The future of the reef aquarium industry is microbial. Microbes hold many of the nuanced secrets behind the long-term health and reproduction of corals, reef fish, and invertebrates. All of these creatures are a sum of their associated microbiomes and…
What to do in a Reef Tank Power Outage
Possibly one of the most daunting things you can encounter is sudden silence from the reef tank when the power goes out. Or perhaps you know the power is going out on a particular day for scheduled maintenance? Whether the…
When Jake went to Sanjay’s house
This is one of the great Reef Builders videos and for several reasons. One, it shows off Jake in his prime, secondly he was with his friend Sanjay Joshi at his house, and third, the video is about Sanjay’s super…
Substrate versus Bare Bottom Reef Aquariums
As with many aspects of reefkeeping, there is no perfect way. Even something as seemingly simple as whether to choose substrate or go bare bottom leads to a discussion. As someone who has run both types of systems and is…
Grzegorz Grebosz’s Acropora are Probiotic Perfection
We admit to following and admiring this aquarium for a while, and although it’s existed in several guises since 2015, the bright, tabling acros and pristine, immaculately clean tank always manage to keep it looking like new. We caught up…
How to Manage the Ugly Stage of a New Reef Tank
There are few inevitable things in life and even fewer in this hobby. But the one inevitable that everyone encounters when they set up a new tank is that there will be an ugly phase. It does not matter if…
How and Why to Dose Your Reef Tank
We’re asked more questions on dosing than virtually anything else. Here’s a Beginner’s Guide and our most Frequently Asked Questions on Reef Tank Dosing. What is dosing? Dosing is when you add buffer to your reef tank to keep water…
How to Aquascape a Reef Aquarium
Once the live rock has been cured and cycled one of the most fun aspects, at least to me, of setting up a new reef tank has finally arrived. Aquascaping a tank, that is designing and positioning the live rock…
Levi’s Caribbean Biotope Aquarium
I’ve always personally wanted to set up an aquarium endemic to a certain area of the ocean. I recently moved across the country to Florida, and with the move, I happened to have an empty 75-gallon aquarium. I figured if…
Why Successful Reefing Is All About Incrementalism
Over the course of the last forty years, many changes have taken place that have made the hobby better. Looking back, it is safe to say that while all of these changes seem large now, they were all done incrementally,…
