Microalgae, Why Grow It?

Microalgae. We have all heard of the microscopic organisms that use light to grow. But why should we raise it? In the ocean, microalgae is at the bottom of the food chain. The plankton feed of it, get energy, and give that energy to the fish and crustaceans that eat...

Dosing Nitrates to Improve SPS Coloration

Many years ago when I started in this hobby my main mission was to keep nutrients as low as possible. But it was tougher back then since the equipment was not as efficient or advanced as what is available today. Yes, I used a a skimmer, did regular water changes, avoided overfeeding my fish and employed mechanical filtration. I wasn’t a refugium guy but others used this method successfully for nutrient export by growing macro algae and promoting the growth of nitrate-consuming bacteria. Eventually, GFO was developed to manage phosphates and I jumped on that bandwagon to keep my levels near zero. Over time, technological advances led to many more innovations, giving reef keepers a slew of options such as bio pellet reactors and liquid additives

New Products: Aquaforest AF Power Food

Aquaforest, a Polish company that made its American debut at MACNA 2016 in San Diego, is taking the North American market by storm. The company, founded in 1995, offers a full line of products for reef aquaria, backed by years of research and laboratory grade...

Sponges, Sponges, Everywhere!

Sponges are great filter feeders If you do any diving anywhere, you will see sponges everywhere. Some of them are more colorful than corals, and some of them you can sit in. All sponges are water pumps and filters, which makes them useful in the sea and in our reefs. Sponges don’t move, they sit there, eat, and get fat. (Reminds me of one of my old girlfriends. She had the same complexion and personality as a sponge.) A typical sponge can pump 20,000 times its own volume in water through its cells in one day. All that water is also filtered by the sponge using “choanocytes,” which are just tiny, cone-shaped towers with sticky cells on them to catch food. Each tower has one flagellum, or hair-like thing