Blue ridge coral, Heliopora coerulea, is a unique species of coral in the wild and in the aquarium.Despite being extremely widespread and common on wild reefs, for some reason blue ridge coral is pretty rare in aquariums, even though it is a…
Euroquatics Angel 1 and Angel 1 Pro LED review
The Angel 1 LED and Angel Pro LED are the first aquarium lights from the nascent Euroquatics aquarium lighting brand. Being backed by Gavita, a large horticulture company based out of Holland, certainly helped Euroquatics leapfrog the entry-level competition to…
Nature likes to design wild clownfish too!
Nearly all Picasso and designer breeds of clownfish in captivity today are influenced by genes from just a handful of exceptional wild clownfish. The Joker clownfish pictured here is one such example of a “natural” Picasso clownfish that was collected…
Come see us at Reefapalooza in Orange County CA this weekend
The annual reef aquarium extravaganza known as Reefapalooza is happening again in Costa Mesa California this weekend. This is the first year that Reefapalooza has been preceded by two sister shows with RAP in Orlando and RAP in New York, but…
HydroFill Ti Pump and Controller get the titanium upgrade
The Hydrofill Ti (Titanium) Controller and Pump are Innovative Marine’s first refresh to the hardware for their automatic top off kit.The Titanium upgrade to the Hydrofill Controller and ATO Pump sees both of these products getting better, and significantly cheaper.…
A visit to the Smithsonian Institution’s vast coral collection
Aquarists spend the majority of their coral-keeping career looking at, staring at, and growing live corals, hopefully. This is the inverse case for coral taxonomists such as Dr. Stephen Cairns who studies the remains of corals as skeletons, and all…
How to properly care for mangrove trees in ‘aquaria’
The red mangrove tree, Rhizophora mangle, is a common sight around saltwater aquariums, reef tanks and local fish stores where fresh seed pods are sold and kept. What is not a common sight is for a mangrove tree to be doing…
Damselfish can recognize UV markings of a face
Several years ago it was revealed that damselfish could see specially colored markings on the faces of other fish that only show up under ultraviolet light. Now a new study has demonstrated that the fish can not only see these…
Plectranthias winniensis & P. helenae captive raised by RCT Hawaii
Plectranthias winniensis and P. helenae are two species of this adorable group of basslets that grace the pages of Reef Builders today for very good reason. Reef Culture Technologies Hawaii has been trailblazing the captive rearing of various marine fish…
Aqua Illumination’s 10-Prime LED array for their own show tank
Last week we visited Aqua Illumination LED light manufacturing plant in Ames Iowa where we got to spend a lot of time getting to know and understand the groundbreaking new Hydra 26 & Hydra 52 “HyperDrive” LEDs. In addition to…