This story begins at Reef-A-Palooza 2018. I saw some shockingly well-conditioned Gem tangs at the TSM Corals booth. I’d never heard of this place and had to know more about their practices and why their fish looked so fat and healthy. They explained their quarantine process, and I was [...]
House of Fins in Greenwich, CT, just north of NYC, one of the oldest aquarium stores in America, is about to celebrate its 60th anniversary. This store is top notch. Done right. The real deal. It is packed with fish and corals beyond your wildest dreams. Working here gave me the opportunity to work [...]
David Tilton, owner of Allquatics, is an artist. If he had been a professional painter during the Renaissance, he’d be celebrated for hundreds of years and displayed in the Louvre. But alas, his passion is ponds and aquariums, so his works will go unappreciated by all but us in the aquatic [...]
I recently upgraded my tiny 3 gallon reef vase to a 9 gallon reef bowl. Even though I am a terrible person for almost never feeding the corals, I still struggle with Bryopsis hair algae. I used some old rock that I’ve been carrying around with me for about 10 years, and when these rocks were [...]
Reef Bowls have been around for a while, but they’re still considered to be unconventional and experimental. Brandon Mason started a 1 gallon reef jar in 2006, and Mary Arroyo’s 1.5 gallon Maritza vase just celebrated its 5th birthday. There has been some criticism of tiny reef picos with [...]
We took a trip to North Carolina over Memorial Day weekend to visit my sister who is also a reefer. Naturally, we had to stop at Fintastic, the local aquarium shop. This saltwater aquarium store opened just a little over a year ago, in March 2016, so this was my first time in Fintastic. The owner, [...]
Porcelain Crabs and Squat Lobsters are neither true crabs nor true lobsters; they are actually Galatheoids, and are more closely related to hermit crabs. Most of the tiny squat lobsters and porcelain crabs you’d find as hitchhikers or for sale at your LFS are reef safe and peaceful. They are [...]
The future of the aquarium hobby depends on sustainable aquarium livestock harvesting and responsible aquarium keeping. The Catalina Goby, Lythrypnus dalli, has a long history of being marketed as tropical fish or a coldwater fish that can adapt to warm water. When the gobies die shortly after [...]
