You’re shopping at your LFS when you come across a juvenile specimen of a fish you’d love to buy but know you don’t have the tank space to accommodate once it reaches maturity. To justify the purchase, you think to…
Calcium: A Critical Element in Reef Aquariums
The stony corals, crustaceans, mollusks, and echinoderms in our marine aquariums depend on it to build their skeletons/shells/tests. Soft corals use it to build supportive structures, called sclerites, in their tissues. Of course, without it, you’ll never get a nice…
Do You Need a Chiller for Your Marine Aquarium?
In a previous post titled “Turning Up the Heat on Tropical Saltwater Aquariums,” I explained that it’s important to maintain a stable water temperature somewhere in the range of 76° and 80°F in marine tanks, and that using a quality…
Dig Those Crazy Pajama Cardinalfish!
A hardy, peaceful, wildly patterned species, the pajama cardinalfish (Sphaeramia nematoptera) makes a great choice for novice and experienced marine aquarists alike. Owing to its very manageable adult size, it’s a great candidate for modest-sized systems, and like many of…
5 Marine Aquarium Misconceptions I No Longer Espouse
Casting my mind back on my early days as a marine aquarium keeper, it’s funny how some of my stances on various aspects of the hobby have, shall we say, evolved in the intervening years. Of course, these changing opinions…
The Kole Tang: A Commendable Surgeonfish for Medium-Sized Aquariums
Among the so-called bristletooths of the genus Ctenochaetus is one of my favorite tang species and one that I highly recommend to other hobbyists with well-established, medium-sized to moderately large systems—the Kole tang (Ctenochaetus strigosus). Physical traits C. strigosus, which…
How to Estimate the Right Aquarium Size for Any Given Fish Species
There is no hard-and-fast rule regarding the space requirements for fish in captivity. Indeed, this value varies greatly from one species to the next. However, instead of relying on guesswork, try the following method to accurately assess the space needs…
Marine Aquarium Antacid: Understanding Alkalinity
When I first made the switch from freshwater to marine fishkeeping, I was somewhat befuddled by the term “alkalinity” as it’s typically used on the saltwater side of the hobby. During all my years of keeping freshwater systems, I had…
When Marine Fish Mysteriously Disappear
You’re strolling past your marine aquarium, minding your own business, when you notice that something is amiss. The [insert name of fish here] that invariably comes right up to the front of the tank whenever you enter the room is…
My Top 6 Simple Accessories Repurposed for Marine Aquariums
Visit your local fish store, and you’ll see shelf after shelf of equipment, implements, doodads, and thingamabobs specifically designed to make the maintenance of marine aquariums more manageable. But when you really think about it, a lot of the handy…