Articles

Linckia laevigata: An Analysis of Plausible Causes of Mortality in Captivity By: Malcolm Levison The indisputable beauty of Linckia laevigata has led to this fragile organism becoming an icon of the global aquarium trade. However, survival rates in captivity are tragically low. Epitomizing...

Rock, Flower, Papers: A review of journal articles about Rock Flower Anemones (Phymanthus crucifer) written by @Peace River (cover photo by OrlandoReefer) Rock Flower Anemones (RFAs) are common anemones that are kept in marine and reef aquariums, and they are widely available throughout the...

I want to start this article off by saying that this is an extremely niche subject and many reefers who perform frequent or even semi-frequent water changes should not worry about their trace elements if most your corals are growing well because as has been my experience and that of many other...

Introduction The process of calcification or biomineralization in SPS corals is often a head scratcher for most people, let alone reefing hobbyists. I've always wondered myself what really goes on behind the scene. Through research, I reviewed some research papers in order to help us better...

Flashlight Fish in Captivity Jay Hemdal C. 2020 Introduction Flashlight fish, with their eerie green glowing photophores (light emitting organs), are arguably one of the most unique fish available to marine aquarists. One of only two families of fish kept in aquariums that are bioluminescent...

PART 4 "GETTING IT RIGHT" COLORIMETRIC INSTRUMENTAL TESTING METHODS (DIGITAL) As we turn our attention to the use of digital testers (Colorimeters) such as the HANNA CHECKER, most of the same elements necessary for good precision and accuracy that exist in Visual Testing also exist in Digital...

PART 3 -----COLORIMETRIC VISUAL TESTING METHODS (What We See) SOURCES OF ERROR IN THE ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE Next we turn to the second component of our testing protocols and that is the ASSESSMENT…What do we see and how do we interpret the results of our testing procedure. Visual colorimetric...

PART 2-----COLORIMETRIC VISUAL TESTING METHODS (The Chemistry) As we covered in Part 1 in the “Understanding Errors” section, the visual testing method consists of essentially two steps, Evaluation and Assessment. Evaluation is the test procedure (The Chemistry) and Assessment is the...

GETTING IT RIGHT! ---MAKE TESTING COUNT BY USING A QUALITY SYSTEM APPROACH INTRODUCTION All of us want healthy and thriving Reef Tanks. This necessarily means excellent water quality. So I ask myself. How do I know the quality of my water? The answer of course is I need to test and measure...

Peppermint shrimp. Photo is from the World Wide Corals website. ©2019, All Rights Reserved. Note from the Editor: The following breeding information was kindly furnished to us by @Sallstrom, who is a professional marine biologist in Gothenburg, Sweden. In my discussions with him, he felt that...

For a while I have thought that I would have to learn HomeBridge (for a HomeBridge version “how-to” please refer to @blazeby's R2R article) to be able to use Siri to control my Neptune Apex. But this changed after Apple in 2018 bought WorkFlows and renamed it to Shortcuts. First, I sincerely...

This is a royalty-free image from Pixabay, courtesy of Boboshow. Current Extreme Weather is a Topic that is Hotly Debated What is not debated is that our lifestyles are dependent on the electricity that powers our lives and is essential to our vulnerable loved ones and the animals we keep...

Fellow Reefers. Now I have already written a guide on cupramine and how to use it to rid ich and for a lot of reasons if someone does not want to try copper then Hypo is another solution or Tank Transfer. These 3 methods are proven over time. A new study/method is being practiced with success...

If you want to build a DIY LED for your tank, there are plenty of resources on the internet to get you started on the usual setup of a driver, and a bucket full of little 3-watt stars to make your lovely strip-style light. But maybe the strip lights aren't what you want? Maybe you want...

Surge suppression has come a long way over the years. Some of us remember when purchasing our first computer we also had to purchase an APC power back-up that had surge protection, power filtering and power back-up as a much-needed secondary function. Today we plug our computers into surge...

We've all seen claims of ich, velvet, etc. returning after a 76 day fallow period. (For anyone wondering what a fallow period means click here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fallow-periods-going-fishless.190324/) Oftentimes, a fallow period failure is due to human error: The sick fish...