Tip of the Day – 3/25/2014

If you’ve got kids, especially somewhere in the age range of 3-12, then chances are you’ve found a Nerf dart, G.I. Joe, or some other type of toy floating in your aquarium or stuck to the intake strainer of a water pump. Those rambunctious little kiddos don’t mean any harm to your delicate reef tank, but it’s inevitable that they will add some serious challenges to reefkeeping. To safeguard your tank from invading armies of toys and possibly Cheetos, child-proof locking mechanisms are a must, but so too are mesh screens. Typically used to keep jumping fish in, the mesh screens will stop items from falling into the top of the tank. But when you decide to take these steps, just make sure you also cover any external overflow boxes and don’t make entry into the sump area so difficult that even you can’t get in.