As the title suggests, this is intended as a short guide on what to do when you suspect dinoflagellates are trying to overtake your system. It is an attempt to boil down the protocols discussed across 11,000 posts in this "Are you Tired" thread along with thousands of other dino threads. I did not craft this protocol, nor have I conducted proper scientific tests to produce efficacy data. This is a simple distillation of many hundreds of observations. Nothing here is 100% effective nor...
A reef tank is a complete ecosystem operating with clockwork precision in a space of extraordinarily small dimensions compared to nature. As a result, the water chemistry fluctuates at a dizzying rate, implying a strategy to compensate for these changes in a sustainable manner. The export and reduction of inorganic nutrients is one of the biggest challenges in reef aquarium maintenance. Techniques have evolved over the years from a perspective focused on simply extracting as much as...
One of the best parts about the reefing hobby is collecting your favorite corals and watching them grow from small frags into colonies. Each reefer has the potential to grow corals and share their frags with others. That's the essence of the reefing hobby. Here at POTO, we are grateful to be able to do it on a large scale.
This article focuses on the genus Acropora, as it is the most coveted and demanding coral in the reefing hobby.
Corals lack the meaningful features commonly associated...
When I first utilized Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in coral experiments in 2001, I never envisioned how these lights would revolutionize the aquarium hobby. The advantages of LEDs are many, including long life, relatively low heat generation, dimming capability, spectral tuning, potential low energy consumption, and so on.
There are many LED luminaires on the market today, with spectral qualities tuned for freshwater and marine environments. For many, these lights have become the luminaire...
R2R Username: @W.vreeswijk
Build Thread: Tank w.vreeswijk
Let's jump right in! Tell us about your system!
This home was built, and we had our aquarium built into the wall with all equipment being put into the garage, so no dirty smell of the skimmer anymore for my wife (Happy wife, happy life!).
Here are a few pics of the tank being installed:
This system has now been running for 2 years. The system is back on track after a big power outage, but all corals seems happy and...
Basic Underwater Photography in Aquariums
@Jay Hemdal c.2021
Aquarists often have difficulty photographing animals in their aquariums. Not only do they have the same problems as other photographers (flash reflection off the glass, issues with white balance, fast moving subjects, etc.) they have the added difficulty of distortion caused by much thicker viewing panels (often with fingerprints or scratches on the surface). In some cases, the answer is to photograph the subject animal in a...
One of the most important aspects of successful reef aquarium care is maintaining proper calcium levels.
Why? Calcium is not only vital for the health and growth of corals as well as many other marine invertebrates but also plays a crucial role in maintaining high pH needed in marine systems. Fortunately, calcium is present in a variety of natural sources such as live rock and aragonite substrate. As the live rock and aragonite substrate gradually and naturally dissolve, they release...
KH is probably the most important water quality parameter after salinity and temperature. More important maybe, than Phosphate. Corals can survive a wide range of Phosphate levels but if the KH is too low for a prolonged period, all aquarium corals will die.
KH is also known as Carbonate Hardness or Alkalinity, and its the parameter which can alter the most on a daily basis. Corals use Carbonates to build their skeletons and rapidly decrease KH in the marine aquarium. If there’s one test kit...
R2R Username: @Bacon505
Build Thread: Bacon’s 160g peninsula build
Introduction:
Greeting Reefers! My name is Leo, and I'm from New Mexico. I'm very humbled and honored to have my tank featured for R2R Reef of The Month. When I first started the hobby, I spend lots of time looking at all the Tanks of the Month. Seeing so many beautiful tanks gave me inspiration that one day my tank could be featured.
First, I'd like to say thanks to the R2R community and the R2R team. Secondly, all the...
Best known for being featured in the movies “Finding Nemo” and “Finding Dory,” the clownfish has become a popular aquarium pet. Nemo and his dad, Marlin, are ocellaris clownfish, also called false clownfish or clown anemonefish. Anemonefish are so-named for the sea anemones in which they make their homes. There are 28 species of anemonefish, and they come in many colors, such as pink, red, yellow, black, brown and multi-colored stripes.
Size & description
Most false clownfish are orange...
