How To Start A Marine Aquarium

Species of gar:

Florida spotted gar, Lepisosteus platyrhinchus
A highly varied species of gar. Has more spots on its body and a shorter snout than many other gars. Easily mistaken for spotted gar.

Spotted gar, Lepisosteus oculatus
Long snout and spots. Spots to a higher degree towards the posterior of it

I strongly encourage the use of at least a power filter in conjunction with undergravel and a protein skimmer for the simplest of marine systems.

A note regarding their "biological" filter function; take care to not change all the media in power filters at once. Rotating the floss, etc., back to front in the units water flow will allow for bacterial transference.

Wet-Dry/Trickle Filters:

Are strongly suggested

To assure this last point is clear. Having low (less than ten ppm) nitrate is desirable, but not essential with fish only, live rock and algae systems.

Your goal in preparing an environment suitable to support your animal livestock is to first get populations of these two bacteria groups going in your new aquarium.

Graph of ammonia, nitrite and nitrate concentrations ver

how to start a marine aquarium

Bleaching coral and over-cleaning reduces the number of fish that can be kept in an aquarium. An aquarium that is kept ultra clean and immaculate is a less stable environment. The algae and bacteria that grow on the decorations are beneficial. The algae provide oxygen for the fish. Cleaning the coral on a regular basis will only work well if fe

There is usually a control valve for regulating water flow. A check valve is usually placed on the filter intake to prevent the sand from packing-down when the filter is turned off.

Because water flows upward through the filter, the sand in the filter becomes suspended or "fluidized" in the water column, forming a fluidized bed of sand. If the flow of water is controlled properly, the sand does not flow out of the filter, but remains suspended. This happens because the flow of water is just fast enough to keep the sand in suspension. The weight of the sand prevents it from escaping the filter. Because the sand is suspended in wat

lighting help
Alright im gonna make my own canopy and wanna retro some lights in it. Im not sure on what lights to use but i dont want buy anything later down the road. So heres what i was thinking 2 175 watt 10k metal maybe 2 96 watt vhos and 2 acntic vhos then some moon l.

Shelldweller from Lake Tanganyika

Lamprologus ocellatus

There are several species of shelldwellers in lake Tanganyika, but this one is definitely my favorite, Lamprologus ocellatus.

Cleaner Wrasse
I recently bought a cleaner wrasse, and i started to feed it mysis shrimp and mega marine (all from hikari). He started to pick it at it and somewhat eat it. What do they eat?.

best hang on back skimmer bak pak?
what do you guys recoment for my 55g i need a HOB skimmer due to space restrictions. i hear/see the red sea prizm skimmer and bak pak are both great skimmers, which is more reputable/powerful/useful and actually works, unlike this POS seaclone.