The Lawnmower Blenny: a Funny, Fascinating Fish of Unpredictable Utility

The lawnmower blenny, aka the jeweled blenny, jeweled rockskipper, or sailfin blenny (Salarias fasciatus), is commonly purchased not just for its comical behavior and only-a-mother-could-love looks, but also for the utilitarian purpose of controlling algae in marine tanks. While you…

Continuum AquaBlade Mop makes algae cleaning safe for soft surfaces

The Continuum AquaBlade Mop is not something we haven’t seen before in the market but it is a new product from the company recently founded by industry veteran Jack Kent. Designed to safely clean diatoms, soft algae and cyanobacteria from acrylic…

Why Many Marine Fish Benefit From Mature Tanks

Astute salties out there will likely have observed that in some of our fish species profiles, we emphasize the need to keep the fish in a “mature” aquarium—meaning one that has been set up and established for at least six…

Consider These 6 Points Before Buying a Marine Aquarium Cleanup Crew

Marine aquarium cleanup crews (CUC)—those combo packs of various snails, crabs, and echinoderms sold for the purpose of algae control and detritus elimination—can serve an excellent utilitarian function in a saltwater system. What’s more, in addition to the janitorial duties…

Nano-reef user Metrokat’s display refugium is an awesome collection of macroalgae

Marcoalgae is awesome, and not only because of their nutrient removal abilities. We love macro algae for its ease of maintenance, cool growth forms and colors and we’re even more fond of macro algae displays. This display refugium of nano-reef…

Algae Mower Vac lets you clean your rocks and gravel with one handy tool

From first look the Algae Mower Vac doesn’t really strike you too much but once you see this handy wand in action, it will definitely change your mind. The Algae Mower Vac lets you rip up the algae on your…

Friday Smorgasbord: iGills, iron spiking, dolphin rights and how to be an aquanaut

Welcome to the latest edition of your Friday smorgasbord of weird, wacky and downright cool tidbits from around the interwebs. Today’s edition has some fun and funky things and leading off if a cool gadget that turns your iPhone into…

Eheim powerCleaner finally coming to market

It was just over two years ago when we picked up on the story about the Eheim powerCleaner — a motorized, vibrating power cleaner for brushing that tough algae off your aquarium — and now it looks like it is…

At Pitcairn Island, macro algae are one of the main reef builders

At Pitcairn Island in the Southern Pacific Ocean, a plethora of beautiful and unique macro algaes are well represented in myriad forms. Beautiful fleshy algaes, branching coralline and leafy brown algaes are extremely well represented according to a new survey…

Algae-grazing fish help preserve corals

We’ve all seen how algae can choke off corals in our home aquariums and the same holds true in the wild. But algae-grazing fish in the wild are doing their parts to keep algae levels low on natural reefs to…