Over my many years in the marine aquarium hobby, I’ve constructed various and sundry coral frag racks out of egg crate light diffuser, ranging from simple one-tiered platforms to somewhat more complex stair-step configurations. It’s relatively easy to do; I…
Coral
Palytoxin from Palythoa zoanthids is really, REALLY dangerous
If we could have your attention please, this is an important public service announcement from your neighborhood Reef Builders to let you know to be very careful when handling your Palythoa zoanthids. Zoanthids are hardy, neigh indestructible flower animals of…
Revision of Acropora & Isopora, a free guide to Staghorn Corals
Coral books for diehard coral junkies like ourselves are few and far between, which is why we spend so much time digging through the scientific literature. We frequently come across new discoveries, new species, but occasionally, we come across a…
Crossbreeding may be the key to coral survival in warming seas
Researchers are looking for ways to create a more heat resilient coral to battle the negative impacts of warming oceans. By mixing and matching corals of the same species from different latitudes, the team is hoping to find a way…
Palauastrea ramosa is your weird coral of the week
Palauastrea ramosa is one of those bizzar-o corals that we’ve always wondered about from seeing it in books, and which has never truly enjoyed any kind of exposure in the reef aquarium scene. Thankfully, a few recent trips to the…
From the Archives: Live Bottles are reborn as Aquacultured Art by Atlantic Reef Aquaculture
This story was originally published in October of 2009 and it is well worthy of another go-around. Live Bottles for use in Mini Reef aquariums used to be as common as normal output fluorescents, bristle worm traps and dolomite. It…
Top 5 invasive corals that border on being aquarium pests
We’re so used to thinking of corals as precious and delicate, it’s hard to imagine some of them are invasive species in our aquariums. Invasive corals in the wild are a real problem, with sun coral Tubastrea having two established species…
This Echinomorpha from Gonzo puts the genus on the map
It’s been a mild year for super crazy chalice coral colors and strains so it was inevitable that some colony would show up and take our breath away. This super wacky colored chalice corals comes to us from Gonzo’s Coral…
The Fragging Phenomenon Part Deux
In 1992, I wrote my first article on the fragmenting of corals, fragging for short. At that time fragging corals was primarily done on soft corals and was done more out of the necessity to preserve the corals we had,…
Pocillopora Corals: Hardy, Adaptable Reef Architects
You may not be aware, but Pocillopora, despite being among the less popular stony corals in the reef aquarium hobby, are second only to Acropora in reef-building productivity in the wild. Their skeletons make up a huge portion of the…