Husbandry
Amino acids and reef aquarium: Alanine
Alanine is not essential amino acid for crustaceans (Cowey and Forster 1971). Alanine can elicit synthetic food retention in sea anemone tentacles but not mouth opening or digestion (Nagai and Nagai 1973) Present in natural seawater and is readily utilized by pelagic heterotrophic organisms (Williams et al. 1976) Common marine diatom Nitzschia laevis can... »
Amino acids and reef aquariums
In this my first post about amino acids and reef aquariums I take a look at what products are available to hobbyists and what amino acids and vitamins they contain. Unfortunately there are still several manufacturers who do not have enough respect for amateur aquarists to include the list of ingredients for their products.... »
Magnesium and Potassium, we did just fine before, thank you!
If there is something about reef keeping that hasn’t changed over the few decades it has been practiced, it’s the passion to try out new things and the tendency to come up with new theories or observations that explain most if not all problems reef aquarists are having at any given time. While sometimes... »
Quarter 2 of 2009 issue of REEF HOBBYIST MAGAZINE published
Lastest REEF HOBBYISTS MAGAZINE was just published. You can read it online by clicking here There is an excellent article about keeping Jellyfishes in aquarium by the well known YouTube star, Jim Stime. Also articles about Trachyphyllia, “Purple Hornets” and other fashionable subjects. »
More reading
This one is essential book for a serious hobbyist: Coral Reef Ecology (Ecological Studies, V. 102) by Yuri I. Sorokin Paperback: 480 pages Publisher: Springer (December 1995) ISBN: 978-3540605324 Unfortunately this one seems to be very hard to find, even Amazon doesn’t have used copies available. So if you are lucky enough to find one, buy it! »
Advances in Coral Husbandry in Public Aquariums
Here’s a book no advanced reef aquarist should skip! “Advances in Coral Husbandry in Public Aquariums, Volume 2 in the Public Aquarium Husbandry Series” Edited by Rob Leewis and Max Janse is an excellent collection of scientific (and other) papers concerning captive care of corals. Some of the material presented is likely familiar to... »
Guidelines for some parameters from Kleypas et al
Most hobbyists are familiar (I hope) with the scientific review and statistical analysis of various environmental parameters of coral reefs called Environmental Limits to Coral Reef Development: Where Do We Draw the Line?. Integrative and Comparative Biology (1999) by Kleypas et al. If you have not read this paper yet, it’s available for free... »
What we all should really be measuring
This log was inspired by a disappointing article about reef aquarium lighting in the 1/2009 issue of Coral magazine written by Mr. Calfo. It repeated the same old mess of watts and water volume that has left hobbyists in the dark (pun intended) since the beginning of our hobby. There are so many variables... »
My Way
There are as many ways to maintain a reef aquarium as there are hobbyists – and that is how it’s supposed to be. The exact same operation performed in two reef tanks will never result in two exactly same result. Some “methods” try to ignore this fact and give dosing instructions for strange and... »