Houston Aquarium

These consist of two Magtinics and two 10,000K lamps by Coralife. Tom alternates the Magtinics with the 10Ks. All of the lamps are standard fluorescents (Normal Output).

The lights sit on top of a glass canopy and are all on timers. One strip on each tank comes on at 11AM; the other strip comes on at noon. The lights stay on for 12 hours each, with the first strip off at 11PM and the others at midnight. Thus, the tanks are lit by s

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

Each pump should have at least one extra air valve outlet than you will be using. This outlet should be partially left open as a "bleeder" to prevent back-pressure damage to the pump. A small piece of air-line tubing on the outlet will resolve any "hissing" noise.

Do you think Im some sort of aqua-fossil for my shameless promotion of air pumps for aerati

Whether youre conscious of it, or try to improve on it, or not, there are multifarious reactions that take place to convert, "cycle", otherwise off-set the accumulation and toxicity of these waste and by-products.

Most celebrated in the hobby literature youll see aspects of the element nitrogen and its cycling. What makes nitrogen such a spiffy tool for keeping your eye on your systems water quality? Imagine being able to make an easy measure/test for whats going on in your system metabo

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 as the

Cleaning Under Your UGF
If you've ever considered tearing down your under gravel filter, just to clean the junk out from under the plate, here is a tip you'll enoy. ....

Angel fish

angel fish

Angel Fish Pterophyllum altum (back) & scalare (front)

After keeping and breeding Angel fish for a couple of years I decided to replace them for a group of discus fish, that was about 10 years ago. At.