New England Aquarium Home Page

If only our tap water was perfect and all aquarium fish could share the same water conditions, maintaining aquaria would be so much easier. Unfortunately, many tap water sources are far less than perfect. Tap water conditioners have become a mandatory part of good aquarium management. The chemistry of water from different regions of the world is as different as nature is complex. Aquarium additives allow us to easily a

What the? The tanks cloudy from the gravel/decor? Not a big deal, give it time and it will clear up just fine. Are you ready? Power it all up and stand back. Beautiful.

Test Kits, Bacteria & Testing Your Patience:

What happens next? That universal ingredient, time needs to go by; a few days for certain chemical reactions, funky stuff in the tap-water to precipitate, stabilization of pH... and then:

Bacteria. Youll hear no end of ways to go about introducing and establishing oh-so necessary bio-filtration micro-organisms. Certain species are utilized for "cycling" or converting noxious metabolites into les

This species is spotted on the posterior part of the body and to a lesser extent on other parts of the body.

Tropical gar, Atractosteus tropicus
A very rare species.

Manfari or Cuban gar, Atractosteus tristoechus
Looks very similar to the alligator gar and since it is very rare in the trade you can usually assume that your gar is an alligator gar and not a Cuban gar unless otherwise stated. The Cuban gar has a broader snout and lacks pattern on its body.

Beside these species there are a number of hybrids such

Success is often hampered by other common flaws in planning and plumbing, like inadequate drainage (hole numbers and sizes) and the very rockscape of the display, which too often is crippled without a 4" minimum distance from

.. and possibly float ice bags or water frozen in plastic containers in the system. For emergencies and lowering the average-kinetic-energy (temperature) for water changes only.

Set-Up and Operation:Set-Up and Operation:

System installation is identical for cold water as it has been for all other types of marine set-ups so far, with the following notes on lighting and filtration/establishing nutrient c

African Cichlids in the aquarium

african cichlids

Cyprichromis leptosoma

The most popular African cichlids come from Lak.

Just another question
Ok I was noticing that a lot of the higher end tanks on this site have timed lighting including dawn and dusk and I think that is so cool and I am sure that it is great for the tank. I on the other hand don't have .