After running three reef tanks over the last six years and rebuilding one after a wipeout, I have learned the hard way that the best LPS coral care supplies are not the flashiest pieces of equipment in the room. They are the boring, repeatable tools that keep alkalinity at 9 dKH, calcium near 420 ppm, […]

After three years of running mixed reefs, including a dedicated 90-gallon Acropora tank, I have burned through more bottles, jars and test vials than I care to admit. The best SPS coral supplies are the ones that keep small polyp stony corals like Acropora and Montipora growing with vivid color without burning a hole in […]

Powerheads are the number one killer of anemones in home reef tanks. I learned that the hard way when a bubble tip anemone (BTA) in my 75-gallon mixed reef got sucked into an Ecotech Vortech during a midnight wander, and by morning there was nothing left but a torn pedal disc. After that loss, I […]

After two years of testing pods across a 90-gallon mixed reef and three separate frag tanks in our facility, our team ranked the best copepod cultures for reef tanks that actually establish, reproduce, and feed picky fish. We dosed 16 jars from 6 vendors, watched Mandarin Dragonets fatten on them, and counted nauplii under magnification. […]

After running live phytoplankton across three different reef setups for over a year — a 20 gallon mixed reef, a 75 gallon SPS-dominated tank, and a 120 gallon refugium-led system — our team landed on a clear shortlist of the best phytoplankton for reef tanks you can buy this year. We focused on what actually […]

When I started keeping clownfish five years ago, I lost my first three batches of larvae because I had no idea how to keep a rotifer culture from crashing overnight. After running 10 cultures in parallel at the height of my breeding project - plus feeding two large reef tanks with daily doses of live […]

Last updated: September 2026. We test reef gear hands-on from our saltwater lab, and we have spent the past three months running eight dedicated frag tanks side by side to find the best frag tanks for coral propagation, grow-out, and frag swaps. We weighed each one on glass clarity, depth, filtration, pump quality, and how […]

I've been fragging corals in my own reef tanks for over a decade, and the best coral cutting tools are the difference between a clean cut that heals in a week and a crushed colony that bleaches out. After buying, sharpening, rusting, and replacing more pairs of bone cutters than I care to admit, our […]

When we set out to find the best clownfish breeding supplies for , we tested ten products across four months in our 90-gallon broodstock system. The short answer: you need a breeding tank (10-30 gallon, bare-bottom), a fry-safe sponge filter, a reliable heater, a spawning substrate (clay pot or ceramic tile), a saltwater test kit, […]

A saltwater fish acclimation kit is a set of tools - usually a drip acclimator, an acclimation box, or a combination of both - that helps new fish, corals, shrimp, and inverts slowly adjust to your display tank's water chemistry (salinity, pH, temperature) before they meet your existing inhabitants. Without one, the sudden change in […]