The marine aquarium hobby is second only to the US military when it comes to the number of acronyms its members throw around. (Quite fittingly, this past Monday was the 27th anniversary of my DOE. Shortly after that date, I…
Marine Aquarium Water Changes: Don’t Postpone the Personal Payoff!
Yesterday, I finally got around to performing an overdue water change in my 125-gallon tank. Admiring the fruits of my labor afterward, I couldn’t help wondering, “Why on earth do I wait so long to do these when the result…
Inappropriate Feeding—Not Just Overfeeding—Kills Marine Fish
“We lose a lot more fish to overfeeding than we do to underfeeding.” I’ve read or written that sentence—or some variation upon it—more times than I can recollect. While I still consider this statement to be true on balance, I…
Marine Fish Issues: When It’s Best to Leave Well Enough Alone
In most cases, issues affecting marine fish—diseases, behavioral issues, compatibility concerns, etc.—should be addressed and rectified as quickly as possible, lest small problems transform into much bigger ones. But there are some circumstances in which the best course of action…
5 Reasons to Understock Your Marine Aquarium
Over the many years I’ve kept marine aquariums, guests in my home have more than occasionally noted the relatively low number of specimens, particularly fish, in my tanks. You could say it’s been a hallmark of my fishkeeping career to…
The Powder Blue Tang: An Iconic Beauty Demanding Exceptional Care
The powder blue tang (Acanthurus leucosternon) is a breathtakingly beautiful, widely recognized (even among non-hobbyists) marine fish that can be a real pain to maintain in aquaria. While it is possible to keep one successfully under ideal conditions, most specimens…
The Many Means of Nutrient Export in Marine Aquariums
Dissolved nutrients. Sounds like a good thing, right? After all, every organism needs nutrients in one form or another in order to grow and stay in good health. So why are marine aquarium hobbyists—particularly reefkeepers—seemingly so fixated on keeping the…
When is it Okay to Leave a Dead Fish in a Marine Aquarium?
A fellow hobbyist once told that when a fish dies in his tank, he just leaves it there to rot because “that’s what happens in nature.” While he was right about the decomposition of a dead fish being natural, allowing…
The Role of Activated Carbon in the Reef Aquarium
Of the three types of filtration used in the reef aquarium hobby today, biological, mechanical, and chemical, it is chemical filtration that is possibly the least understood. This post is all about activated carbon, the most popular type of chemical…
6 Reasons for Poor Protein Skimmer Foam Production
A properly sized protein skimmer is key to the success of any marine aquarium system—provided it’s actually doing the job it’s intended to do, that is. Sometimes protein skimmers just keep right on skimming with little or no foam and…
