Hey, you know what?
I spend a lot of time forcing you guys to think about our philosophies and attitudes towards reef keeping, don’t I? It seemed like the right time to look at some of the stuff that affects our daily reef keeping “lives” each and every day. How about discussing what I feel are some the most influential things that we use every day in our hobby. After a lifetime of keeping fishes, I couldn't imagine doing what we do every day without some of these.
You will have others, and some of my choices may baffle you, but I’ve made my case for each. You need to add to this one, okay?
Liquid feeds- Where would we be without some of the fantastic liquid feeds that are now available for our corals and fishes? I mean, it used to be that you’d have to obtain questionably pure cultures of plankton, like Isochrysus, etc. from a “biological supply house” (and THAT was not easy? Every try to buy from one? After 9/11, these guys make TSA look downright primative), and then grow your own in lots of smelly, vulnerable, and unattractive bottles and containers, making your house or fish room look like an experiment gone wrong. And you had to feed the phytoplankton, which was just another step in an already tedious process. Thank goodness for companies like Reef Nutrition, who have made armchair coral geeks like me that much happier. Now, thanks to these prepared feeds, the toughest challenge is having to get permission from your significant other to store the bottle of feed alongside the mayonaise in the fridge. Oh, the challenges we face as postmodern reefers…
"Honey, can you grab the hotdog relish? I's right behind the bottle of phytoplankton...?"
2) Powerheads- The first powerbeads were used to “rev up” our under gravel filters back in the
late 1970’s and very early 1980s, and they changed the way aquariums were kept. Suddenly, we didin’t have to rely on air pumps to do the job of “water movement” or gas exchange anymore. Now, we could use these electronic babies to kick some aquatic butt by circulating lots of water in our reefs with minimal energy consumption. The downside was that the first units were a bit noisy, generated a fair amount of heat, and were kind of large an clunky. These of course, led to the development of the modern prop pumps, which have revolutionized the way water movement is applied in reef systems. Now, “intelligent flow” is a concept that most any reefer can apply at a variety of price points, too, along with “credit card debt” and “blown budget”, of course.
3) Salt mixes- Don’t take this most basic of things in our hobby for granted, my friends. Okay, this invention preceded my time, and the original formulae go back to like the 1950’s. Regardless, where would we be in the hobby without salt mix? We’d literally be keeping freshwater tanks, right? And trust me, if you think growing your own phytoplankton is a task, could you imagine making your own salt mix? Especially in a Post 9/11 world… Imagine calling up the local “chemical supply” place (every town has one, right? I mean, that’s what hobby books from the 1960’s tell you to do) and having to buy constituent trace elements and such every time you want to make a batch of salt? Can you imagine the reception you’d get? (“Hey, Joe, it’s that weird guy that needs 430 grams of Dysprosium again…”). You talk about an easy way to get on the “no fly list” -buying the hundreds of components of seawater mix as a hobbyist will do the trick! Just reach for bucket of instant Ocean and call it a day, and thank the reef gods that you’re living in this era…
"Who needs to order the stuff on line? I'm a DIY'er!"
4) Test kits- I mean, how would we be able to trash talk each other if we didn’t have test kits to tell us that our Magnesium levels were too high, or that our pH was plummeting precipitously towards acid? Test kits have given Joe and Jane hobbyist ( that’s us!) the ability to “see” chemically what’s going on in our systems, and to create a “baseline” for what’s normal in our tanks. Us “armchair chemists" actually have a rudimentary understanding of some of the basic water parameters that affect our reef tanks, and we have the ability to determine, discuss, and analyze the effects of various chemical levels in our systems. We can impress people with our low nitrate levels ( although I think I've made a case that low nitrate levels in a reef are as sexy as Bell Bottom pants at the beach.)...Test kits have not only helped us understand what’s going on in our reef systems, they've served to educate large numbers of ordinary people about the world of science. And that makes us more interesting to talk to at parties! (“That must have been awesome seeing “Lego: The Movie” with your kids today. I rolled out of bed and checked the phosphate level and Magnesium in my reef tank.” ) Cool.
My water test kit is at least as interesting as an episode of "The Bachelor..."
5) PVC plumbing parts- Who was the hobbyist who first figured out that you can use all of those cool “Street Els” and MPT-FPT fittings for our own evil purposes? I mean, that opened the door for the DIY reefer to go nuts, creating all sorts of cool plumbing schemes for our systems? Heck, I even recall seeing many DIY reactor and protein skimmer designs, crafted entirely of off-the-shelf plumbing components. Let’s be honest, as a reefer, when you’re in the local home improvement store, you’re drawn, almost unexplainably to the plumbing department. Just looking at PVC ball valves and rolls of Spa Flex gets your heart pumping…Long-forgotten designs for that exotic double-isolated pre filter return you’ve had in your head zip through your mind…but wait, you came here for spackling compound, remember? But a reefer can dream, no?
Honorable Mention- Super Glue. Not only has this stuff saved marriages, it’s created a whole new segment of the hobby…”fragging.” I mean, short of accidentally dropping the one colony of Pocillopora that was available in the U.S. in 1986, no one even saw this phenomenon of fragging coming. And, thanks to the brave leap of faith to use super glue to adhere our Tyree Acropora riduculosa to ceramic “frag plugs” ( another invention for reef keeping! Who got the patent on THAT?), a whole segment of hobby culture and industry capitalism was created. It could be successfully argued that the modern “frag swap” owes as much of its existence to Cyanoacrylate as it does to beer and chips. I still remember the TV commercial where the guy glues his construction helmet to a beam and then dangles from it to show how strong this stuff is. Dang, he should have shown what happens when you stick a Montipora capricornus frag to a rock with this stuff…awesomeness.
Perhaps the most influential product ever offered in the reef hobby?
Bonus point: Remember wooden air stones? They use ‘em in air-driven protein skimmers, something which some of you ultra-progressive reefers are playing with again. Wooden air stones (the wood of choice is called “Limewood”, trivia freaks) help produce extremely fine bubbles that are perfect for skimming. I love wooden airstones so much because these superfine bubbles remind me of the saltwater aquarium in my orthodontist’s office back when I was a kid, before I had my first saltwater tank. That old tank (actually, very high tech for the late seventies- a plexiglass octagonal design) with its air-powered UG filter, plastic plants, obsidian rocks,Yellow Tangs, and Damselfish, inspired me to no end. I remember looking at the super fine bubbles coming from the lift tubes of the UGF- the telltale sign of a saltwater tank back in the day…Talk about aspirational- I used to love having my retainer adjusted simply because I’d get to visit the tank…Thanks to that aquarium, I have really nice teeth and an obsession with reef tanks…
Bonus, bonus point: To the guy who called at 4:20 AM today to ask about the availability of a certain Paly morph and left a rather perturbed message that he couldn’t get ahold of anyone, there was this great convention they came up with called a “time zone”, which marks the time differences that we experience in different parts of the country…Really cool idea, you should embrace it. Or even be aware of it’s existence. It’s cool. So, for example, when it’s 7:20 AM EST in Syracuse, NY, about the time you're having you second bowl of raison bran, many of the good folks of Los Angeles, where Unique Corals is located, are still snuggly in bed, dreaming of their next screenplay idea or how they are going to nail that perfect "Downward Dog" in the next yoga class. Yeah, time differences. Craziness, huh? Perhaps the point could be reinforced if I call you back tonight at a very reasonable 9:15PM PST to discuss the availability of said Palys? It's no problem. I am to please.
I dedicate this to you, "Sleepless in Syracuse..."
Okay, vindictiveness aside, I'm looking forward to seeing your contributions to this "open source" examination of the greatest and most influential reefing inventions ever...These are just a few that come to mind; no doubt you have more...Lay 'em on us!
Keep thinking about how different our reef keeping lives would be without some of these inventions. Imagine the challenges we'd face. Philosophize, ponder, imagine...
And Stay wet.
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
I spend a lot of time forcing you guys to think about our philosophies and attitudes towards reef keeping, don’t I? It seemed like the right time to look at some of the stuff that affects our daily reef keeping “lives” each and every day. How about discussing what I feel are some the most influential things that we use every day in our hobby. After a lifetime of keeping fishes, I couldn't imagine doing what we do every day without some of these.
You will have others, and some of my choices may baffle you, but I’ve made my case for each. You need to add to this one, okay?
Liquid feeds- Where would we be without some of the fantastic liquid feeds that are now available for our corals and fishes? I mean, it used to be that you’d have to obtain questionably pure cultures of plankton, like Isochrysus, etc. from a “biological supply house” (and THAT was not easy? Every try to buy from one? After 9/11, these guys make TSA look downright primative), and then grow your own in lots of smelly, vulnerable, and unattractive bottles and containers, making your house or fish room look like an experiment gone wrong. And you had to feed the phytoplankton, which was just another step in an already tedious process. Thank goodness for companies like Reef Nutrition, who have made armchair coral geeks like me that much happier. Now, thanks to these prepared feeds, the toughest challenge is having to get permission from your significant other to store the bottle of feed alongside the mayonaise in the fridge. Oh, the challenges we face as postmodern reefers…
"Honey, can you grab the hotdog relish? I's right behind the bottle of phytoplankton...?"
2) Powerheads- The first powerbeads were used to “rev up” our under gravel filters back in the
late 1970’s and very early 1980s, and they changed the way aquariums were kept. Suddenly, we didin’t have to rely on air pumps to do the job of “water movement” or gas exchange anymore. Now, we could use these electronic babies to kick some aquatic butt by circulating lots of water in our reefs with minimal energy consumption. The downside was that the first units were a bit noisy, generated a fair amount of heat, and were kind of large an clunky. These of course, led to the development of the modern prop pumps, which have revolutionized the way water movement is applied in reef systems. Now, “intelligent flow” is a concept that most any reefer can apply at a variety of price points, too, along with “credit card debt” and “blown budget”, of course.
3) Salt mixes- Don’t take this most basic of things in our hobby for granted, my friends. Okay, this invention preceded my time, and the original formulae go back to like the 1950’s. Regardless, where would we be in the hobby without salt mix? We’d literally be keeping freshwater tanks, right? And trust me, if you think growing your own phytoplankton is a task, could you imagine making your own salt mix? Especially in a Post 9/11 world… Imagine calling up the local “chemical supply” place (every town has one, right? I mean, that’s what hobby books from the 1960’s tell you to do) and having to buy constituent trace elements and such every time you want to make a batch of salt? Can you imagine the reception you’d get? (“Hey, Joe, it’s that weird guy that needs 430 grams of Dysprosium again…”). You talk about an easy way to get on the “no fly list” -buying the hundreds of components of seawater mix as a hobbyist will do the trick! Just reach for bucket of instant Ocean and call it a day, and thank the reef gods that you’re living in this era…
"Who needs to order the stuff on line? I'm a DIY'er!"
4) Test kits- I mean, how would we be able to trash talk each other if we didn’t have test kits to tell us that our Magnesium levels were too high, or that our pH was plummeting precipitously towards acid? Test kits have given Joe and Jane hobbyist ( that’s us!) the ability to “see” chemically what’s going on in our systems, and to create a “baseline” for what’s normal in our tanks. Us “armchair chemists" actually have a rudimentary understanding of some of the basic water parameters that affect our reef tanks, and we have the ability to determine, discuss, and analyze the effects of various chemical levels in our systems. We can impress people with our low nitrate levels ( although I think I've made a case that low nitrate levels in a reef are as sexy as Bell Bottom pants at the beach.)...Test kits have not only helped us understand what’s going on in our reef systems, they've served to educate large numbers of ordinary people about the world of science. And that makes us more interesting to talk to at parties! (“That must have been awesome seeing “Lego: The Movie” with your kids today. I rolled out of bed and checked the phosphate level and Magnesium in my reef tank.” ) Cool.
My water test kit is at least as interesting as an episode of "The Bachelor..."
5) PVC plumbing parts- Who was the hobbyist who first figured out that you can use all of those cool “Street Els” and MPT-FPT fittings for our own evil purposes? I mean, that opened the door for the DIY reefer to go nuts, creating all sorts of cool plumbing schemes for our systems? Heck, I even recall seeing many DIY reactor and protein skimmer designs, crafted entirely of off-the-shelf plumbing components. Let’s be honest, as a reefer, when you’re in the local home improvement store, you’re drawn, almost unexplainably to the plumbing department. Just looking at PVC ball valves and rolls of Spa Flex gets your heart pumping…Long-forgotten designs for that exotic double-isolated pre filter return you’ve had in your head zip through your mind…but wait, you came here for spackling compound, remember? But a reefer can dream, no?
Honorable Mention- Super Glue. Not only has this stuff saved marriages, it’s created a whole new segment of the hobby…”fragging.” I mean, short of accidentally dropping the one colony of Pocillopora that was available in the U.S. in 1986, no one even saw this phenomenon of fragging coming. And, thanks to the brave leap of faith to use super glue to adhere our Tyree Acropora riduculosa to ceramic “frag plugs” ( another invention for reef keeping! Who got the patent on THAT?), a whole segment of hobby culture and industry capitalism was created. It could be successfully argued that the modern “frag swap” owes as much of its existence to Cyanoacrylate as it does to beer and chips. I still remember the TV commercial where the guy glues his construction helmet to a beam and then dangles from it to show how strong this stuff is. Dang, he should have shown what happens when you stick a Montipora capricornus frag to a rock with this stuff…awesomeness.
Perhaps the most influential product ever offered in the reef hobby?
Bonus point: Remember wooden air stones? They use ‘em in air-driven protein skimmers, something which some of you ultra-progressive reefers are playing with again. Wooden air stones (the wood of choice is called “Limewood”, trivia freaks) help produce extremely fine bubbles that are perfect for skimming. I love wooden airstones so much because these superfine bubbles remind me of the saltwater aquarium in my orthodontist’s office back when I was a kid, before I had my first saltwater tank. That old tank (actually, very high tech for the late seventies- a plexiglass octagonal design) with its air-powered UG filter, plastic plants, obsidian rocks,Yellow Tangs, and Damselfish, inspired me to no end. I remember looking at the super fine bubbles coming from the lift tubes of the UGF- the telltale sign of a saltwater tank back in the day…Talk about aspirational- I used to love having my retainer adjusted simply because I’d get to visit the tank…Thanks to that aquarium, I have really nice teeth and an obsession with reef tanks…
Bonus, bonus point: To the guy who called at 4:20 AM today to ask about the availability of a certain Paly morph and left a rather perturbed message that he couldn’t get ahold of anyone, there was this great convention they came up with called a “time zone”, which marks the time differences that we experience in different parts of the country…Really cool idea, you should embrace it. Or even be aware of it’s existence. It’s cool. So, for example, when it’s 7:20 AM EST in Syracuse, NY, about the time you're having you second bowl of raison bran, many of the good folks of Los Angeles, where Unique Corals is located, are still snuggly in bed, dreaming of their next screenplay idea or how they are going to nail that perfect "Downward Dog" in the next yoga class. Yeah, time differences. Craziness, huh? Perhaps the point could be reinforced if I call you back tonight at a very reasonable 9:15PM PST to discuss the availability of said Palys? It's no problem. I am to please.
I dedicate this to you, "Sleepless in Syracuse..."
Okay, vindictiveness aside, I'm looking forward to seeing your contributions to this "open source" examination of the greatest and most influential reefing inventions ever...These are just a few that come to mind; no doubt you have more...Lay 'em on us!
Keep thinking about how different our reef keeping lives would be without some of these inventions. Imagine the challenges we'd face. Philosophize, ponder, imagine...
And Stay wet.
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
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