Since we are in the midst of the holiday season, we are all familiar with how the family get-togethers, shopping, and hustle and bustle can be both stress-relieving in some ways and also stress-inducing. I have come to realize that…
The Importance of Proper Fish Feeding
This may seem like a rather simple topic, and I used to think it was as well, but over time I have come to realize that feeding the fish, keeping them healthy and not polluting the tank is actually a…
How to Acclimate New Fish
For those of us who started with freshwater tanks, the general rule for acclimating a new fish was to simply float the bag until the temperatures matched, gradually add some tank water to gradually acclimate the fish to the tank’s…
Is the Saltwater Aquarium Hobby in an Economic Downturn?
There are just some things that hobbyists don’t want to talk about. These include having an unwanted pest, losing a fish or coral for an unknown reason, or even worse wiping out an entire tank. No one really likes to…
Why and How to Quarantine Saltwater Fish
One of the dirty little secrets of the hobby is that fish a large number of fish come with parasites. Even though most of them look healthy when we buy them, and who would buy a sick fish, the stress…
How to Select Fish for a New Reef Tank
For the majority of us who started in the hobby, our initial lure was watching a beautiful colored fish in a saltwater tank in the local fish shop. It could have been a clownfish frolicking in an anemone or a…
My Experience With Fenbendazole
After being in the reefing side of the hobby for almost forty years I have seen or had just about every pest imaginable in my tanks. While I am especially thinking about our friend Jake and his passing a year…
What kind of Saltwater Tank do you want?
Up until this point just about everything that has been done in preparation of setting up a new tank is pretty much the same. A tank, stand, skimmer, lights, etc are all going to be used regardless of what you…
Is the Hobby Getting Too Expensive? Part II Livestock
As was discussed in Part 1 the cost of getting into the hobby, equipment-wise was surprisingly not as expensive as I had thought. This was the case even when some of the best equipment was being used. Even when inflation…
The Benefits of Modern Reef Tank Technology
As with all technology, the technology related to the hobby and maintaining a successful reef tank has also improved significantly over the decades. In the early years technology consisted of small microprocessors that were only able to measure temperature, pH,…