Chronic Stress in Captive Tangs

Tangs and surgeonfish are a diverse, beautiful, and often highly personable group of fish. It is no wonder that so many of us want to keep these fish in our systems. Inexperienced keepers do the right thing by going to…

3.1 Fairy Wrasses: The rubrimarginatus group

The rubrimarginatus group is home to some of the most well-known (and well-loved) of the Fairy Wrasses. The group can be divided rather equally into two clades, each with their own separate diagnostic features. The males attain fairly large sizes,…

Video teardown of the MindStream aquarium monitor

It was super cool to visit the heart of the research and development of the MindStream aquarium monitor and pick the Step Ahead Innovations team’s brain about how their device works inside and out. However while we were there, we…

Kessil AP700 coming in September, 185 watts & wireless control for $949

The Kessil AP700 has been a long time coming but as of today, fans of Kessil’s unique approach to aquarium lighting can look forward to the concrete release date for the company’s first fully fledged aquarium fixture. Kessil made a…

Answers to the top 10 questions about the MindStream aquarium monitor

We are writing on location in beautiful Vermont and yesterday we spent a whole day in the offices of Step Ahead Innovations trying to wrap our head around their exciting new MindStream Aquarium Monitoring System. It really took a whole…

MindStream Aquarium Monitor goes live on Kickstarter

The MindStream Kickstarter campaign kicks off today with the new, potentially revolutionary new water monitoring device going to the first round of backers for the totally reasonable sum of $499. Currently, aquarium water quality management and testing can be one…

The top 6 new species of marine life this month

There have been a lot of new species descriptions in the last handful of weeks, and there are lots that can be said about each of them. We’ve covered them all individually but we wanted to bring your attention to…

Is It Okay to Quarantine Multiple Marine Fish at Once?

As regular Saltwater Smarts visitors are well aware, “Caribbean Chris” and I are strong proponents of quarantining all newly acquired fish for at least four weeks before introducing them to a display tank. But what about keeping two or more…

Nanipora kamurai, a skeleton-building Octocoral that could already be in your tank

Nanipora kamurai is a new species of Octocoral which may be small and nondescript, but it falls in a very special place on the soft coral tree of life. We are all taught that soft corals are by definition soft, and we…

Review of the Indo-Pacific genus Pseudocoris, with a description of two new species

The genus Pseudocoris has received a full taxonomic review by Benjamin C. Victor, Allan D. Connel and John E. Randall. The paper includes a description of two new species from the Indian Ocean, Pseudocoris hemichrysos & P. occidentalis, both of which are…