Trials and Tribulations of a Reef Aquarium

It's been awhile. The tank is now officially 8 months old. And I have to say that's it's been a success. I've had to fight w...

It's been unseasonably cold in San Diego. Great time to make sure your heater works. I turn my heat off at night. I woke up and went dow...

It happened so quickly! Here's a pic of this gorgeous, large coral from just last week. It did fantastic for about 3 months. I noticed ...

As promised, here are some pics of our recent additions. As soon as I can get a good shot of the feather duster worm and plate coral, I'...

I have LOTS of pics coming soon. Stay tuned for pics of our recent additions: 1. Spike, the Sea Urchin 2. Feather Duster Worm 3. Tiny Tim, o...

The algae problem seems to be s.l.o.w.l.y. going away. I'm still doing the 20% weekly water changes (at which point I vigorously scrub a...

I've noticed more algae growth as of late. Sigh. Looking back at my notes, I think I'm feeding too much and the lights are on for to...

I need to upload some new pics. After the tragic loss of 3 fish, a shrimp, and a starfish, all within a week or two, for no apparent reason,...

Greg and I visited the Scripps Birch Aquarium ( http://www.aquarium.ucsd.edu/ ) a few weeks ago. The trip made me hungry for a tour of the n...

Here's a brief overview of what to stock in your fish medicine cabinet and how to use it, should your fish become sick: Cupramine (coppe...

We've gone over how to do a freshwater dip and how to set up a hospital tank. But what about the meat and potatoes? What does a sick fis...

I'm a big believer now in a quarantine tank. It allows your new fish to rest and de-stress before putting him in the new tank. It also ...

Bessie, here, is demonstrating how to do a freshwater dip. Why Dip? This is a very effective way to remove external parasites, like ich, flu...

Ugh. It's been a very bad week for our aquarium. Three fish dead in less than a week. Phillip died due to my negligence (I took out a ro...

A tang with Ich. It's been a bad week for our aquarium. Almost immediately after the loss of Phillip, we noticed white spots covering th...

Ever since I dismantled the aquarium the other day in a futile attempt to catch one of the Banggai's ( http://reefaquariumtrials.blogspo...

This is Elton, our new Helfrichi Firefish Goby. Very similar to the commonly seen Firefish Goby (or dartfish; see pic at bottom of post), un...

We got another fish! This is Casey, the African Flameback, a dwarf angelfish. Most angelfish are not suitable for reef aquarium. These guys ...