After keeping reef tanks for almost forty years, and having viewed literally thousands of successful tanks, including a few recently sans fish, it got me to thinking are fish necessary in a reef tank. Now before you think I have…
Which Corals to Add to a New Tank
There are many fun aspects to setting up a new tank, from planning and getting the equipment and then on to aquascaping the tank. But to me, the most fun aspect is selecting and adding the corals. This is when the…
How to select a Local Fish Store and How to Buy Online
During the last forty years things have changed dramatically, and with the pandemic things changed even more. In terms of the hobby, from the pandemic until now have been the best of times and the worst of times, for virtually…
Are Reef Tanks Stress-Reducing or Stress-Inducing?
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…