Make The Inside Of Your Unfinished Cabinet Stand Look Sharp And Easy To Clean!
When using a wet dry filter or Berlin sump the inside of an aquarium cabinet gets covered in dirt and salt spray over time. Finished cabinets are usually easier to clean but unfinished have a rough texture making them difficult to clean. To make the job easier cover the inside of your cabinet with ABS plastic. ABS is available in a variety of colors including black, white and blue. White ABS gives a sleek appearance and hides salt creep.
ABS is easy to cut, Either cut it with a table saw or score and snap it. Cut the ABS so ti is the same size as the inside floor of your stand and drop it in place. The sides need to be attached to the stand to keep the ABS from falling. Use screws or glue. Once all the parts of your stand are covered use 100% silicone to seal the joints.
Now you, too, have a professional-looking sleek, easy to clean cabinet interior.
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Live Red Hair Algae Removal
Many kinds of unwanted algae can overtake a saltwater aquarium when left unchecked. Mainly I see a lot of green hair algae, bryopsis, but recently I had the opportunity to work with a reef covered in red hair algae. The first photo shows just one area of the aquarium with red hair algae. But I can assure you it was spread throughout the entire aquarium.
This reef has a refugium, some blue and red leg hermit crabs, astraea and nassarius snails. The refugium and invertebrates are great at helping keeping in check most algae but they did nothing to rid the aquarium of the unsightly red hair algae! I prefer to use natural solutions rather than adding chemicals, so, in this case I called on the Pacific Coast Mexican Turbo snails (Turbo fluctuosus) to the rescue.
Three and a half weeks after adding 12 Mexican Turbo snails to this 120 reef there were no more visible traces of the red hair algae. There is one concern when adding these Turbo snails – Read More Here…
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What Should The Specific Gravity Be In My Aquarium?
Although there are currently a few saltwater fish hatcheries, most saltwater fish sold in fish stores are collected from the oceans. The salt content or specific gravity of ocean water varies in different parts of the world as well as individual oceans. These saltwater fish which are collected from various oceans are shipped to aquarium stores and homes and are expected to live in whatever specific gravity the aquarium keeper decides on.
Back in the 1980’s and early 90’s I recommended my customers to keep specific gravity for their saltwater fish aquariums at 1.020. The theory back then was that parasites were less prevalent at lower levels of salt. This theory has been proven completely wrong – parasites continue to thrive at this level. Specific gravity has to be much, much lower to kill parasites. The flip side is that most fish also thrived at a specific gravity of 1.020. But then I recommended my customers to keep specific gravity higher in aquariums with invertebrates and live corals.
Eventually it seemed to make sense to maintain a common specific gravity for all the saltwater Read More Here…
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The Internet Is Filled With Facts – And Many Peoples’ Beliefs!
So How Do You Know The Difference?
This is a common concern from my clients. They search the Internet with questions about their fish, corals or anything else but all they find are different answers to the same questions. The reason there are so many differing answers is because people believe different things. The people that write about their experiences actually believe in their conclusions.
Lets take an example: “I changed fish foods and my fish got ich. The problem must be from the new food.” Maybe, but let’s ask some more questions to see if something else caused the sickness. This may seem a little silly but this happens all the time. Many times false correlations are made.
My goal in this blog is to work to base the information contained herein on solid fact. After owning a large aquarium store with an aquarium maintenance division for over 25 years I have learned a lot. I am going to share my knowledge about fish and reef keeping. Plus, I have many experienced friends whose knowledge will also be part of this site.
My goal is to give straightforward information so everyone can be a successful hobbyist.
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