Articles by Mike Paletta

Planning and Transitioning to 500 Gallons It has now been over a year since I started making plans to change tanks from a 300 to 500 gallons. As with just about everything time related, it went fast. As I wrote in a previous article, proper planning is in my opinion, essential for the long-term...

Keeping it Simple Building A New Tank While it still looks good, keeping this tank at its best has been difficult do to poor planning on not keeping things simple, especially during the last two years. KISS, the acronym, not the band, has often been touted as a key part of being successful...

My New Tank: By Mike Paletta As I wrote in my last article for ReefBuilders last December, I am planning on setting up one last tank for myself. Over the years I have set up a fair number of tanks for myself as well as assisted on over 100 more for others. As a result, I am confident that with...

BANNED! But Is There Still Hope? Having a tank like this resplendent with full colonies will take longer in the future since if the bans continue most new tanks will need to start off with frags. The collection of ornamental fish in Hawaii: BANNED. The collection and sale of live rock and...

Thinking about Reefapalooza and Orlando A happy camper about to attend her first Reefaplaooza. While sitting here in the gray of Pittsburgh, it has rained or snowed almost every day this Spring, I started thinking about my trip to Reefaplaooza in March and went back and looked at my notes...

Jamie Craggs’ Game Changing Work at the Horniman Museum Over the years I have witnessed a lot of breakthroughs in the hobby. In terms of propagating corals we have gone from barely being able to keep most corals alive to the point where we can now propagate most corals through some form of...

Has the hobby gotten too expensive and how does it compare to the past? I have been in this hobby for a long time, but I am not going to act like an old codger and say I remember when Flame Angels were a quarter and corals were a dollar. Nor am I going to get into a discussion of how a frag...

Things I Miss About the Hobby Being with some of my long-time friends a bit ago, we started reminiscing about the early years of the hobby and some of the things that used to be common or major parts of the hobby and how many of them were gone. I am typically not someone who dwells on the past...

Tips and Tricks (No Secrets) One of the most frequently asked questions I get are what are the secrets of the people who are really good at doing this. I would love to tell you that there are a bunch of secrets and I am writing a book that you have to buy to get them, but that is not the case...

The Pros and Cons of Aquacultured vs Maricultured vs Wild Coral Colonies Visiting MACNA or any of the large frag swaps or shows 10 years ago the vendors present for the most part displayed large wild colonies of coral under metal halide lamps. IN the last five years this has changed...

Stability and Consistency of a Reef Tank One of the benefits I have found of writing so much is that when I am putting together an article I always learn something. When I did the articles on the master’s tanks I learned a great deal, as I hoped I would. One of the most important things I...

Following the Masters Part Two When I decided to write the first article looking at the tank parameters for people who I consider masters in the hobby I did so thinking that their tanks would be pretty similar and that their success was at least partially due to their following some common...

Learning and Understanding This past fall and winter were a bit trying for my tanks due to the amount of travel I did and the resultant time away from my tanks. I have to admit that they were more neglected than they had been for quite some time and it showed. As a result, I lost a few corals...

Tank Parameters Of Some Masters To this day one of the most frequently asked questions I get, and actually that many “old time hobbyists” get is “How do I get rid of the algae in my tank. My first question then is “what are the parameters of your tank’s water? Invariably the answer is my tank’s...

Incrementalism in the Hobby There is an old Southern axiom of how to cook a bullfrog. You can’t just pop it into boiling water because as soon as it hits the hot water it will sense that the water is too hot so it will hop out. Instead you put it in cool refreshing water and then gradually...

The Past and Future of the Hobby At this time of year, we often look back on what has transpired in the past year both good and bad and think about it. For me, it was for the most part a good year in aquarium terms, as I wrote a fair amount, most of my tanks did well and I traveled more than I...

A Discussion of US and European Reefkeeping I do not consider reefkeeping to be a competitive activity, but during my recent trips to Europe and then travels around the states the most frequently asked questions I got were “Are the states better than us” or “how far ahead of us are the...