Aquariums almost inevitably become more complicated over time. In the course of months of operation, the “system” can incorporate more and more components. And, the livestock collection grows. Eventually, what started as a simple fish tank can develop into an intricate mess of plumbing lines and gadgets; what started as a fish and a few …
Saltwater Aquariums
Most Beautiful Saltwater Fish for Aquariums
Most people in the reef or saltwater aquarium hobby can agree that it is the fish that attracted them to the hobby in the first place. While corals may have taken a closer place in your heart, fish can be equally as crucial to adding another level of depth to your aquarium. You should take …
Reef Safe Fish For Sale
The reef aquarium hobby is not just about corals. Otherwise, it would be called the coral hobby. It is not just about fish either. If it were, it would be called the saltwater fish hobby (for some people it is that). The reef aquarium hobby is about having corals, fish, and inverts all live in …
Unique Symbiotic Relationships
It seems like every beginner aquarists’ dream nowadays. They set up the tank, cycle it, and want a pair of clownfish to start out with that they can eventually introduce an anemone to. Many time, the clowns don’t recognize their new home and refuse to be hosted by the anemone addition, leaving their owners confused, …
How to Choose Healthy Saltwater Fish
One of the most exciting parts of fish keeping is going down to your local aquarium store, browsing through their selection of fish, and picking out a few to take home with you. Or, if you buy marine fish online, getting your box from the delivery truck and unboxing your new pets. But unfortunately, many …
Dealing With Aggressive Tank Mates
One of the most important aspects to think about when adding new fish to your aquarium is the aggression from your established inhabitants. Stress is one of the biggest killers of aquarium life. Animals travel thousands and thousands of miles to America, then board another plane and truck to get to your local fish store, …
The Marine Planted Tank: Creating Your Ocean Garden
You’ve successfully kept saltwater fish. Then you moved on to corals. Then, maybe you took on the slightly greater challenge of tridacnid clams or some other delicate or specialized species—with yet more success! What’s next? There are hundreds of thousands of animal species that inhabit our planet’s tropical coral reefs. Even the most advanced reef …
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What is a Planted Marine Aquarium?
The cultivation of saltwater plants is nothing new. It has been fairly common for hobbyists to keep marine “plants” (more often macroalgae than true vascular plants) since the 1980s. Even so, we’ve seen very few aquarium systems that are built and maintained primarily for the display of marine flora. Indeed, to date, the vast majority …
Creating a Suitable Growing Space for Your Mangrove
As of late, a few varieties of mangrove have become more available to saltwater aquarium hobbyists. With this, it will likely be a bit more common to see one of these beautiful plants poking somewhere out of one’s aquarium system. However, as keeping mangroves becomes more common, there may develop a tendency for aquarists (especially …
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Sponges in the Marine Aquarium
Coral reef aquaria, and the science of maintaining them, have advanced by leaps and bounds in the last decade. Much of this owes to progress in the area of foods and feeding. Many marine creatures (especially filter-feeding invertebrates like sponges) that were once deemed difficult or even impossible to keep are now cultured with regularity. …
Why You Need a Quarantine Tank
Most of us invest a lot into our aquarium systems. Some of us invest a whole lot. The best means of protecting your growing livestock collection (i.e. investment) is a rigorously maintained and monitored system of quarantine. But we all already know that, right? A quarantine (QT) tank is that one thing we should have. …
Beginners Guide to Maintaining a Saltwater Aquarium
A major component of reefing and keeping saltwater aquariums that deters people from the hobby is the maintenance that is required to upkeep them. It may feel like reefing requires too much work, but it may also be that you have an uncertainty on how to maintain a saltwater aquarium. Luckily for you, this article …
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Enhancing Coral Nutrition with Purple Non-Sulfur Bacteria
Most people who are familiar with corals–whether admiring them in the wild or displaying them in a glass box–understand quite well that they are incredibly complex animals. This certainly is so with the zooxanthellate corals. Virtually all corals (zooxanthellate corals included) are predators of plankton and other tiny organisms. But the zooxanthellate types undoubtedly are …
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Power Outage Preparedness
Some aspects of this hobby are often overlooked until problems actually arise. Marine aquariums require a lot of time and dedication, so it is easy to understand how small things may be missed. But, sometimes small things can snowball into a disaster. If the aquarist had been prepared sooner and had the proper equipment on …
Quarantine and Dip Treatment Method
Anyone can agree that having a tank wiped out by disease is a terrible experience and having to treat a reef system for ich or marine velvet is a lot of frustrating work. The best thing a hobbyist can do is avoid the issue from the start. There are generally two ways of treatment for …
Aquarium Water Testing for Beginners
An idea that I have heard often within the reef community is that you are not caring for corals or fish, but rather you are caring for the water that these organisms live in day to day. When caring for this water that your fish and corals are living in, you need to test it …
A Quick Guide to LPS and SPS
There comes a time in this hobby when many aquarists grow bored of their beginner corals and they become interested in small and large polyp stony corals (SPS and LPS, respectively). For those of you who have been maintaining a “softie” reef (which includes coral such as zoanthids, mushrooms, leathers, and star polyps), you may …
Nitrate Management in Your Saltwater Aquarium
When setting up new aquariums, most people worry about and focus on ammonia and nitrites. Everyone knows that cycling a tank with fish is dangerous because of these two compounds, as they burn the gills and body of the fish as the tank matures. But, once these get to zero, most people are satisfied and …
Uncommon Saltwater Diseases and Infections
All saltwater aquarists will deal with common diseases in the beginning of their tank keeping journey. These include the infamous Ich, or “white spot disease,” skin and gill flukes, HLLE, Lymphocystis, velvet, and possibly even Brookynella, or “Clownfish Disease.” These each come with their own remedy, but the cures are well documented and easily available …
Advanced Testing and Trace Elements
Starting out in the aquarium hobby, most people simply buy test strips (which I do not recommend whatsoever) or “master” liquid test kits. While these liquid tritration tests are pretty accurate, it can be extremely difficult to decipher color charts and differentiate between ever so slightly differing shades of yellow, green, and red. This leads …