Hi. I’m new to marine tanks. Picked myself up a TMC habitat 60 150ltr with sump. Unsure whether my rock scape is too chunky or big. Any thoughts appreciated? Thanks.

Trying to find a high def photo of Pygoplites Diacanthus for a gift for my wife. All I have are blurry ones - the ones online are behind payments - any ideas of where I can find a good one?

I have been wondering why my elegance coral hasn't been able to keep all the fish I have been feeding it. Is this hairy crab?

It started out with interest. It turned into passion. And very quickly it has become something I’m starting to despise.

It’s fascinating and beautiful and interesting and mysterious in so many ways. It captures the attention of everyone. Once you dip your toes in and realize it’s not all that difficult, it’s hard to escape the lure.

The colors are dazzling. The variety is mesmerizing. The complexity is amazing and at times, incomprehensible.

As a consumer, we may not realize the depth of things. We see something in a store that we like and because it’s for sale in a store, obviously we should buy it. That’s consumerism.

I got enamored with saltwater for the same reasons everyone does. And I decided that was something I wanted to make a living doing. I started out doing independent aquarium maintenance. I quickly learned that rich people don’t give shit. They buy what they want and when it fails, they just buy more.

I then transitioned to a saltwater shop. It’s a well respected shop, the best in our state without a doubt. But the consumerism has hit me hard and I’m left feeling quite the moral dilemma.

Obviously the point of a business is to make money. But when you realize just how much profit is being made at the expense of the consumer and even worse, the living animals that we are selling, it gets hard to stomach.

I wish my employers would have kept their mouths shut. I wish they never told me the profit margins. Because now that I know, it’s absolutely sickening. You’re all getting ripped off.

People are pillaging the oceans so you can have something pretty to look at and buy again in a few months when it dies. Every single day, I have to sell people shit that I know is going to die. I have to sell things I know are going to be neglected. I have to sell things that nobody knows anything about because they’ve never been kept in captivity. I have to sell it all and “keep things simple” so the customer doesn’t ask too many questions and decide against it. All for a profit.

I got into this because it was fascinating and exotic and mysterious. Now that I’m aware of the in depths of the industry and the massive profits that are made, I’m absolutely sick about it and have been seriously reconsidering my career choice and the hobby as a whole.

I don’t think saltwater keeping is entirely unethical. I just hope that people will start educating themselves and make ethical, sustainable choices in this hobby. It’s truly disgusting when you really get down to it. I don’t want it to be that way and there’s ways we can improve.

I got this feather duster worm about a month ago and only in the past few days it started emerging for extended periods of time.

I made a previous post about it not coming out and took some of the advice given there. I think what worked was having most of its tube surrounded by and in contact with rocks in addition to anchoring its base. And also feeding phytoplankton helps to encourage it to come out more.

I've had this anemone for months now, and i got it more pale than how it is now, I'm asking if it's still a little bleached because it still looks a little translucent to me. Or it's just translucent because it's puffed up? What y'all think?

It looks like he got bonked on the head… why?? Ive had him for 2 months and he’s always looked like this lol

Is it rare or common? Paid 15$ for this ocellaris.

I think I have some sponges bothering my coral. Should I remove them ?

Just noticed this, what is it?

it was attached to a frag and now it just detached itself from the frag.

i’m dropped it in the low flow low light area of my tank. is this good? or should i move it?

Looking for ID on the small things with a green/blue ring, and pinkish stalk/foot? I’ve spotted 3 so far, but I can’t get an angle on the third.

Idk where these came from considering the only thing I’ve added in the past few months is a tail spot blenny, and some berghias.

They seem to be doing well. They pull in food as it passes by. Haven’t noticed them reject anything or spit anything out. Even the small baby ones are seemingly doing good. Time will tell though.

Hi friends! My husband and I are new to the sub/hobby and on Oct 2nd we started our first saltwater tank (I’ll put the specs below). 2 days later once filled with RODI water we put in Dr. Tim’s and 2 gladiator clownfish, 12 blue legged hermits and 5 turbo snails to start our fish-in cycle.

Our parameters were doing good for a few days I think but have been staying pretty stable with ammonia at .25. I don’t think we’re over feeding, we’re only feeding what the clowns can immediately eat. I’ve read that a partial water change could help but I’m just so anxious to mess this tank up and hurt our fishies. We have started having brown diatom algae growing on parts of the glass, rock and sand.

If anyone can offer us some advice I’d appreciate it! We’re trying to be as educated as we can be, we realize we were underprepared getting the tank but we’re excited to learn!

Tank Specs:
- 75 gallon Aqueon Megaflow overflow tank/kit
- Bubble Magnus Curve 5 Elite Protein Skimmer
- 1 2k icecap gyre flow pump
- 1 4k icecap gyre flow pump
- Fluval Reef 4.0 LED
- Caribsea Ocean Direct live sand
- 60 lbs of Caribsea liferock
- marineland heater
- eshopps reef sump 100 4th gen
- API saltwater master test kit
- bottle of Dr Tim’s all in one saltwater (for 80 gallons)

Parameters:
10/2: 1.025 salinity, 8 pH, 78°
10/4: ammonia 0, nitrite .5, nitrate 5
10/5: ammonia .25, nitrite .5, nitrate 5
10/6: ammonia 0, nitrite 1, nitrate 10
10/7: ammonia 0, nitrite .5, nitrate 10
10/8: ammonia 0, nitrite 1, nitrate 20
10/9: ammonia .25, nitrite 1, nitrate 20
10/10: ammonia .25, nitrite .5, nitrate 10
10/12: .25, .25. 10
10/13: .5, .5, 20
10/14: .25, .25, 10
10/15: .25, .25, 10
10/16: .25, .25, 10
10/17: .25, .25, 10

I recently got him and he was getting bullied by my starry blenny, I currently have him locked up in a lil container inside the tank so the wrasse can get a moment to chill he’s just now coming out more and I noticed this on his face? Not sure what it is, I’ll test my waters when I can I’m currently busy but this makes my anxiety worse lolol

Around 7-8 months old at this point I'd say, first corals went in less than a month ago. Slowly and patiently seeing how they do and then getting more if the answer is well!

Last year I put in this bubble coral which has been doing great. I put it around 8” away from a little patch of zoas I placed on the same rock work. Unfortunately, the zoas zoa’d and now they’re crawling up the bubble coral’s exposed skeleton and even restricting a small portion of it from opening fully.

I was getting anxious about it before but since the heads closest to the bubble coral are closed / partially closed + bubble coral are said to be hostile af to other corals and have a powerful sting, I was hoping it would fight the zoas off. But the zoas do not care about repeatedly being stung, and they are continuing to try to grow over my bubble.

For now, the bubble coral has been very healthy. Lots of tissue down the skeleton, inflates fully in the day, lots of tentacles around breakfast/dinner and night. But I’m worried.

Is there some sort of substance I can rub on the zoas to make them back off? What do I do to stop them from smothering my poor bubble coral?