A refugium is a safe haven for algae and invertebrates in a separate tank from the main display aquarium. These organisms provide some distinct advantages to the overall health of a reef aquarium. First off, the critters breeding in the…
Equipment
Aquarium Plumbing: True Union Ball Valves and Why You Should Love Them
One of the cool things about the reef aquarium hobby is that you tend to pick up some useful skills by accident. If it wasn’t for the reef-keeping hobby, I may never have developed a love of photography and videography.…
DIY Algae Trough—Fight Algae with Algae!
In my opinion, marine aquarium hobbyists have a fundamental misunderstanding of algae. It is not a disease, and it can’t be cured, as it grows on every healthy reef in the sea. We don’t usually see as much of it…
DIY Rock for the Marine Aquarium
What is the most expensive part of starting a marine aquarium? No, it’s not the tank itself or the pumps, water, or creatures. It is the rock. Live rock can cost upwards of $7.00 per pound, and a pound of…
GFO for Reef Aquarium Phosphate Control
Granular ferric oxide, or GFO, is a widely used form of chemical filtration in the reef-keeping hobby today. Chemical filtration, as the name suggests, purifies water by binding up impurities at the molecular level. As water is sent through the…
The Role of Activated Carbon in the Reef Aquarium
Of the three types of filtration used in the reef aquarium hobby today, biological, mechanical, and chemical, it is chemical filtration that is possibly the least understood. This post is all about activated carbon, the most popular type of chemical…
Protect Your Marine Livestock from the Perils of Powerheads
We marine aquarium hobbyists generally strive to create aquatic environments that are as naturalistic as possible for the animals in our care. We use high-quality salt mixes to replicate natural sea water (assuming we don’t collect salt water directly from…
DIY Brine Shrimp Hatchery and Shell Separator
Adult brine shrimp are not considered a good source of food for any fish, but they are sometimes used to entice a slow eater to start eating. Newborn brine shrimp, however, are an excellent source of food for many small…
DIY Target Feeder for Mandarinfish (and Pipefish)
We as aquarists tend to keep all sorts of creatures in our tanks, and some of them present a challenge to feed. We know what fish eat, and we know how fish eat, but sometimes the fish’s schedule does not…
6 Reasons for Poor Protein Skimmer Foam Production
A properly sized protein skimmer is key to the success of any marine aquarium system—provided it’s actually doing the job it’s intended to do, that is. Sometimes protein skimmers just keep right on skimming with little or no foam and…