Japanese styling". They are simple spotlights used to highlight certain corals for photography and video. People do that everywhere For actually lighting the tanks, it's the typical MH's and T5's.
I think frag nailed it with Europe. Only thing is, Saxby will have issues with European tanks being "smaller"
Too me, classic Japanese aquariums are the aquariums that have more of an art-deco, geometric rock work plan, then chalk full of SPS on top of said rock work

 

Don't forget Japan likes to dose those SPS aquariums. A LOT!
http://www.splash-sea.co.jp/tank/image/tank08.jpg

 

They seem to be good at aquascaping. It's really an art. But I think we see the best with the links that pass through here and google searches.