Ask The Expert

If your tank is heading south fast, and the livestock is melting before your eyes, your precious fish gasping and your adrenalin is rushing, you need to call a friend. I'm not talking about those "emergencies" like "there's red stuff all over my sandbed and I can't stand it." I'm talking about a tank full of livestock that suddenly looks 100% different than what you see all the time.

We turn to the forums for help with our various aquarium-related problems, and often find a few helpful tips within minutes or hours of searching. We often recommend just that, because so much of this hobby has been well-documented over the past decade, with questions answered often and repeatedly. However, even the most experienced hobbyist needs to remain humble and ask for help when something goes wrong. You may think that's unnecessary, but there's a reason why surgeons don't operate on their loved ones. Your emotions are clouding your judgement, and your compassion is impeding some synapses.
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Hi Dennis. Mandarins need their food, that's a fact. You can also use various products to replenish that food, and there are proactive ways like my Mandarin Diner article explains. Have you read it yet? http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

The best way to grow more pods is to feed your tank phytoplankton regularly. If you don't do this now, pods will be less prominent. Shaking out the cheatomorpha is a good move, and yes your return pump can send them into the tank undamaged. They just get washed up in the flow. I'd suggest you do ...

Why are my jellyfish shrinking? Help!

This is the most popular question I have received in the last year as folks start to venture into keeping jellyfish as pets. As there are many reasons why captive jellies tend to shrink, let’s start with some basics. First, the one thing I feel most don’t realize is that jellies occur in all oceans of the world and in all temperature zones. There are tropical jellies, temperate jellies and arctic jellies. Each species requires specific water ...

Hi Juan,

The purpose of the calcium reactor is to replace alkalinity and calcium in the water. Based on the current livestock list provided, you don't have anything taking these up much, if at all. You'd have to test the water weekly (at least) to determine the consumption rate. What is your end goal with this tank? Is it going to be fish and soft corals, or is it going to be a reef tank with a variety of stony corals? If the latter, you'll be glad you have a calcium reactor.

This year I set up a new reef that is 400g. It has a lot of tiny frags just starting to grow. By ...

Every aquarium needs a solid foundation. When installed in a home, a business, or a public venue, the vessel must be fully supported to avoid catastrophic failure resulting in flooding and loss of livestock. On very rare occasions, I’ve seen an aquarium placed directly on the floor, but even in that case, the flooring had to be adequately strong to support that weight.



Factoring in the weight of the aquarium, the water, sand and rockwork, an aquarium stand has to be built to keep the tank in position. What is shouldn’t do is rock back and forth when a person walks around the aquarium. It shouldn’t rack front to back or left to right when a person leans against it, either inadvertently or while working in the system.
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I have read countless threads on discussion forums asking for assistance with water quality issues. Considering how many forums are available to hobbyists everywhere, it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine that hundreds of queries are posted on a daily basis just in the United States. With the availability of search engines, the information is readily available having been answered time and time again. Why is it so hard to master this particular area of our hobby? Are our personal circumstances so uniquely different from everyone else’s? ...