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…
Equipment
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…
The Calcium Reactor: A Device Well Worth its Salt
A hobby like reef keeping has its fair share of intimidating technologies. I suppose it doesn’t help to call certain technologies sterilizers, fractionators, or reactors, which further instills a sense of complexity. One such device is the calcium reactor, and…
The Long and Short of Marine Aquarium Tank Shape
Here at Saltwater Smarts, we often make the case that size matters when it comes to saltwater tanks. The bigger the tank, the better for a variety of reasons (though we can’t dispute that nano tanks offer certain advantages too).…
The Basics of Marine Aquarium Backgrounds
When setting up a new saltwater aquarium, one of the many decisions you’ll need to make is whether you want to put a background on the tank and, if so, what kind you’d prefer to use. The choice of background…