They say that great minds think alike, and with that thought, Rich wrote a piece this morning which is a perfect segway into this discussion that Scott had in mind. Both of these great reef guys had the same independent…
“Tanked” – A Dose Of Reality That Doesn’t Hold Water
Like many hobbyists, I decided to check out the Animal Planet reality series, “Tanked” last night. Rather than getting caught up in the negative “pre-smack talk” about the show, I decided to actually watch it before rendering an opinion. So,…
Following passion to a job in the aquarium industry
Seems like just a few months ago, I was comfortably rat-holed in my souless, financial-sector job, using every spare second to play with, or plot about my aquariums, writing my weekly rants on all things saltwater, or traveling to speaking gigs and…
The other side of the fence: An insider’s view of the aquatics industry
After a lifetime working in sales, I recently took a job at an upscale aquarium business. Now that I am beginning to experience the aquarium industry from the inside, I have taken on a slightly different view of things. Yet…
Bad reefing ideas which never should have been
Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of fish-related events, and have had the pleasure of interacting with quite a few experienced hobbyists. During our discussions, we often reflect on where the hobby has been, where it’s going, and the people,…
Really getting to know your fishes
If you ask a bunch of reefers what got them into the hobby in the first place, you’re bound to get a lot of different answers: Many will tell you that it was the sheer beauty, or for the challenge…
The focused approach to reef keeping
It seems as though not a day goes by here on Reef Builders when you don’t hear about some new product, animal or technique that will help change the hobby forever. New things that promise to simplify and improve our…
Rethinking The Local Fish Store
In this postmodern, internet-based hobby world, it seems that the venerable local fish store (“LFS”) is under constant attack. E-tailers, hobbyist’ garage based start-ups, group buys, eBay, Craigslist, and even frag swaps are but a few of the challenges facing…
Thinking “Negative”- an overlooked aquascaping aspect
If you read my blog posts and articles on aquascaping, you hear me blabber on and on about the virtues of great rockwork, avoiding the uninspired rock wall configurations, the Golden Ratio, etc. Yet for all my talk about rockwork,…
Take the testosterone out of reef keeping!
Just what is it about us reefers these days? Here we are, a quarter century after the “mini-reef” craze struck the hobby- and we’re still as amped as ever. We throw everything at our tanks to create this biggest, baddest,…