Articles

Not an article but a brief video rundown of coral photography done at a LFS.

Most beautiful and elegant aquascape reef tanks layouts for living areas with Orphek Atlantik iCon Reef LED Lighting Orphek Atlantik iCon over reef aquascaping tank under constrations Today’s post is about integration of reef aquariums as elegant, creative, serene and even striking decorative...

Guide to DIY with T-Slot Aluminum By Zach Friedrichs (@polyppal) T-Slot aluminum extrusion is an ideal material for building modern, strong tank stands and canopies. And it isn’t as difficult as you might think, essentially you are playing with a supersize Erector kit! Using simple fastening...

Introduction There are tons of great resources that talk about the benefits of higher pH on coral growth but many of them merely use anecdotal evidence from their own tanks, and while this is great there are tons of variables on our own reef tanks and it is very difficult to apply these results...

Well this will be my third trip down this “Rabbit Hole”…One would think I should have learned my lesson, but Noooooo! I jumped back in with both feet! If you are brave enough come with me on my third journey into “Wonderland” then read on!! In my last post in July of last year I presented the...

Brown Jelly Disease (BJD) is an issue many reefers have run into. Like most coral diseases, the pathogen causing BJD has not been conclusively determined. Here I will share some observations and test results supporting the idea that its caused by a bacterial pathogen, and so may be treatable...

Note from the Editor: The article below was written by @4FordFamily, a Reef2Reef staff member, however the article was also created with the help and input from @eatbreakfast @evolved @HotRocks, all prominent members of the Reef2Reef community and marine fish experts. The wrasse photos...

Note From the Editor: This is a companion article to the one we did on copepods a couple of weeks ago. Aquarists tend to refer to copepods, amphipods, and isopods in one breath, yet they are actually quite different creatures. Amphipods share the same kingdom, phylum, and subphylum, Crustacea...

Reef aquarists frequently talk about copepods. They are generally viewed as a positive thing for a saltwater tank, and they are an important food source for many fish, most notably the mandarin fish, seahorses and some crabs. Today we'll take a deep dive into the world of copepods, no pun...

I have long cited a calcium reactor (CaRx) as THE piece of equipment that got me over the hump with SPS. That was back in 1997, and the reactor was a Marine Technical Concepts ProCal. Those who may be familiar with my posts know I am an unabashed fan of MTC gear; and have used their stuff...

Proper lighting is one of the most important aspects of successfully maintaining a reef aquarium, yet many hobbyists leave it to chance. I’ve pondered why this is for years--perhaps it is because it can be a complicated subject with many variables involved (compare this to water chemistry where...

So, let's continue on with our discussion of plastics for the reef aquarium, Part 3. Moving along down our list in the table, the next ones are the polyethylenes. Table courtesy of @Seawitch, ©2019, All Rights Reserved. PE: polyethylene PET: polyethylene terephthalate PEX: cross-linked...

Lego, made of ABS, Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Yes, @Brew12, you can have Lego in your reef tank. This is a royalty-free image from by MW from Pixabay. Welcome to Part 2 of Plastic for the Reef Aquarium. In Part 1, we covered some background on plastic, why plastic is of interest to reef...

Introduction At the beginning of January, 2019, I wrote an article about glass. Shortly after that, I was asked to write an article about plastic. This is the result. The article below is organized in a similar way as the glass article. Plastic is of interest to reef aquarists because we use...

An anthias from our March 2019 Reef of the Month. A banjo was added by the editor. Anthias photo is courtesy of @samparker. ©2019, All Rights Reserved. The editor photoshopped the photo for this article. Musical Fish Music is an intrinsic part of the human experience, and we’re willing to...

Hi everyone! Thank you for taking a look on the forum at the Adelson illusion (Adelson 1993) shown in Figure 1 (left)! It created some great discussion that caused me to redraft the entire follow-up article! Indeed, we did couch the question differently than Edward Adelson. We asked the...

A drop of water. This is royalty-free image from Pixabay. Automated Water Changes Automation is all the rage these days, with a sizable percentage of reefers believing that a controller is essential to the keeping of a reef tank. It's not, but it is a nice-to-have as long as you are sensible...

The author of this article, David Smith, has a small zoanthid business in Youngstown, Ohio. He is an expert on the care of zoanthids and did a special piece for us on how to frag zoanthids effectively. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tips on Fragging Zoanthids Here, I will highlight how I go...

I’ve been keeping reef aquaria for a very long time. My first reef tank, softies and zoanthids, was set up around 1987. What folks newer to the hobby may not appreciate is the dearth of equipment choices that was available to us back then. I built my first skimmer, not because I wanted to, but...

As all serious reef aquarium hobbyists know, light intensity is an important consideration for a successful captive reef. This short article will examine how light intensity decreases as water depth increases in an aquarium the depth often maintained by hobbyists. The Swedish researcher Nils...