Juvenile Smooth Trunkfish

Good morning from the windiest place on Earth! Like the rest of the planet our weather is messed up and not normal! We should be having rain every day but instead it’s been crazy windy with very little sun and honestly if the rains don’t come soon we will be headed into another year of drought!  I left the house at 6:30 this morning (in the dark) and met my neighbor for an early morning mountain bike ride.

Tennessee Aquarium’s Holiday Gift List

Tis the season for giving. And giving and giving. Or so it can seem. But there are lots of people, and animals too, in need and deserving of our help around this time of year. The Tennessee Aquarium is reaching out to the giving side in all of us by putting out its...

How Simple Can You Get with Your Marine Aquarium?

While the title of this post puts me in mind of a song performed by Nick Rivers in the 1984 comedy film Top Secret, it’s a question many a novice has posed before setting up his or her first marine aquarium. How basic can it be? Or, put another way, what equipment is absolutely essential and what isn’t?This is a perfectly logical question because ours can be a highly equipment-intensive hobby, and the choices of gear and gadgets designed to make our lives easier can be downright mind-blowing. Add in all the online forum chatter about—and volatile disputes over—the latest-and-greatest hobby technology and methodology, and it’s no surprise that many beginners have a heck of a time distinguishing between the bare essentials and the “bells and whistles.” Complicating matters, of course, is the fact that opinions on what constitutes “essential equipment” can vary widely from one hobbyist to the next. I would humbly submit that the following items are all you really need for a bare-bones saltwater setup: (Note that you’ll also need various and sundry small-ticket items used for regular operation and maintenance, such as aquarium brushes, an algae magnet, etc. Plus, if you plan to keep a reef system, you’ll need to add some means of calcium/alkalinity supplementation to the list.) Some folks might say this list is grossly incomplete while others might contend you could get by without some of the items on it.