I’ve got a little secret, unbeknownst to the general public; I, Jake Adams the coral junky, have a Fish-Only aquarium. This fish tank was the second aquarium I set up after college and it has persisted as one of my…
Search Results For: how to set up reef
Kessil Spectral Controller will play nice with A360 LEDs
The new Kessil Spectral Controller is a simple stand alone device which allows allows access and detailed controls of all the capabilities of the controllable Kessil A360 series LEDs. While it’s been really nice to be able to daisy chain and…
Yellow Boxfish: Endearing but Perhaps Best Avoided
For hobbyists inclined to purchase livestock on impulse, a yellow boxfish (Ostracion cubicus) paddling about in a dealer’s tank can prove almost irresistible. Typically sold as juveniles at just a few inches in length, these boxfish are as cute as…
How to Reduce the Risk of Flooding with Hang-on-Back Overflows
Marine aquarium hobbyists whose tanks didn’t come with a built-in overflow or can’t be drilled to accommodate one (i.e., those made of tempered glass) sometimes choose to use a siphon-based hang-on-back (HOB) overflow to feed water from the aquarium to…
First look at the Orphek Atlantik Compact in real life
Over the years, Orphek has proven that its lights have staying power, refining that same metal and acrylic hunk of LED lighting into quite a nimble reef aquarium lighting machine. The feature rich Atlantik LED has become the company’s flagship light…
Chalk Bass: A Caribbean Jewel Custom Made for Marine Aquariums
Anyone who has visited Saltwater Smarts on a regular basis knows that Chris has a bizarre fixation on Caribbean species. No livestock—fish or invertebrate—originating outside the Caribbean/tropical Western Atlantic is allowed in his tank. If he could, he’d probably go…
Self-sustaining ecosystems in a box, how close can we actually get?
Something that I’m continually fascinated with and ponder about; the idea of creating aquarium setups that require minimal human intervention. Growing up in the 90’s, the biosphere experiment held my imagination quite a bit. And then there were those ecospheres…
Don’t Let the Water Flow Slow in Your Marine Aquarium
We’ve mentioned several times here at Saltwater Smarts how the output of reef aquarium lighting gradually and imperceptibly shifts away from the desired level over time. But did you know a very similar phenomenon can occur with the rate of…
A Brief History of the Saltwater Aquarium Hobby
Our hobby of keeping saltwater fish for the sole purpose of pleasure is not very old. People have been keeping fish for thousands of years, but virtually all of those fish were used as food. Asian cultures have been culturing…
Brownbarred Goby: Sand-Sifting Species Well Suited to Aquariums
Marine aquarists looking for a sand-sifting fish to keep the top layer of their sand bed stirred often run into a dilemma. Many of the species renowned for this behavior, such as the ever-popular and commonly offered yellowheaded sleeper goby…
