How Do You Reduce Saltwater Reef Aquarium Maintenance?
• Get the right fish. Cheap fish, invertebrates, corals and macroalgae are not just cheaper than expensive ones, they’re better for an aquarium and for the environment. They’re cheap because they reproduce well in captivity or are plentiful in the wild and tend not to die on the way to the pet store. • Use corals (generally soft corals, which are like masses of little anemones without much of a sting) and macroalgae that do not require a lot of light. High-powered light consumes more energy than anything else in the aquarium. It encourages the growth of hair and other microalgae, and coralline algae which, while colorful, requires hard scraping with a metal tool, generally by reaching inside the aquarium, to remove. It produces heat which can require a chiller to remove from the aquarium and more air conditioning to remove from the house. • The light should still be brighter than a typical freshwater aquarium. One to two watts per gallon has worked well for the author (one of the two b
