Top 10 Grafted Corals at Top Shelf Aquatics

You can’t mention the best coral vendors in the world without mentioning Top Shelf Aquatics. A major destination for reefers and reefing tourists, Top Shelf is a Mecca for everything coral, and Reef Builders’ YouTube Channel and Reef Therapy host…

Old and New Reef Tank Pests

It seems that when we take two steps forward we often have to take one step back. Such is the case with the success we have had in the hobby. In the early days of the hobby, we were preoccupied…

Reefkeeping in the Victorian Era

As the saltwater aquarium hobby celebrates over half a century of maturation, we often talk about the many reefkeeping pioneers. In his 1972 book “Tropical Fish, Freshwater, and Marine Aquaria,” Reginald Dutta talked about equipment such as an Ozonizer, an…

How to Aquascape with Reef Cement

Every day is reef tank day for me, but on Sundays, I take the day off from writing and have the opportunity to execute some of my bigger plans. The 200-liter shallow soft coral lagoon is doing great. So great…

The Ten Most Annoying Things About Reefkeeping

Sometimes reefing can really get on our nerves! Here are just ten of the things we really hate about our hobby right now.   When fish jump out Unfortunately, we’ve all been here, whether it’s a newly purchased tank-bred clownfish, a…

Paletta on Protein Skimming

Through the years I have seen marine aquarium filtration go from under gravel filters through canister filters and then trickle filters, all producing various levels of success. But the only filtration method that truly changed filtration was when the hobby…

Monsoon Aquatics Secures $500,000 Government Grant to Spawn Corals

Monsoon Aquatics in Australia has been awarded a stage 2 Accelerating Commercialisation grant worth $528,000 to continue its work on coral spawning. The project is supported by the Australian Government Department of Industry, Science and Resources through the Entrepreneurs’ Programme,…

Understanding lighting

While planning and choosing the right tank and selecting a stand are all important aspects of setting up a tank, they are not sexy and probably seemed kind of obvious. Understanding lighting and choosing proper lighting, however, is where things…

New study finds herbivore fish poo is bad for corals

For a long time, it has been assumed that herbivores are good for coral reefs and corallivores are bad. Herbivores like surgeonfish and rabbitfish graze the algae which would otherwise overgrow, smother and outcompete corals, and a reef without herbivores…

Coral biodiversity measured by eDNA seawater samples

Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have developed a method to measure coral biodiversity by collecting seawater above a reef. The method involves extracting the environmental DNA (or eDNA) from a liter of surface water and…