Once upon a Montipora… Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the aquarium. Not a fishie was stirring, not even Z. veliferum The socks were all hung by the reefer with care, In hopes that Poseidon soon would be…
AquaticLife Edge LED striplights with built-in timer
The Edge LED is a new strip light from AquaticLife which is aimed at general purpose aquarium lighting, with a built-in timer on its edge.The Edge LED ups the features and performance of their striplight from their 0.5 watt and…
Three snippets of recent good news about fish and corals
With a the whole news-cycle industry programmed to grab your attention with “if it leads it bleeds” headlines, we’ve got a trio of stories to counter all the downer news out there. Earlier this year, aquarists at the Zoological Society…
First batch of HydroWizard Small pumps ready for testing
The HydroWizard Small is the third installment of the powerful pump trilogy from German manufacturer Panta Rhei. While the original HydroWizard at $5000 is really priced at huge aquatic displays (think seals and penguins), an the HydroWizard Medium is for…
Yellow tang seems to enjoy swimming upside down (video)
Video of a yellow tang happily swimming upside down; if we said nothing else but showed you the video, this would make your day. But we feel a little context is in order. May we present to you, not the rarest…
Five best new coral species of 2013
Over the past 12 months, there was a slow steady trickle of new species being described. We didn’t have any sensational new species like new Acros in 2012, or any wild Astreopora like in 2011, but we did get some new chalice,…
Introducing the coffee basslet, Acanthoplesiops cappuccino
Apparently, Acanthoplesiops cappuccino didn’t get the memo that Reef Builders already did their round up of the top new reef fish species of 2013. The cool little coffee-themed and coffee-named basslet is a new species from the Red Sea by Anthony…
Orphek’s Azurelite is an indispensable reef aquarium tool
When we first received a sample of the Azurelite LED flashlight from Orphek, we knew that it would be a good little light toy, a useful accessory, but we never thought it would get so much regular usage. We use the…
Building a coral aquarium for a coral-eating lemonpeel angelfish
We’ve always thought it was odd that our marine fish get discretely divided into the reef-safe and non reef-safe camps because as we’ve seen time and time again, it’s very possible to keep predators in a reef tank; they don’t…
The five best new reef fish species of 2013
As in previous years, 2013 has been an excellent year for new species of reef fish being discovered, and described. As usual there’s been a lot of Eviota and Trimma gobies, the dwarf gobies are plentiful, and there’s been a…