We've come a long, long way in advancing natural marine aquarium keeping.Those of us who started out in the 80's with barren
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Phytoplankton
Keeping corals and other planktivorousinvertebratesin the home aquarium is easier–and one's chances of long-term success are better–than ever before.Indeed, aquarists are now breeding species thought to be nearly impossible to keep just a decade ago.So, what's changed?It's certainly not as though the animals have changed.Whathaschanged is way we care for them.Among the biggest improvements we've made is the greater quality and availability ofspecialized feedsmanbetx3.0最新(such as live, planktonic microalgae) for these species.Maybe the best example of this is coraliculture.Coral foods in the early days of reef aquarium keeping were quite unimpressive.As in, made out of stuff like chicken eggs.The results were generally disappointing.We pretty threw the towel at coral foods altogether until fairly recently.And corals did alright without–certainly better than in the 1990s!But corals were still rather… blah.At least compared to what we see today.Of course, to a huge extent, the mindboggling variety and dazzling colors that aquarists now take for granted have come from decades of selective cultivation by extremely dedicated farmers.That said, much of this happy development owes to our better understanding of coral nutrition.Central to this are live phytoplankton products.There are now a handful of "phyto" aquarium foods on the market nowadays.These vary from one another in several key aspects.Cost, convenience and performance are major considerations by users!arguably, it is the last of these that is most important—at least to your aquarium inhabitants!In terms of quality, thebest phytoplankton productsare live (rather than dead and preserved), mixed-species products.Moreover, they are completely nutritionally balanced.Products containing intact, living cells are much cleaner than those made of dead stuff.Live products also produce less pollution.Live (and multiplying) phyto actuallyremoveswaste products from the aquarium water!Clearly, there is a lot about phytoplankton for the discerning reef aquarist to know!In this section you will learn what rolephytoplanktonplay in reef environments, why they are so nutritious and how use phyto products most effectively to reduce nutrient levels and feed pods, corals,clamsand other animals in the reef aquarium.
54 Posts
Gutloading Live Microcrustaceans
In the sense that very, very few animals specialize to eat only one thing, all animals are omnivores, and prefer live foods.For
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A Closer Look at Carotenoid Pigments
Meeting the dietary requirements of a reef aquarium--a delicate microcosm filled with diverse organisms with varied nutritional
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manbetx3.0最新The Whole Package: Integrating AlgaeBarn's Kits & Combos
manbetx3.0最新AlgaeBarn is hardly the only aquarium hobby-centered business to produce phytoplankton and macroalgae.But we like to think that we're
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Phytoplankton Species and their individual Strengths
When purchasing live foods for your tank, many people simply take the shop employee's advice when handed a jar of unidentified copepods
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Gorgonians in the Marine Aquarium
It should go without saying that the hermatypic, stony, reef-building corals will dominate most reef aquaria.Thankfully, so long as
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Eliminating Detritus in the Refugium
Ever feel like no matter how much time you spend cleaning your tank, it can never really ever get clean?Detritus build-ups can be
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Phytoplankton
The first link in a food chain is always a primary producer, like phytoplankton (i.e.manbetx3.0最新algae, plants, various types of bacteria).This
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manbetx3.0最新Phytoplankton, Macroalgae, or BOTH?
manbetx3.0最新As marine aquarists, we might think of algae as being divided into three (maybe four) distinct categories: the benthic (i.e.
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Kickstarting Your New Refugium
Whether it's just been installed as part of a bone-dry, newly set up aquarium system or as an add-on to a well-established, heavily
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A Copepod Cornucopia: How to Maintain a Continuous Live Food Source in Your Reef Aquarium
Some of us aquarists are satisfied just to find a pod or two in our systems—just to know that they're still there!Then again, some of
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manbetx3.0最新Using Phytoplankton to Control Bad Algae
Despite their lush appearance, natural coral reefs are extremely nutrient-poor environments.Not likely to be able to grow too much bad
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Boosting Reef Aquarium Diversity With Live Phytoplankton
Saltwater aquarium keeping certainly come a long way in a relatively short period of time.Heck, we only started widely using live rock
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Stocking a Refugium
Marine aquaria have a peculiar way of growing (in terms of both size and complexity) over time.These "add-ons," be they filtration
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Pods In Your Reef: Seeding a Marine Aquarium with Copepods
Benefits of Pods In Your Reef: Microcrustaceans (or "pods") in general, and copepods in particular, are an integral component of
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Mandarin Goby Fish Care | Using Copepods to keep a Mandarin Dragonet
Mandarin Fish Care 101: Foods and feeding are the foremost concern for any aquarist wishing to keep a Green Mandarin Dragonet
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Thalassiosira: Big, Brown and Beneficial
There are a multitude of uses for live phytoplankton in aquaculture and marine aquarium keeping.These uses can be nearly as varied as
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Isochrysis: The Microalgal Reef Aquarium Superfood
When imagining scenes from a warm, sunny, tropical coral reef habitat, it is easy to fill the visage with images of those
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Tetraselmis: The Big and Fatty Alga
manbetx3.0最新There is probably no single type of microalgae that is ideal as feed for a varied community of captive animals (such as a reef tank).
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Getting Your Greens: The Benefits of Feeding Live Nannochloropsis
Most of us want—and should want—our aquarium systems to more or less function ecologically in a way that resembles natural marine
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