Powder Blue Tangs & Emperor Angelfish: Two Common Fish That New Reefkeepers Should Avoid

Reefkeeping is a paradox. We set up an aquarium to display all the wonderful diversity of the tropical oceans, only to be told that we can’t keep the vast majority of species in our tanks. I help out in my LFS on Saturdays and the following two species are probably the two that people ask me for and point out the most, only for me to deliver the grim news that they can’t have them. And here’s why.

Four New Reef Blizzard Foods from Brightwell Aquatics

Continuing their tradition of making reef aquarium foods based on specific particle size, Brightwell Aquatics has just announced four new Reef Blizzard formulas targeting specific reef animal mouths. The four new Reef Blizzard recipes are ZC – freeze dried copepods,…

This Mysterious LPS Coral Has Eluded Identification

One of the things that keeps us continually fascinated by aquarium corals, and stony corals in particular, is the challenge of identifying some of the more obscure species. That’s why we were so excited to come across a very unusual…

Japan’s CoralMonster is Flexing a Ton of Great Scolies

CoralMonster is a coral dealer in Japan with a knack for scoring some high profile livestock and today we want to take a minute to appreciate their recent haul of Homophyllia australis. Better known as Scolies or Australian scolymia, this group…

Euphyllia baliensis, the Holy Grail Quest!

It’s been over eight years since the small polyp Euphyllia baliensis was described from the deep waters around the Indonesian Island of Bali. It’s also been around eight years that we’ve been searching for this coral, pushing the limits of…

The Myth of LPS Corals Living in ‘Dirty Water’

Every day that we observe corals in the ocean and take care of them in our aquarium it becomes clearer how important feeding is to them. Recently while watching a live video from our good friend Shane Danger Coleman, we…

The Shape of Corals is Linked to How they Feed

It’s been over 20 years since I started culturing corals in the ocean and in dedicated aquariums. I always believed that the shape of a corals was mainly determined by trying to expose as much surface to light while withstanding…

Reef Raft Indophyllia Reminds us of this Coral’s Potential

Indophyllia is a poorly known genus of large polyp stony coral which includes only one, very overlooked species, I. macassarenssis. There’s two reasons that Indophyllia is not at the top of many collectors wish list, starting with the competition it has…

Indophyllia macassarensis, The Rarest of the Donut Corals

Today while diving in the South east of Bali, we got lucky to be welcome by ‘extremely’ cold temperature waters (21C, 69F). Because this is unusually cold water for Bali, it is actually a sign of upwelling of cold, clear…

What It’s Like To Be A Reefer In Saskatchewan Canada

Bayside Corals The Canadian province of Saskatchewan is located about as far from the ocean as they come, and we didn’t expect much when we started an online search for reefers and reef shops in the city of Saskatoon.  To my…