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You just got that new {insert item here}, is it safe to put it in your tank?

The short answer is no. No matter what new thing you purchase, it may have something on or in it that could become a real problem in your reef. Whenever you acquire a new coral, fish, or invertebrate, the most wise move you can make is to NOT put it in your reef. For someone new to the hobby, this seems like a huge hassle, but to any one of us that have been in the hobby for a while, we know that the risk is simply too great. Why does the seasoned reef keeper know this? Ha! Because we've learned the hard way that anything impulsive usually is folly, and results in hours, weeks, or months of heartache.

This is a very old page I compiled way back in 2004 to help organize a lengthy thread about a DIY calcium reactor. I'm reposting it because all of the included pictures, but I'm not offering up any other support or answers. This is simply documentation - learn from it, build your own, that's all up to you. :)

You need to break out the Yellow Pages and look up "plastics"... call one up that seems near you, and ask if they sell AcryLite to the public. Most do. You want acrylic, not plexiglas - the stuff Home Depot sells. Plexiglas ages, turns yellow, gets brittle, and cracks. Acrylic is harder, and you can buy various thicknesses.

I recently shipped out a Smartphone Floater to a customer that has a Samsung Note8 phone. His immediate concern was that he was going to flood the box and ruin his phone.  I've been making a type of floater box for iPhones for the past six years or more.  I'm sure in that time, someone has had an accident and got water inside the box because not everyone is perfect.  That being said, I've never had that problem. I put the phone in the box, place it on the surface of the water and hold it where I want to take a picture.

The iOS version of Reef Trace has been out for a few weeks. The Android version comes out next, work starts on it next month. Reef Trace has partnered with Melev's Reef, and provides you with some really cool features. It's $8.99 in the App store.

Green Hair Algae (abbreviated as GHA for this article) - Derbesia - is a form of algae that looks like its name. It is usually dark green, grows quite long if left unattended and spreads across your tank rapidly. Once this problem has begun, it can get out of hand in a matter of weeks. And soon you start to look at your tank in disgust, thinking “Why me? What did I do to deserve this plague?”

4/24/08: For years, I've heard from many of my online friends about the various corals they'd order online. I'd think about the money they spent on their exotic frags, and go about my business. To me, it is much more fun to go to the local fish store (LFS) and browse for the perfect new addition to my tank. I can study it closely, consider how it looks from all angles, and if I like it, buy it on the spot. Within the hour, it is acclimating in my quarantine tank, where it will be treated, dipped and later placed in my reef.

Each day when I roll out of bed, the first thing to greet me is my reef. The actinics are on, and I get a nice view to start my day. As I work in my office, this is my view. Of course, I refill my coffee cup repeatedly, so I also get to check on all the anemones and clowns. And Dory of course. She's at the bottom in this picture, at 7 o'clock.

I installed the Reefbrite Lumilite on my frag system's refugium a couple of months ago to see how it would do.  Honestly, I had a feeling I'd need two of them to handle that area. Still, I had to test it out to see what it could do rather than supercharge my results. Water parameters on that system wander a bit because I don't watch it as closely as I do my reef, but despite that the macro algae has done quite well.

You know how you put off some tasks because they are going to take more time, or because they aren't easily accessible?  I'm not immune either.  I knew that my calcium reactor was in dire need of refilling, the carbon was used up, and the biopellets were consumed.  The skimmer needed a good cleaning too.  So I did all that, plus wiped down the inside of the sump, cleaned off the ATO sensor, and cleaned some of the flexible tubing.