So you think you know sumthin’ sumthin’ about alkalinity? Meet George. George can school you on alkalinity in about 20 seconds flat. Even if this reef kid did just look a bunch of this stuff up on Wikipedia, George does a…
Disc and plate coral olympics captured on time lapse
We tend to think of corals as almost exclusively benthic, non motile creatures, so its fascinating when we are reminded that corals are animals too. While 99% of the corals we like to play with and culture are colonial and…
Creatures of the Lembeh Strait
Howard Hall is a well known name in underwater cinematography. He and his wife have won numerous Emmys and produced fine films for National Geographic and PBS Nature. Fortunately for us, they also have a vimeo channel that you can…
The weeping willow leather coral has impossibly long polyps
The “Weeping Willow” leather coral is an example of how unique and cool a Sarcophyton toadstool coral has to be for me to specifically grow it for more than a dozen years. I still remember the first time we saw the…
Video of Melibe colemani documents this impossible-looking animal
When we first wrote about the description of the incredible looking Melibe colemani, we couldn’t wrap our heads around the appearance of this extraordinary nudibranch. Still images of Melibe colemani look like a strange mass of thin pasta threads just coagulated…
Jake and Mark talk about reefs over beers
Writing short and brief blog posts and occasionally articles about the state of the marine aquarium hobby, is both liberating and limiting. On the one hand we are not hamstrung to recount an entire story about a single topic, just…
Acclimating corals, how most home hobbyists should do it (video)
Imagine that you are just stepping off a long inter-continental flight. As you step off you are walked through a long hallway with air that has a smooth gradient of temperature and pressure to carefully acclimate you to your new…
The trailer for the “Nature’s Aquarium” DVD is a must-watch
This trailer for Oceans: Nature’s Aquariums is an impeccable representation of how calming and peaceful the ocean can be, and why we love our aquariums so much. Despite being only eight minutes long, the trailer can whisk you away to a…
Epic time lapse video shows corals ravenously eating Polyp Booster
Polyp Lab made this video to demonstrate the feeding response of coral polyps to their new Polyp Booster food, but we like it because it’s simply well made. Several coral specimens from very broad groups are equally represented in this…
The most beautiful goldflake angelfish spotted in South Africa
For a fish that lives in the Central Pacific Ocean, we never thought we’d see the finest example of a goldflake angelfish in South Africa of all places. But sure enough, while in Johannesburg we dipped into one of the…
