We are getting creamed in the aquascaping department

I love aquariums so much, it doesn’t matter what kind of tank it is, as long as someone’s put some Love into it, it shows. As hard as we work and fiddle with and try to perfect our reef aquariums,…

Simple Tips for Effective Marine Aquarium Aquascaping

Since we launched Saltwater Smarts, we’ve been sprinkling the term “aquascaping” into our posts with reckless abandon. While many of you seasoned salties out there might be well acquainted with this term, others may find themselves scratching their heads each…

6 Tips for Choosing the Right-Sized Tank for Saltwater Fish

Have you ever noticed that species profiles written about marine fish almost always include a recommended minimum tank size for the species? Have you also noticed that tank-size recommendations for the same species can vary wildly from one author, dealer,…

Reef Aquascaping, why hasn’t the movement really caught on yet?

Aquascaping, the art of creating asthetically pleasing underwater worlds is widely popular in the freshwater hobby, but it hasn’t exactly caught on within the saltwater industry. There are plenty of amazing, well thought out reef aquariums out there that put…

Marco Rocks Smart Start Live takes the pests outta live rock

Marco Rocks’ Key Largo reef rock is a great dry alternative to live rocks in a tank giving you nearly all the benefits of live rock, except the life. That is about to change with the introduction of the Marco…

Oliver Knott displays extreme aquascaping creativity in the Anubias booth and all over InterZoo

Any saltwater aquarists who’s been keeping fish or corals for some time knows that the freshwater aquarists have us trumped when it comes to making beautiful displays of aquarium nature. Most of this exposure to freshwater planted aquariums will be…

Thinking “Negative”- an overlooked aquascaping aspect

If you read my blog posts and articles on aquascaping, you hear me blabber on and on about the virtues of great rockwork, avoiding the uninspired rock wall configurations, the Golden Ratio, etc.  Yet for all my talk about rockwork,…

The Reefstock 2010 Aquascaping Design: Lessons learned and a Victory for the Road Less Travelled

Reeftock  2010 is now a pleasant memory. The aquascaping  “ Throwdown”  between myself and my new BFF, Freshwater “Iron Aquascaper” John Ciotti, was a smashing success, bringing aquascaping to the forefront of the marine hobby world, if only for a…

Aquascaped wonder Cube aquarium lit by LEDs

Reef Stock is just lesss than 48 hours away while I’m writing this. And if this is any indication of what it is in store for the Aquascaping competition then whoa! The 20-ish gallon 18″ cube aquarium uses a very…

Aquascaping techniques, tips and thoughts

As a reef geek who is more than just casually interested in creating great looking aquariums, I’ve made it my personal mission over the past few years to rid the reef aquarium world of dull and mediocre aquascaping. To this…