Top 10 New Products To Look For At MACNA This Weekend
If you’ve been reefing for even a short while, or a long term reader of Reef Builders, then you know that the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America (MACNA) is this weekend, and it’s …
Borbonius Anthias Captive Bred By Biota Palau
Biota Palau is no stranger to being first to captive breed some popular tropical marine fish and the Borbonius anthias is the latest species to be added to their catalog. Their captive bred mandarins …
The Awakening Of The Coral – Epic Macro Time Lapse Video
It’s so awesome to be a part of a hobby that lends itself so well to artistic interpretation. Photography, macro photography, timelapses – all of these techniques can reveal some uniq…
Illumagic Makes Killer LED Lights For Nanos, Reef Displays, & Commercial Scale
Illumagic is a Taiwanese company that has been making LED aquarium lights about as long as all the major players in the aquarium hobby. Being separate from mainland China, Europe and North America, Il…
AquaticLife T5HO Hybrid Fixture Is BYO-LED
AquaticLife has a long track record of thinking outside the box and their newest T5HO Hybrid fixture is no different. Rather than make a complete hybrid fixture with T5 lamps that people love, and an …
Alkatronic Is The New KH Alkalinity Controller From Focustronic
The Alkatronic is yet another new Kh/Alkalinity controller, this time coming soon from Focustronic. Although Focustronic is just now starting to cut their teeth in the aquarium hobby with the Focus1 L…
Best Advice I’ve received in the hobby
While cleaning out my office, again, I came across some old written notes, yeah they had to be old as they were hand-written, that were a listing of some of the advice I had received over the years th…
The Helfrich Firefish Hybrid Literally Survived A Storm!
It was in December of last year that we reported on the first documented sighting of a rare hybrid between the common firefish, Nemateleotris magnifica, and the much less common helfrich’s …
KH Lab Is PacificSun’s Take On The Alkalinity Controller
The KH Lab is the latest alkalinity controller to be revealed to the aquarium hobby, this time from PacificSun LED. PacificSun is throwing its hat into the ring with a fairly different take on what an…
These New Species Of Grallenia Micro Gobies Are Adorable!
Grallenia is a genus of miniature gobies that you may not have heard of before. But with the recent addition of five new species to this group you will want to remember them in case you ever run …
I’m Dying For A Xmas Tree Worm Rock Like This
Ever since I started in the hobby in the mid 90s, Xmas Tree worm rocks, coco worms and feather dusters have been among some of the most fascinating non-coral animals for a reef tank. The popularity of…
Focustronic LED Review Video – Hands On With The World’s First Moving Aquarium Light
The Focustronic Focus1 LED has been making the rounds of reef aquarium shows throughout the year. But we had to get our hands on a Focus1 for ourselves to finally see this promising new light over liv…
Best Advice I’ve received in the hobby
While cleaning out my office, again, I came across some old written notes, yeah they had to be old as they were hand-written, that were a listing of s…
MACNA 2018 Will Be In Las Vegas For It’s 30th Year
MACNA, the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America, will be in Las Vegas Nevada, September 7th to the 9th. If our math serves us correctly this wi…
Sera LED Moonlight Makes Nighttime Viewing Fun and Easy
I remember a time, when LEDs were just a twinkle in our collective eyes, and dedicated moonlights were the breakthrough LED device. As our lights have…
Sacura sanguinea Is A Wild New Species Of Deepwater Anthias
Sacura sanguinea is a striking new species of anthias with a coloration and ornate finnage that is truly befitting of this group of fish. Described ba…
Maxspect Turbine Duo Has Two Outlets With Just One Motor!
The Maxspect Turbine Duo is a radically new pump design that we know reefers will love. Much like the Gyre pump, the Turbine Duo has a centrally mount…
TUNZE Care Bacter helps keep your tank clean, healthy
TUNZE Care Bacter is a bacterial supplement to help keep your aquarium clean and in biological balance. Care Bacter is made up of several strains of n…
PolypLab New Live Foods, Tigriopus californicus & Tisbe biminiensis
Tigriopus californicus – if you’ve been reefing for even a short time this is probably the only species of copepod that you know by name. …
Introducing A New Generation Of ‘pH Pens’ From Anura
Anura is a new company which is aiming to put the sexy back in pH pens. To be fair, pH pens in the aquarium hobby have never been that sexy to begin w…
Reef Builders Travelogue, Bunaken National Park Sulawesi Indonesia
Reef Builders Destination Sulawesi Indonesia Here at Reef Builders we are fortunate to dive some of the worlds most lush and vibrant coral reefs, so l…
Klir Automatic Roll Filter Coming Soon From CoralVue
Klir is a new automatic filter roll from CoralVue that we expect will be arriving later this fall. A flashy new video hints at many interesting featur…
Maintaining A Super Easy Nano Reef Tank (Video)
The first thing most non-aquarist think when you tell them you have a saltwater aquarium is that it must take so much time, be very expensive, and ver…
Commerson Frogfish- Hide and seek champion of the reef
Not your ordinary fish The Commerson Frogfish (Antennarius commerson) or Giant Frogfish is a large species that can reach up to one foot in length. Th…
Taking Control Of Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium
One of the things that fascinates me and probably helps fuel my passion for the hobby is that I have been able to watch and learn through the years as…
This Eastern Indonesian Reef Is Dominated By Shrooms
It was one of these mornings when the sea is like glass. A few days before, a collector mentioned to me about a reef, which was covered by ‘thin mushr…
Blue Skeleton Majestic Angelfish Is Unlike Anything We’ve Ever Seen!
Every now and then a very special reef fish that we’ll never forget pops up on our rare fish radar, and the ‘Blue Skeleton’ Majestic…
Marine Depot brings ATI ICP-OES water testing to North America
Getting lab quality water testing via ICP-OES (Inductively Coupled Plasma – Optical Emission Spectrometry) is gaining more momentum and ATI…
Ricordea yuma Are Still Some Of The Showiest Shrooms In The Hobby
As the reef aquarium hobby has become gripped by the current craze for mushroom anemones or corallimorphs, we’ve seen all different types of the…
Blue Skeleton Majestic Angelfish Is Unlike Anything We’ve Ever Seen!
Every now and then a very special reef fish that we’ll never forget pops up on our rare fish radar, and the ‘Blue Skeleton’ Majestic Angelfish is such an example. This sensational sp…
Sea Dwelling’s Yellowfin Angelfish Looks Like He’s Been In A Few Brawls
This Black & Blue angelfish may not win any beauty contests among aberrant angelfish, but it is the first time we’ve seen this species don this kind of garb. Of the many different species of…
You’ve Never Seen A Speckled Flame Angelfish Like This Before!
Boy, even after years of writing about all the rare, unusual, hybrid and aberrant reef fish, the natural reef always has something new and special that we’ve never seen before. This speckled fla…
Maintaining A Super Easy Nano Reef Tank (Video)
The first thing most non-aquarist think when you tell them you have a saltwater aquarium is that it must take so much time, be very expensive, and very hard to maintain. That may have been true way ba…
The Long Term Progression Of Viking’s Reef
You’ve probably seen the progress shots of people’s reef tanks over a few months, maybe a couple of years. But YouTuber Viking V has a sequence of his reef tank stretching all the way back…
Sanjay Joshi’s Nano Reef Tank Breaks All The Rules (Video)
Before going to Reefapalooza NY from Denver earlier this summer, you could say I took a slight detour to Maryland and then the State College Pennsylvania before heading to the big show. The reef …