SaltwaterSense

The ABCs of Water Quality for the Saltwater Aquarium

Every marine aquarist knows that good water quality is a good thing in a saltwater aquarium, but what is good water quality? Good water quality is, generally speaking, water quality that is similar to or better than the environment from which the animals you keep originate. While there may be some variations based on what specific biotope you are recreating, there are about seven parameters which should be pretty consistent across all saltwater aquaria. They are:

• pH

• Temperature

• Specific Gravity

• Dissolved Oxygen

• Ammonium/Ammonia

• Nitrite

• Nitrate

Does Every Aquarist Need to Test for All Seven Parameters Every Day?

Every marine aquarist should know how to measure these seven parameters. Does that mean that every marine aquarist needs to test daily for these parameters? Absolutely not. The more experienced an aquarist becomes, the more he or she will understand the interrelated nature of these parameters. As such, the experienced aquarist, for example, will pay attention to an upward or downward trend in pH and be able to make an educated guess as to what is causing it. Likewise, the advanced aquarist will notice subtle changes in the tank (e.g., increased algae growth) and immediately have a hunch as to what parameter is out of whack. My advice? Test frequently when you are starting out in the hobby, and decrease the frequency of testing as you gain experience. Having said this, I suggest every aquarist should be very aware of any daily shifts in temperature, pH or specific gravity.

Target Values for Optimal Water Quality in a Tropical Saltwater Aquarium

So what values denote good water quality in the marine aquarium? Before I give specific ranges, allow me to harp on a point I have discussed here numerous times: consistency. To wit: within the specified range, consistency is way more important that hitting a specific number. For example, I say below that pH should remain consistent within a range of 7.9–8.6, but a consistent pH reading of 7.8 will be less stressful for your animals than a fluctuating pH between 7.9 and 8.6. In short, keeping the daily fluctuation in pH to no more than 0.3 is far more important to the health of your animals than hitting the magic 8.1 or 8.2. The same holds true for temperature and specific gravity.

Now that I have made my plug for stability, let’s get to the main attraction—the target values:

• pH: 7.9-8.6 with 8.1-8.2 being ideal

• Temperature: 74-80 degrees F (24-27 degrees C)

• Specific Gravity: 1.023-1.025

• Dissolved Oxygen: Around 6.0 ppm

• Ammonium/Ammonia: 0 ppm

• Nitrite: 0 ppm

• Nitrate: below 5.0 ppm for reef tanks and below 20.0 ppm for fish-only systems

So there you have it—the seven parameters of which you should be aware to assess optimal water quality in your saltwater aquarium. Means to test each parameter exist, and you should have the appropriate test kits and tools on hand. Go test!

Avoiding Summer Algae Blooms in Your Tropical Saltwater Aquarium

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a blog entry about using a chiller to keep your tank’s temperature stable. Stability is, of course, absolutely essential to your system’s health. Even with a chiller, however, it is not uncommon for aquarists to see some additional algae growth during the summer months. Why is this? In many cases it has to do with a slight, but sustained, increase in system temperature throughout the summer months. It may also have to do with longer daylight hours or even direct sunlight hitting the tank (something that usually should be avoided). Of course summer vacations, additional yard work and days at the beach may also cut into some aquarists’ regular aquarium maintenance. Whatever the reason, if you have additional algae growth during the summer months, here are a few simple ways to address it.

Run Your Aquarium Chiller on a Controller

If you have an aquarium chiller, run it on a controller that also controls your heaters, fans and other system components. With a quality chiller, accurate temperature probes and a robust controller, you should be able to maintain less than one degree of temperature fluctuation in a 24-hour period. Using a controller, you can keep your tank at a consistent temperature year-round.

Condition the Air in Your Home

This is not my solution of choice, as I live in Southern California and have no air conditioning in my home, but many people can reduce summer algae blooms by controlling the ambient temperature in their houses (or at least in the room where the aquarium resides). If you live in a place that is very hot, this may be essential, unless you are prepared to run a very beefy and reliable (read expensive) chilling system. Keeping the room temperature stable can go a long way toward keeping the aquarium temperature stable during the summer months.

Protect Your Aquarium from Direct Sunlight

If direct sunlight is hitting your tank during the day, consider closing the curtains or shades at the time when the sun is at the right angle to reach the tank. Direct sunlight can cause algae blooms almost right before your eyes, and simply covering the window can make all the difference. In general, an aquarium should ideally be situated in a location where it is not exposed to direct sunlight, but if yours is, consider shielding it from the light.

Bolster Your Clean-Up Crew

While I am not a fan of “throwing animals at problems”, I do prefer to take care of issues in my aquarium with animals whenever possible. Summer algae blooms may remind you that it is time to bolster your clean-up crew. I am not suggesting you add a mess of algae-grazing animals to deal with a summer algae-bloom (you don’t want to have to feed them algae after the bloom is gone, now do you?), but strategically assessing your clean-up crew’s population is something all aquarists should do at least once a year. Perhaps a summer algae bloom will remind you that it’s time to add a few new algae-grazing snails or some reef-compatible hermit crabs.

Keep it Cool, But Keep it Stable

Following these simple suggestions should keep your tank stable and reduce summer algae blooms. Have a great summer!

    

Aquarium Chillers Provide Insurance Against Summer Heat Waves

It’s May and, for many people, warm summer weather is just around the corner. Are you ready?

For the marine aquarist, warm temperatures outside can increase the temperature in your tank enough to, at best, cause unwanted algae blooms and, at worst, harm to your animals. While most of the animals we keep come from the Tropics, the temperature of a reef tank under metal halide lights can easily exceed the temperature of the tropical ocean. While some gamble during the warm summer months, hoping a heat wave doesn’t strike, the responsible thing to do is to have a plan for keeping your marine tank temperature stable regardless of the ambient air temperature.

Fans Can be Effective at Keeping Your Aquarium Cool

The simplest and least expensive way to cool a tank is to use fans. A fan (or fans) directed at the surface of the display tank or the surface of the sump can effectively dissipate heat. On my 135-gallon tank, I run a fan off my aquarium controller. When the water temperature hits a pre-set number, the fan kicks on and brings the temperature down. If the temperature continues to increase, the controller then shuts down my lights. While this strategy is effective, the downside is that the fan increases water loss due to evaporation making it necessary to top-off with more RODI freshwater than usual (absolutely essential to keep the specific gravity stable).

An Aquarium Chiller is the Best Insurance

While a fan or fans can effectively handle many tanks' temperature during the summer months, it is often best to have an aquarium chiller plumbed and ready to go. An aquarium chiller operates much like a refrigerator and cools your water to keep it within a pre-set range. Different chillers operate in different ways, but the two most common set-ups are drop-in chillers and external chillers. A drop-in chiller operates by using a coil that is submerged within your sump, while an external chiller requires water to be move through the unit and then back to your system.

Chillers are highly effective and offer insurance for summer heat waves. While they may at first seem expensive, the cost of a chiller is often negligible compared to the amount of money most aquarist have spent on their animals. There is no doubt that their operation will increase your electrical bill, but for most of us (in a well planned set-up), they will only be necessary in the summer.

Like all pieces of aquarium equipment, you get what you pay for, so be sure to spend a little more and get a reliable, energy efficient chiller. With the proper maintenance, it should provide you and your animals years of service. Check out the chillers on the site, especially the ones from AquaEuro USA.

Stay cool!

Top 5 Ways You Can Improve Your Saltwater Aquarium Husbandry Today

It’s easy to get into a rut, is it not? When it comes to maintaining a tank, we can get stuck performing the same old husbandry tasks we have always performed without ever taking the time to reassess our overall approach. Approaches to husbandry in the hobby are always changing, and the dedicated hobbyist makes sure to stay abreast of the latest information regarding new husbandry techniques by spending time in the forums, reading the hobby literature, attending conventions and conferences, and speaking with other hobbyists.

I encourage you to keep up with the latest, but I also want to suggest you seriously consider the following five fundamental improvements to your husbandry practices. All five are widely touted as being important, yet they are all frequently overlooked.

Replace Your Bulbs Every Nine Months – Do you replace your bulbs in the lights over your tank every nine months? You should. Over time, the light spectrum produced by bulbs changes. This can have two negative effects on your aquarium: 1) nuisance algae blooms and 2) damage or death to photosynthetic corals. Keep a log and change your bulbs every nine months.

Top Off Your Water Daily – Do you top off your tank with freshwater daily? You should. Not topping off your tank daily causes the salinity to increase. While this increase may happen gradually and not have a noticeable effect on your animals, suddenly replacing several days or a week’s worth of evaporated water with freshwater can rapidly decrease salinity and create massive stress to corals and other invertebrates. Top off with freshwater daily.

Bolster Your Clean-Up Crew Annually (or as Needed) – Do you ever bolster your clean-up crew? You should. Sure you may have added that big clean-up crew package back when your tank was new, but two things have probably happened since then: 1) some of your clean-up crew has died as a result of predation and natural causes, and 2) your tank has changed (e.g., increased bioload). Know what each animal in your clean-up crew does (e.g. herbivore, detritavore, sand stirrer) and add more of that type of animal when needed over time.

If You Have Not Done So, Start a QT / Hospital Tank – Do you have a separate small (say 10-gallon) tank set-up as a quarantine / hospital tank? You should. Having this tank on hand is essential to good husbandry. All new fishes and corals should be quarantined before being added to an established system, and many parasites and diseases are best treated in an isolated environment. While you can plan for new arrivals, you can’t plan for when parasite outbreaks or diseases will strike. Set up a QT / Hospital tank today.

Set-Up a Refugium – Do you have a refugium plumbed to your display tank? You should. Many fishes and other animals benefit from a refugium, which cultivates foodstuff that would not survive in the display tank. Healthy pod populations and macroalgae growth can prove critical to successfully keeping many hard-to-keep species, but almost all animals will benefit from a mature refugium. In addition to direct benefit to your animals through diet, a refugium on an alternate light cycle (refugium lights on at night) can help to stabilize daily fluctuations in pH and can provide a mechanism for nutrient export.

Using Reef Herbivores to Control Algae in the Saltwater Aquarium

I saw Eric Borneman give an interesting talk on reef herbivores last week at MAX, and it just so happens I have a feature article on the same topic in the current issue of Tropical Reef Hobbyist Magaine (p. 94 of the May issue). Understanding reef herbivory is central, in my opinion, to being a successful reef hobbyist. It also sets the reader up for being on the front line of one of the more important reef conservation fronts of our time.

Cows and Fertilizer

Eric’s talk was called “Cows and Fertilizer: a Novel Way to Understand the Control of Algae in Reef Aquariums.” It made the analogy between terrestrial herbivory, which most people readily understand, and reef herbivory, which, for many, remains somewhat of a mystery. Basically, when you think of algae on a reef—either a natural reef or one in an aquarium—you can think about it as being caused primarily by excessive nutrients  or primarily by lack of appropriate herbivores. Aquarists tend to think in terms of the former when they have an algae control issue, but both Eric’s talk and my article in TFH encourage the aquarist to think more about the latter.

Herbivores in the Saltwater Aquarium

Understanding what herbivores eat what on the reef can have a dramatic impact on the control of algae in a marine aquarium. Understanding that each herbivore occupies a critical function on the reef in terms of the algae it targets and where it targets that algae will help the aquarist maintain a “clean reef” without needing to rely heavily on overskimming and other mechanical and chemical nutrient export. Mind you, I‘m not suggesting not to use a protein skimmer or run nutrient absorbing media in your aquarium, but I am suggesting that you give some real thought to exactly how you use your livestock to assist in the fight against unsightly nuisance algae.

Rabbitfish (not Parrotfish!) for Control of Nuisance Algae

In my article in TFH, I look primarily at algae grazing fishes that have been shown to be excellent herbivores on the reef (e.g., the rabbitfishes), but I also point out that it is a combination of algae-grazing mollusks and herbivorous fishes that generally proves most effective. The take-home point is that herbivory is at least as important as nutrient control on natural reefs AND in your aquarium. Understanding the ecological niches of fish, both on the reef and in the aquarium, can help elucidate why things like algae outbreaks happen, and how to fix them when they go wrong, while keeping in mind that some very important reef herbivores are poorly suited to most marine aquarium sitautions (e.g., parrotfishes). 

Applying Data about Algae-Dominated Reefs to the Marine Aquarium

As is often my approach when dealing with my own aquarium, my TFH article looks to what goes on in the wild as observed by marine researchers, and tries to apply that knowledge to successfully maintaining a marine aquarium. As Eric’s talk pointed out, however, the marine aquarium is VERY different from the actual reef in terms of how the entire system functions. Nonetheless, keeping the broad concepts in mind regarding both herbivory and nutrients can improve one’s husbandry dramatically. Using both nutrient control and herbivorous fishes and invertebrates can help the aquarist finally win the war against nuisance marine algae, while at the same time developing a better understanding of why natural reefs are increasingly becoming algae-dominated and why this is something about which we all should be concerned.

Feeding Your Omnivorous Saltwater Aquarium Fishes

All marine aquarium fishes are omnivorous. Why do I say this? I mean aren’t there carnivores and aren’t there herbivores? Well sure, but from a husbandry standpoint, it is really best in my experience to think of all your fishes as omnivors and to feed a varied diet for optimal health and well-being. 

A big part of good husbandry has to do with feeding, about which I have written here before. One of the biggest mistakes aquarists make in terms of husbandry (again, in my opinion) is not feeding enough, but perhaps the second biggest mistake is not feeding a varied diet.

A varied diet for my own saltwater aquarium fishes includes a combination of fresh and commercially-prepared food of marine origin.

Flake and Pellet Foods

Flakes and pellets are inexpensive, nutritionally appropriate foods IF they are:

• Manufactured by a reputable company (you know the big names)

• Have not been re-packaged

• Are not more than a couple weeks (maybe a month or two at most) old

Flake and pellet foods are accepted by many fishes, and they are probably the least dangerous in terms of adding to the overall nutrient load of your aquarium. You can purchase them in formulations appropriate for different fishes, although I like to mix a pinch of several different formulations on any given day.

In short, flake and pellet food is great. It’s pretty inexpensive, nutritionally appropriate and easy to feed.

Frozen Foods

Frozen foods should be part of any aquarist’s basic feeding routine in my opinion. If you’re going to buy from a retailer (instead of making your own—we’ll discuss making your own in a later post), go with the well-respected brands kept in the freezer case. A wide array of frozen foods are available from the little gel packs to the frozen cubes to sheets of squid or other meaty marine flesh.

These frozen foods are relatively inexpensive and pretty easy to feed. I like to first rinse frozen food and then thaw it in system water. I then use a turkey baster to target feed thawed, frozen food to my different animals (including invertebrates!).

The downside to frozen foods is that they can, when overused, cause nutrient levels to become elevated as uneaten food decomposes in the tank. Don’t overfeed frozen food!

Fresh Raw Marine Flesh

Your fishes will often appreciate a shrimp, mussel, oyster, or some other piece of fresh raw table seafood. In particular, I like to offer clams, oysters and mussels in the shell to my fishes. I simply open the shell or crack it and then drop it in the tank allowing the fish to sort out how to get at the meat. This is an activity that appears to “entertain” most of my fishes for the better part of an hour, and I usually try to do it about once a week.

Keep in mind that adding a piece of raw table seafood to your tank is, in many ways, like adding a dead animal, and it can have the same effects if uneaten portions are allowed to decompose there. If there are left-overs, it is worth taking the time to remove them from the tank.

Live Food

In my opinion, avoid feeding “feeder fishes” unless absolutely necessary. Most saltwater aquarium fishes kept by the majority of hobbyists can and should be weaned onto a captive diet. ‘Nuff said.

Greens

When it comes to greens, I only feed greens of marine origin (no lettuce for my fishes!). While I think some of the commercially-prepared herbivorous foods are pretty good (and as mentioned above, I mix these in when I feed), nothing is better than growing your own macroalgae in a refugium for the purpose of feeding. A close second, however, is Nori and other marine algae available in the Asian food section of you local market. Avoid anything that has been processed beyond simple drying.

Conclusion

To return to where I began, the vast majority of marine fishes are, truly, omnivores, so mix it up to be sure that all your animals get a varied and nutritious diet. Do your homework, know your fishes natural diet and be sure to use feeding time as an opportunity to observe your fishes’ overall health and well-being.

Feed Your Tropical Marine Aquarium Fishes!

Today I’d like to talk a little about a favorite topic of marine aquarists—feeding. As marine aquarists, our hobby requires more consistent care than some other hobbies. If we stop looking after our aquatic charges—even for a relatively short time—their health may well suffer. Toward that end, and despite what you may have heard previously, feeding should be a daily endeavor.

Most Saltwater Tanks Should be Fed Several Times a Day

I’m pretty sick of hearing people recommend that saltwater aquarists underfeed their tanks. I even heard a speaker at a trade show tell a large audience to feed “maybe twice a week—that’s all they really need.” While it is certainly true that some animals commonly kept do not need to be fed daily, it is also true that the vast majority of community FOWLR and reef tanks should be fed at least twice a day.

If it’s true that most tanks should be fed twice a day, why is it that so many people harp on not overfeeding instead of not underfeeding? The answer is simple: Filtration. And, more specifically, insufficient filtration. When you add food to your aquarium, that food, in one form or another, is going to stay in the aquarium until it is filtered out. It follows that if you feed more, you are going to increase the nutrients in your tank, which may lead to decreasing water quality and algae blooms—the bane of many aquarists’ existence.

Filter More Instead of Feeding Less

The solution to excessive nutrients, however, is not to feed less. Instead, the responsible aquarist truly concerned with appropriately caring for his or her animals will ramp us the system’s filtration to be able to handle the nutrients associated with suitable feeding. It’s simple—increasing feeding and increasing filtration is, more often than not, a good thing in the tropical marine aquarium.

Long Term Effects on Health and Behavior

Why is this? I mean you may know someone with a beautiful tank who claims he or she feeds every third day or even less. While it is possible for many marine fishes to go for periods of time without proper nutrition, the long term effect is cumulative and will result in stress and health issues.

On the reef, there is a near constant supply of food in the water column and fishes are nearly always feeding. In our closed systems, especially ones that are less than a year old, this is clearly not the case. While a certain amount of foraging occurs in the tank, the fishes are very dependent on when you—the aquarist—feeds the tank. Feeding infrequently is not natural, and it will affect everything from the health to the behavior of your animals.

An Approriate Feeding Schedule

In a future blog entry, we can talk a little more about what to feed, but, as a general rule of thumb, try to feed a varied diet appropriate to the animals you keep 3-5 times per day. Each feeding can be relatively small (the old trick of feeding as much as is consumed in 5 minutes is an okay metric if you are feeding 3 or more times per day). Be sure to target feed any animals that are not aggressive feeders (e.g., jawfishes) at least twice a day, and be sure to use high quality foods (or even fresh table seafood) that will not unnecessarily increase the nutrient levels in your system.

Feeding more frequently is in the best interest of your animals in terms of their health and behavior—do it! And if you need to increase your filtration capacity, do that too.

Success with a Mixed Hard and Soft Coral Aquarium

I am an addict. I know. I admit it. That’s why I recently started not one, but two new saltwater tanks.

Admittedly, having multiple tropical saltwater aquaria gives me the ability to create different biotopes and avoid some common compatibility issues, but what if you only have one tank and you want to keep species that may potentially be harmful to one another? In most cases, best practices says don’t do it unless you are very experienced, have a massive system or are prepared to offer round-the-clock husbandry during the introduction and acclimation period. Mixing hard and soft corals may well be the best example of an exception to the rule, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

Let’s start out by discussing the compatibility issue itself. Imagine this relatively common scenario: A new saltwater hobbyist starts his or her first tank. He or she decides to go reef and are advised to begin with so-called “starter corals” such as leather or soft corals. After half a year of success with the soft corals, the aquarist starts thinking he or she might be ready to have a go at hard corals, but then someone tells them you can’t mix hard and soft corals in marine aquarium. Is this true?

Yes and no. First the facts:

• Most soft corals are easier to keep than hard corals.

• Many of the most popular soft corals are also some of the most toxic animals commonly kept in the hobby.

• Some of the more prized hard corals (especially those referred to as SPS corals) are particularly susceptible to the chemical warfare of which many soft corals are capable.

In other words, adding a hard coral to a soft coral-dominated tank can mean the demise of the hard coral as the soft corals in the tank—even if not directly proximal to the hard coral—release their toxins and mucous webs in an effort to repel the invader.

Whoa! That really happens? Yep.

While many soft corals are great beginner corals because they tolerate varied conditions, are less expensive and happen to be quite beautiful, they also are fully capable of allelopathy (chemical warfare) that can wipe out hard corals. Some soft corals can even sense a competing hard coral, even if it is several feet away, and, in the closed system of an aquarium, the resulting allelopathy can be fatal to the new addition.

But wait! I started this entry by saying that mixing hard and soft corals may well be the best example of an exception to the rule of avoiding known compatibility issues as a matter of course. It’s true. By being smart, showing restraint and slightly altering his or her husbandry and maintenance protocols, even the beginning aquarist can have success with a mixed tank. Here’s how:

• Research ever species thoroughly before purchase, and go slow when starting out.

• To begin, make sure each soft coral specimen has up to eight inches of buffer around it.

• Run robust filtration so that toxins are quickly diluted and then removed from the system.

• Run a reverse flow substrate reactor with carbon as a normal part of chemical filtration.

• Observe! Observe! Observe! And then adapt if necessary.

By following these simple points, even the beginning tropical saltwater aquarist can have success with a mixed tank containing both hard and soft corals.

Maybe I should start another tank and make it a mixed tank!

Hobbyists Helping the Saltwater Aquarium Hobby and Themselves

Marine aquarium hobbyists have a great track record when it comes to helping themselves, and, through the marine aquarium online forums, they are great at helping other hobbyists and the hobby in general. In particular, marine aquarists are good at finding information about how to set-up and keep a thriving saltwater aquarium because, let’s face it, there really are no instruction manuals in this hobby. Sure, there are some fantastic books that can really help, but when it comes to the definitive answer of how to plumb a UV sterilizer (in-line with your return or on a closed loop off your sump?) or where to place returns and powerheads to create the perfect flow pattern, the hobbyist often has to find this information on his or her own.

The Internet as a Resource for Saltwater Hobbyists

The Internet has proven a phenomenal resource for today’s marine aquarist. While I don’t want to downplay the role of local marine aquarium societies, you can’t always have one in your living room when you are deciding which protein skimmer to get. You can however, have the Internet and access to nearly limitless information at your fingertips at any time of the day or night. While there are a number of good sites that are driven by content written by “professionals” (WetWebMedia comes to mind), there are also countless forums where the content is generated by hobbyists for hobbyists. That is what I want to talk about today.

Marine aquarium forums or bulletin boards, like the one at Saltwtarefish.com, are remarkable resources filled with information based on actual experience. While the people answering the questions on the boards may not be published authors, they are often people with practical, real-world experience and a self-motivated desire to share that experience specific to the questions you ask. As a writer, I have often found “experts” for various articles on which I was working by posting a thread in a specific category of a bulletin board and seeing who responds.

The Nuts and Bolts of Online Forums

Let’s back up for a minute and cover the basics of online forums for the uninitiated. A marine aquarium forum is an online discussion site or bulletin board (so-called because it is a vestige of the old dial-up bulletin board technology) where registered users are given access to a web application specifically built for the purpose of managing user content. That’s a mouthful! Participation in most forums (or “boards” as they are frequently called) requires registering where the user (you) will be asked to agree to the terms of service and verify your e-mail address. The purpose of this is to avoid abuse of the forum by spammers and others who are not truly interested in the topic of the forum.

Once registered, a user may (and commonly does) choose to maintain anonymity with fellow users by using a nickname or username and hiding his or her actual identity (often these usernames indicate something about the user on saltwater aquarium boards such as their favorite fish). While a user is not required to contribute user-generated content, most users will eventually posts in a thread. Posting is simply the process of posting a message in a self-contained box that includes the user’s username, date or post and other genera information about the user (perhaps even a picture or avatar). Generally the user has control over how much or how little personal information accompanies a post.

Posting in Threads and Forums

The user’s post is posted to a thread, which is a group of posts surrounding a topic that was started by one user usually as a question, comment or observation. Some threads only have two or three posts posted within a 24-hour period, while other threads may have thousands of posts over a period of years. The posts in a thread are generally moderated by a moderator or “mod” who insures that the terms of service are adhered to and that the forum remains friendly or “flame free.” The moderator or the site administrator may, in extreme cases, choose to delete a post or even an entire thread. The moderator or administrator may also choose to make a thread “sticky” so that it always appears at the top of the category of threads (this is done when a thread is perceived to be particularly useful to users).

While posts are posted to threads, threads are posted to category headings known as forums, and it is usually from these forums that the user begins their search on a board. For example, if you go to the Saltwaterfish.com board, you will find that the first forum is titled “Welcome to the Hobby”, and under that forum heading, there are three subtopics:

• New Hobbyists

• Tips and Techniques

• Archives & FAQ

If you click on “New Hobbyists”, you will see a series of “sticky” threads at the top. Take a look at the thread titled “101 Tips to Beginning and Maintaining a Saltwater Aquarium.” This is a sticky thread with, at the time of this writing, 130 replies (these are all individual posts) and 21,162 views (the number of times the thread has been viewed). If you click on the thread, you will see that it was started by someone with the username Lion_crazz (we can assume based on the username and avatar that this aquarists likes lionfishes) on 6 January 2008 at 6:58 pm. We can also see that Lion_crazz has posted over 13,000 posts since June 2004. Talk about experience, eh?

While the new hobbyists will read through this thread (and the others in this forum) with interest, the more experienced hobbyist may choose to head to a more specialized forum such as the SPS Corals subforum in the Corals Forum or the Captive Breeding subfolder in the Aquaculture and Breeding Forum. In reality, there is a forum for just about every topic one could imagine, and if there isn’t one, than the user need only start it.

User Beware

Now, while I am a big fan of the boards when it comes to finding, sharing and debating information, there are a few potential downsides of which the new user should be aware. For example, just because someone has posted 100,000 posts does not necessarily make them an expert. Any information you come across on a forum should be viewed as an opinion. Just like in “real life” there are those users who you will come to trust more than others, but just because you read something in a forum doesn’t mean you should take it as Gospel. It is a good idea to follow a thread carefully from beginning to end and then post observations and questions before making any decision informed by what you read.

There are tons of tools that make using the boards easier and more fun, but I’m going to leave it here for now while you go spend some time exploring on your own.

Happy reading and happy reefing!

Acclimating Tropical Saltwater Fish

It’s winter, kids, and temperatures have been dipping into the colder-than-usual-range for many of us across the country. How does this affect your potential online purchase of marine aquarium livestock? It actually shouldn’t affect it all that much, IF you are willing to be patient and follow acclimatization procedures to the letter.

If you have purchased livestock from Saltwaterfish.com before, you know they go to great lengths to maintain the stability of the water in which your animals are shipped during the entire shipping time. In the winter, this means you will find heat packs inside the boxes to keep the temperature up, but when it’s super cold, and winter weather delays the FedEx truck, the temperatures in the bags can still get pretty low for a tropical animal. Fortunately, most animals are incredibly resilient to these temperature changes if you take the time to acclimate them properly.

Keep in mind that the temperature in the bags dropped slowly over the course of being shipping, and so it is absolutely essential to bring the temperature back up slowly. While you must still be concerned with acclimating the animal to the pH and salinity of your tank, it is temperature that is often the most critical parameter in the winter. Not temperature acclimating the animal slowly enough will lead to stress and even death. Acclimating the animal slowly (even if it appears lifeless on arrival) more often than not will “revive” the animal to a healthy state.

So how do you do this? A three hour (or longer) drip acclimation is the key. Check out the Acclimation Flash Presentation on the Saltwaterfish.com homepage for the details on how to effectively drip acclimate your new livestock. As Scott, owner of Saltwaterfish.com says, “Three hours is not a lot of time to insure the health of your animals.”

Once the animal has been acclimated, the acclimatization period is still not quite over. To allow the animal to truly recover from shipping, keep the lights off in the tank (and even in the room) for the first 24 hours and resist the urge to constantly be peering in the tank “checking on” your new arrival. Keep in mind we always recommend using a quarantine tank for all new arrivals.

As I’ve said before (and I’m sure I’ll say again), patience is the key to success in this hobby, and it is particularly applicable to acclimating new arrivals during the winter when shipping times may unexpectedly be longer than normal. Remember, even if the animal appears lifeless upon arrival, follow the full drip acclimation procedure detailed in the flash presentation and, more often than not, you will be amazed at how well these incredible animals recover.

Tropical Marine Aquarium Fishes and Inverts Need Their Vitamins

Adding a vitamin supplement to your tropical marine aquarium food is a good idea in most situations. A lack of certain vitamins can lead to slow growth and faded colors and, in a worst case scenario, deformities, weight loss and worse. Sick or diseased fishes will also recover faster if they are not suffering from any vitamin deficiencies.

You’ve heard of people taking fish oil supplements as part of their daily health regiment, Right? Well fish oils are loaded with fat-soluble vitamins including vitamins A, D, E, and K, which are responsible for everything from general healthy growth to antioxidant effects. Fish require these fat-soluble vitamins for optimal health, and they get them from sources such as fish flesh, shellfish flesh, worms, and seaweed. Feeding a varied diet including marine fish and crustacean flesh, as well as some live foods, is the first step to insuring sufficient quantities of fat-soluble vitamins in tour fishes’ diet.

In addition to fat-soluble vitamins, marine aquarium fishes require water-soluble vitamins (most important are B and C). These vitamins are critical to healthy growth, metabolism, strong immune systems, and digestion among other critical functions. Fishes get water-soluble vitamins from a variety of sources, but they can be taken directly from the aquarium water if the vitamins are present in the water. Food sources of vitamin B and C include the same sources as mentioned above for vitamins A, D, E, and K. Vitamins B and C can also be added directly to the aquarium water.

Many aquarists rely on a varied diet finely tuned to their stock in order to insure proper vitamin uptake. It is, however, a good idea in my opinion to also soak the food in a commercially available vitamin supplement before feeding (especially frozen and freeze-dried foods). To avoid vitamin deficiencies in your fishes, consider using a supplement as a regular part of your husbandry protocol.

Be sure the supplement you use does not contain phosphates, nitrates or yeasts, which can all negatively affect your water quality. Some aquarists use vitamin C liquids and other vitamin products from their local health food store, but there are many commercially available supplements to consider including Kent Zoe, Boyd Vitachem, and Kent Marine C.

Fish, like people, need their vitamins. Feeding a varied diet and using a supplement will insure the long-term health, growth and beauty of your animals.

Tank Stability in the Saltwater Aquarium

A gentleman by the name of Steve wrote to me recently with the following problem:

MY WIFE AND I HAVE A 65 GALLON TANK THAT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED FOR OVER 14 MONTHS AND RECCENTLY WE HAVE BEEN HAVING BIG PROBLEMS WITH THE WATER---WE USE A MAGNUM 350 WITH THE POLISHING FILTER (PAPER STYLE)--AND ALSO USE A CASCADE 3 STAGE FILTER SYSTEM WE USE CULLIGAN WATER BUT THIS WEEK AFTER THE WATER CHANGE ONLY 2 DAYS AGO 20% CHANGE AND CLEANED AND RENEW THE FILTERS LIKE ALWAYS BUT THE WATER IS VERY CLOUDY AND GETTING WORSE---8 WEEKS AGO WE TREATED FOR BACTERIA INFECTION THIS TOOK 5 DAYS AND THEN BUSINESS LIKE NORMAL--THE TREATMENT HELP A LOT WE THOUGHT THE WATER LOOKED BETTER THAN BEFORE BUT NOW LIKE I SAID THE WATER IS GETTING CLOUDY AND ALL THE TESTS ARE AT NORMAL LEVELS--WHAT AM I DOING WRONG--ANY INPUT WOULD BE GREAT

I thought I would share Steve’s question as an opportunity to speak broadly on the topic of troubleshooting tank problems and touching on my favorite topic—tank stability. When we start a marine tank, we are attempting to replicate a slice of the ocean. If we appreciate that the ocean is a remarkably stable environment, then we can also appreciate that maintaining stability in the home aquarium is critical to success. Likewise, a change in stability often results in problems—perhaps like the problem Steve describes.

To begin, I am a firm believer that a marine tank really needs a full year to stabilize and begin performing as the aquarist originally intended. Because Steve’s 65-gallon tank is 14 months old, his sudden change in water quality is of even greater concern to me than if his tank was only four months old.

Whenever something goes wrong in one of my tanks, the first thing I do is check my parameters—especially nitrates, phosphates and pH. Steve did check his parameters, and he reports that all his parameters are normal, although I’d like to know which parameters he tested.

If water testing does not help me pinpoint a water quality issue such as Steve describes, then my next course of action is to work back through my husbandry to the last thing I did that was unusual.  For example, did I recently add a new animal? Did I begin dosing a supplement? Did I change my filtration system? Did I (as is the case with Steve) treat the tank for a specific problem?

Steve says he treated for a bacteria infection two months ago, and this is where I would probably begin my line of questioning. What was the bacteria infection? What did Steve use to treat it? It does seem strange to me, however, that the water quality improved following the treatment.

If I were in Steve’s shoes, I would do the following:

• Continue to monitor the water parameters daily (at the same time each day) and record the results so he can see any trends over time.

• Review the tank’s bioload. How many animals are in the system? Is the tank overstocked? Are there compatibility issues that may be affecting water quality? Is the filtration system sufficient for the current bioload?

• Observe any changes in the animals’ behavior. Are fishes “gasping” or “breathing hard”? Are the fishes active? Are they acting normally based on previous observations? Are corals inflated and feeding, or are the polyps retracted?

• Review the tank’s regular maintenance schedule and husbandry practices. For example, is Steve changing out all the filtration media at once? If so, this can cause a major disruption in water stability, and a simple change in tank maintenance protocol may be the ticket. Alternatively, did Steve start using a new food like a liquid food for filter feeders to feed a newly added coral specimen? If so, a change in feeding frequency, amount or brand may solve the problem.

In terms of proactive actions, a series of water changes would be my first choice. I would mix up a large batch of saltwater and allow it to age for at least 24 hours and then begin a series of major water changes over a series of days making sure that pH, salinity and temperature match the tank’s parameters.

In general, our saltwater tanks are a microcosm of the world’s oceans, which are a remarkably stable environment. Stability in our aquaria is the Holy Grail, and we need to realize that EVERYTHING we do to our microcosm can affect that stability. The problems we experience with water quality are often the direct result of a disruption in stability, and that disruption is often a direct result of something—chemical or biological—that we added to or subtracted from the system. Identifying the culprit is often the first step to resolving the issue and re-establishing stability.

 

 

Take it Slow When Starting a New Saltwater Aquarium

Thousands of new saltwater aquaria were born yesterday, as people across the country gave and received fish tanks for Christmas. Whether a “Nemo” tank for the kids, a predator tank for dad or a gorgeous reef for mom, all of these new systems have one thing in common—their success will depend on patience.

The single most important thing a marine aquarist can and should do is “go slow.” Very few things done on impulse or quickly end well in this hobby. Whether it’s taking the time to properly cycle your new tank or appropriately quarantining new arrivals, taking it slow is critical.

There will be many animals you want to add to your system based on the tank you envision having set-up and running next Christmas, but remember—that’s a whole year away. Do your research up-front. Establish a stocking list based on compatibility and budget. Then go slow.

Get online and join a good forum for marine aquarists (like the one here at Saltwaterfish.com). Join your local marine aquarium society. Hang out at local fish stores. Visit public aquaria. If you live near the ocean, go diving and snorkeling more. Everything you read, observe and learn will make you a better marine aquarist in the long run.

I know it’s so tempting to run out and stock your tank to the gills, but this will surely lead to disaster. Trust me, and you will have a marine aquarium to enjoy for years and years to come.

Saltwater Fish Don't Get Ich; They Get Crypto

I was talking to a friend the other day, and he told me that he had "ich." In any other context, that would be a baffling statement, but, as a marine aquarist, I knew exactly what he meant, even though he was using the wrong terminology.

Wrong terminology? How so, you ask.

Saltwater Fish Don’t Get “Ich”

Simply stated, marine fishes don’t get ich. The term “ich” refers to the parasite Ichthyophthirius multifilis, which is a freshwater parasite. When marine aquarists speak of “saltwater ich,” they should be saying “crypto,” as the saltwater condition is called cryptocaryonosis, and it is caused by the parasite Cryptocaryon irritans.

Why Do Marine Fish Get Crypto

It is my contention that there is a lot we don’t know about crypto. The one thing I do feel confident saying, however, is that the leading impetus behind a crypto outbreak is stress. Obviously stress in and of itself does not cause crypto, but stress challenges a fish’s immune system, and it is when the fish is in this compromised state that the parasite most easily gains a foothold and an outbreak may ensue.

It doesn’t matter if you bought your new fish at Saltwaterfish.com or your local fish store—that fish may well be stressed, and adding that new fish to your established aquarium may cause your other fishes to become stressed. All this potential stress provides an ideal environment for a crypto outbreak, which is why it is essential to eliminate stress wherever you can. Now rest assured, the majority of first time marine aquarium fish buyers don’t experience a crypto outbreak, but to make your husbandry practices bullet proof, be sure to watch the acclimation video on Saltwaterfish.com, take things slowly and do all you can to reduce the stress.

As Scott Hughes, owner of Saltwaterfish.com, says in the acclimation video on the website, a quarantine tank (or simply QT) is “a small investment that pays great returns.” I strongly suggest you have a QT tank and that you quarantine nearly every new fish before adding it to the display tank. Let me repeat that, as there is no more important single piece of advice when it comes to avoiding cryptocaryonosis: ALMOST EVERY NEW FISH SHOULD BE QUARANTINED BEFORE BEING ADDED TO YOUR DISPLAY TANK. As you will hear every experienced hobbyist reiterate until they are blue in the face, patience is the key in the hobby. Don’t rush anything.

The Life Cycle of Cryptocaryon irritans

Let's get back to crypto itself, however. A fish infested with Cryptocaryon irritans is sometimes said to be suffering from “white spot disease” because this is how the parasite is most observable to the aquarist. The so-called white spots are actually the trophant phase of the parasite’s life cycle. The trophant phase is where the parasite is attached to the fish (its host) and feeding. After a period of days (up to one week), the parasite drops off the fish and becomes free-swimming. It then divides (the tomant stage) and can lay dormant as cysts for nearly a month (depending on temperature) before the cysts break apart and the parasite, now in the tomite stage, seeks out a host. We are now back to the trophant phase and “white spot disease.”

Did I lose you? As I explained this to my friend, his eyes glazed over—he just wanted to save his fish, after all. I know. I know. But it is essential to understand how Cryptocaryon irritans works if you are going to successfully eradicate it from your system, and that is the goal, correct? So let’s now talk about getting rid of a crypto outbreak.

Treatment

Above I outlined the three life stages of Cryptocaryon irritans. They are:

1. Trophant (up to one week)

2. Tomant (up to one month)

3. Tomite (one or two days)

It is important to understand that it is only during the tomite phase that the common treatments for crypto are effective, and this phase, as mentioned above, lasts only a day or two.

Copper

Most commonly copper is used to treat crypto, and because copper is lethal to almost all invertebrates, the treatment usually happens in a separate hospital tank. Because the life cycle of the parasite can be as long as a month, with only a small one to two day window, when treatment is truly effective, the fishes must be kept in the medicated hospital tank for four weeks. During this time, the display tank must have no fishes in it so that any tomites that hatch will not find a host.

Unfortunately copper, despite its effectiveness, is known to have long-term negative effects on certain fishes. This has led some aquarists to seek alternatives to copper treatment, and there are several.

Hyposalinity

Hyposalinity (again in a hospital tank, as it will harm or kill inverts) is one possible alternative to copper, especially if combined with dips (see below). Effective hyposaline conditions require the specific gravity to be around 1.010. It is recommended to use hyposalinity in conjunction with copper, if copper is the treatment employed.

Dips

Using freshwater dips dosed with formalin and malachite green for a period of three to four weeks can be effective, especially when the water in the hospital tank is changed out (otherwise reinfestation may occur). In my opinion, the dips can be as effective as treating the hospital tank with formalin and malachite green, and you run less risk of endangering the infested fish’s immune system. Having said that, some aquarists forgo the dips and simply treat the hospital tank with formalin and malachite green. Whichever you choose, follow the directions or seek out the advice of an advanced aquarist.

Chloroquine Phosphate

Using chloroquine phosphate to treat crypto is a relatively new protocol with which I do not have first-hand experience, but I have heard very good things. Bob Goemans and Lance Ichinotsubo discuss this treatment in their book The Marine Fish Health & Feeding Handbook (Microcosm/TFH 2008). If you want to know more about chloroquine phosphate, just ask (or get the book).

Review

Okay, let’s review:

• You observe white spots on your fish.

• You do not refer to the condition as “ich”; instead you call it crypto or, if you want to sound really cool, cryptocaryonosis.

• You move all of your fish to a hospital tank leaving the display tank without any hosts for the parasites in the tank.

• You decide on a treatment protocol and begin treatment.

• You stick with the treatment for four weeks.

• You reintroduce your fishes to the display tank and go about your merry way.

Gift Certificate! The Best Gift for the Marine Aquarist

There has been some buzz this Holiday Season about gift cards given the rocky economy. This got me wondering about gift cards in the marine aquarium industry, and today’s blog entry offers my musings on the topic.

The Best Gift for the Marine Aquarists on Your List

If you know someone who has a saltwater aquarium, the best possible gift for them is probably a gift certificate. When it comes to the saltwater aquarium hobby, everyone’s tank is different, and I’m not just talking reef tanks versus fish-only systems. No, I’m talking about systems with protein skimmers and systems without. Predator tanks and peaceful community tanks. Systems where dosing a variety of supplements is a regular part of daily husbandry, and systems that have never had a supplement added. In short, there are way too many configurations and personal preferences that go in to each aquarium for anyone besides the aquarist themselves to buy anything for the system.

So what are the options if a marine aquarist is on your list? You could always buy the aquarist a sweater with a fish on it (which they will probably never wear)…

…or you can buy a gift certificate. Now wait! you protest. Why can’t you just ask the person exactly what they want for their aquarium and then buy it, wrap it up and give it to them? Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but I for one really like the surprise part of giving (and receiving) a gift, and here’s where a gift certificate comes in to play. A gift certificate allows the giver to maintain the surprise AND give the aquarist exactly what they want. Further, for the aquarist who has everything, a gift certificate is one of the few gifts that will definitely be used, as no aquarist ever has everything he or she needs.

The Gift that Keeps on Giving for a Lifetime

Know someone who doesn’t yet have a saltwater aquarium but may like to have one? A gift certificate can be the perfect way to introduce someone to the hobby. Consider giving a gift certificate AND a “card of commitment” promising that you will help guide the set-up of the new tank. What a cool way to give a gift to a child, niece or nephew that will keep on giving over a lifetime of involvement in the hobby.

Finally, I like the fact that giving a gift certificate is something that can be done online—no traffic, no malls, no gauntlet of well-intentioned money collectors asking for a holiday donation. With the Saltwaterfish.com gift certificate, for example, you simply go to the “Gift Certificate Purchase Page” and purchase it just like you would purchase anything else from the site. You can add a note and then either print it out and wrap it, or Saltwaterfish.com will deliver it for you via e-mail on the date you determine. AND a Saltwaterfish.com gift certificate never expires!

What could be easier? So if there is a marine aquarist (or a potential marine aquarist) on your list this year, seriously consider giving him or her a gift certificate—it is, in my opinion, the ultimate gift!

What are Copepods and How Do You Use Them in the Tropical Marine Aquarium

“Cutting edge fish production could be centered around the proper nutrition that could come from copepods.” –Erik Stenn, AlgaGen

Let’s talk a little about live food for marine aquaria, shall we?

Before we get into the actual husbandry practices, I want you to meet Erik Stenn of AlgaGen. AlgaGen, which started as a microalgae producer, is now one of the leading suppliers of rotifers, artemia and copepods for the marine aquarium industry, and, as such, he is a good person to know.

Scott Hughes of Saltwaterfish.com, one of the first retailers to carry AlgaGen products, says, "Algagen has been on the forefront in developing live aquaculutred foods. We saw the potential very early for our business and have been pleased to offer Algagen products like ReefPods to our customers from the beginning."

Copepod Starter Cultures for the Public

Erik started AlgaGen in 2002 with the purpose of using microalgae to produce hi-value products for human and animal health, as well as for biomedical purposes. Erik began working with Andrew Rhyne at the Florida Institute of Technology, and it was Andrew who recognized that producing microalgae could lead to the production of copepods. “There were a number of vendors producing copepods,” he acknowledges, “but no one was offering a collection of starter cultures to the public.”

Enter AlaGen.

Today AlgaGen works with Andrew Rhyne (Roger Williams University), Dr. Adelaide Rhodes (Essential Live Feeds) and Dr. Cortney Ohs (University of Florida) to offer an extensive production-oriented collection of copepods to anyone interested in using them to raise fish. Why so much effort on copepods? “As bizarre as it seems to me,” says Erik, “cutting edge fish production could be centered around the proper nutrition that could come from copepods.”

Wow! But How?

Okay…so most marine aquarists have heard of copepods and some may have even bought them and poured them into their tank because they….well…they do something good, right? But what are copepods really? And, perhaps more importantly, what do they do?

In short, copepods are a small crustacean, and there are seven orders of them (calanoida, harpacticoida, cyclopoida, misophrioida, monstrilloida, siphonostomotoida, and poecilostomatoida). Aquarists are interested in the copepods that are useful, non-detrimental food sources. With Erik’s help, let’s cover the basics and touch on how to use the right copepods in your tropical marine aquarium.

Calanoids

Calanoids (the nauplii pictured here is a baby copepod from the calanoids) are pelagic copepods—they spend their entire life cycle in the water column—and they are an essential food source for any marine organism that feeds in the water column including fish, larval fish and coral. “These copepods eat microalgae,” explains Erik, “and they concentrate the fatty acids from the microalgae in their bodies.” In short, when marine organisms eat the copepods, they obtain the essential fatty acids concentrated in the copepods. This is the number one reason why feeding these copepods to marine ornamental fishes is highly recommended.

In addition to being nutrient rich, these copepods display, what Erik refers to as “a very spastic movement,” which may well trigger a more enthusiastic feeding response. “When I drop calanoids into my tank,” Erik says, “the anthias feed with real vigor.”

While the calanoids are great food items, they do not survive for long. “Life cycles can typically be 20-30 days,” says Erik. “The calanoid will either release eggs or brood them and release live nauplii that will go through several molts to become juveniles then adults.”

Harpacticoids

Harpacticoids (e.g., Tigriopus and Tisbe like the one pictured at the top of this entry) are, unlike calanoids, benthic copepods. “They like substrate and will feed on microalgae, detritus or other copepods,” explains Erik. “Tigriopus is carnivorous; Tisbe is a detritivore, and both are cannibalistic. They will also eat fish flake food and microalgae.” These are the "ReefPods" sold at Saltwaterfish.com (and, by the way, they are on special right now! Buy one get one free!).

These are the copepods aquarists have probably seen on their live rock, and they are the ones most commonly sold. “They can handle harsh conditions such as being stored in a bag or bottle for weeks, and they can survive in a reef tank,” adds Erik. Harpacticoids make great food items for seahorses, mandarins (which, at the time of publication, are on special) and wrasses. They can and should be added repeatedly to ones' tank, and, depending on how the tank is stocked, these copepods can easily be “grazed back” to a minimal population fairly quickly.

Other Copepod Groups

The cyclopoid, monstilloid, siphonostomatoid, poecilostomatoid groups of copepods are not as good as a live food source as these groups contain the commensal and parasitic copepods.

Husbandry How-To

Okay, so now that we know which copepods to use, how should we incorporate copepods into our regular husbandry practices? It’s simple, says Erik.

“They can be added to an aquarium as often as one wants. If there is a refugium as part of the set-up, copepods can be added to the refugium. They should reproduce there without being grazed as long as there is food. Copepods growing in the sump or refugium are potentially introduced into the top tank by the return pump. They can also be added directly into the top tank. The safe way to add them is without the skimmer on but it is not necessary to turn it off. Some people add them during the dark cycle when fish are not about.”

In terms of food for copepods, AlgaGen offers microalgae starter cultures for aquaculturists, researchers and hobbyists.

Bottom Line for Copepod Use in the Saltwater Aquarium

What’s the bottom line? “Whether they are THE food source or one of THE critical food items,” says Erik. “the use of copepods in fin-fish production has demonstrated greater survivals and lower deformities for specific species. Copepods may be critical to raising species of ornamentals that cannot be raised on rotifers or brine shrimp.”

While some argue that its husbandry, not a specific food item, that has led to success with certain species that appear to do well with copepods, there is little doubt that employing copepods as part of your regular husbandry practices is a very, very good idea.

A special "thank you" to Erik at AlgaGen for the images above.

A Tropical Saltwater Aquarium Refugium

Today I want to briefly touch on the oft-misunderstood and somewhat mysterious refugium or “fuge,” as it is often referred to in the hobby. This entry is not meant to be a comprehensive article on refugia, but rather I hope it might inspire you to add a refugium to your existing marine aquarium set-up.

What is a Refugium?

The origin of the word refugium is rooted in the common term “refuge,” and that’s exactly what a refugium provides for your marine aquarium. A refugium is a refuge for macroalgae, pods and certain interesting species that may not survive in your display tank as a result of predation. Do you need a refugium? While I’d hesitate to go so far as to say you need one (uness, of course, you keep dragonets or anthias), I definitely recommend you seriously consider adding a refugium to your system.

Refugium Benefits – The Short List

Why do I strongly recommend adding a fuge to most systems? For starters, a properly maintained refugium—even a small one—will prove beneficial to virtually any and all marine aquarium set-ups. More specifically, a refugium:

·         provides a refuge in which healthy pod populations (excellent food for species such as anthias and dragonets) will thrive.

·         provides a place where various herbivorous foods (e.g., macroalgae) can be grown without being consumed by your herbivores until you harvest it.

·         provides additional overall water volume to your system.

·         can mediate daily pH fluctuations secondary to your lighting schedule.

·         can serve (depending on size) as an emergency holding tank for a harassed animal (although you should always have a QT/hospital tank at the ready).

·         promotes nutrient export through regular trimming and disposal of cultivated macroalgea.

…the list goes on and on, but you get the point. A refugium is really a no-brainer, but how do you set it up?

The Plug & Play Refugium

There are a number of ways to plumb a refugium as part of your current set-up. Perhaps the easiest is to use a commercially manufactured HOB (hang on the back) refugium which can, as the name suggests, be hung on the back of either the display tank itself or the sump. Some of these refugia are shipped with a powerhead, but if not, the refugium can be powered with a small, inexpensive one you purchase separately. These commercially manufactured refugia are about as plug-and-play as it gets, but there are other options including sumps that have a “middle chamber” designated as a refugium and my favorite, the display refugium.

The Display Refugium – A Sample Set-Up

If you have the space, I recommend plumbing a display refugium to your system. A display refugium? What’s that? A display refugium is a refugium that is “on display” either above, below or beside your display tank. I’ll use one of my own set-ups (pictured above) to illustrate what I mean.

In this particular set-up, I have plumbed a 10-gallon refugium to a 30-gallon display tank. The refugium, which sits on a shelf below the display tank, is gravity fed from the display tank’s overflow. I have reduced the flow to the refugium by splitting the overflow from the main tank with two ball valves—one to the refugium and one to the sump. The refugium then gravity feeds, by way of a standpipe, to the last chamber (after the protein skimmer) of the set-up’s sump.

Why drain the refugium to a point after the protein skimmer? Does it really matter? I think it does because I want to allow some of the organic material and pods from the refugium to make their way into the display tank by way of the return pump. The protein skimmer may pull these out of the water.

This is the basic set-up, and it works very efficiently in my experience. Don’t forget that, because it is “on display,” you have the opportunity to keep some interesting species in the refugium that may not survive in your main tank.

Deep Sandbed and Macroalgae

Regardless of how you incorporate a refugium into your system, you will probably want to employ a deep sandbed (I like using a commercially available mud product) and grow macroalgae such as Chaetomorpha (pictured left). I also like to jump-start the pod population by adding cultured pods to the newly established aquarium. Don’t stop there though! I grow mangroves and seagrasses in one of my display refugia, which creates a fascinating biotope adding overall appeal to my system.

In short, a refugium is a great way to enhance your existing marine aquarium both in terms of health and interest. If you use your imagination, you can create some absolutely stunning and unique displays.