Q: I’m a newbie aquarium hobbyist and just starting to set up my first tank, which will be a 40-gallon soft-coral reef system with a few small fish. A friend of mine, who is also fairly new to the hobby but already has an operating tank, has explained the importance of cycling to me. I’m not [...]
The bane of most aquarists is the slow buildup of organic wastes in the form of nitrate. This is Aquarium Keeping 101—cellular respiration creates ammonia, which gets broken down into nitrite, which gets broken down into nitrate. And this end product, when present in sufficient [...]
Cycling a new saltwater aquarium isn’t simply a matter of waiting a certain amount of timeQuestionThe fish store dealer who’s helping me through the setup of my first saltwater aquarium told me I need to give the tank time to cycle before I put any fish or corals in it. As of right now, [...]
RO/DI treatment is a hedge against tap water which typically has impurities that can cause issues in our aquariumsQuestionI’ve been keeping saltwater aquariums for five years, and in all that time I’ve never used RO/DI water for top offs or mixing up clean salt water. I just use tap water [...]