Tank builds, start to finish.

Saltwater and coral specialists are thin on the ground in NW PA, so most reefers from Meadville to Oil City drive to Erie. Here's how to find a good shop, buy livestock with confidence and get it home healthy.

Erie tap water comes straight from Lake Erie: moderately hard, chlorine-treated and fine for most community fish once you condition it. What that means for your tank, your corals and your water changes.

The full sump build for a 125-gallon reef: protein skimmer, 700 GPH (gallons per hour) return pump, 300W of heat, media and flood-safe plumbing, priced part by part from the shelves at Sea Cave, Erie PA's aquarium shop since 1975.

A sump doubles your filtration and hides your heater and gear out of the display, and you can build one for a 20-gallon tank without drilling anything or siliconing a single baffle. Here's the whole build, why each part is there, and how to make it flood-safe.

Most stocking mistakes come from buying fish by looks alone. Here is how to tell, before you buy, which fish will share a tank peacefully and which will end in a torn fin.

Float the sealed bag 15–20 minutes, then add tank water every 5 minutes; drip-acclimate anything sensitive. The full how-to from Sea Cave, Erie PA's aquarium shop since 1975.

A healthy aquarium runs on small, regular upkeep rather than the occasional big scrub. Here is a realistic routine, broken down by how often each job actually needs doing, that keeps your water stable and your fish healthy, plus the handful of tasks you should never stack into one session.

Ammonia and nitrite should read zero, nitrate low and steady, pH stable. What every aquarium test number means and how often to check it, explained plain by Sea Cave in Erie, PA.

Change 20–25% of the water once a week; with a routine it takes about 15 minutes. The step-by-step for freshwater and saltwater tanks, from Sea Cave, the Erie PA fish shop open since 1975.

Brown diatoms, green water, hair algae, black beard or cyano: ID what's actually growing in your tank and fix the cause, not the symptom. Honest algae help from Sea Cave, Erie PA's aquarium shop since 1975.

A new tank needs 2–6 weeks to grow its bacteria colony before fish can survive in it. Here's the fishless nitrogen cycle from start to finish, explained plain by Sea Cave, Erie's aquarium shop since 1975.

Start with a 20–29 gallon tank and cycle it before a single fish goes in; those two choices are most of the battle. The full first-tank gear list from Sea Cave, Erie PA's aquarium store since 1975.

FOWLR (fish-only-with-live-rock — saltwater fish plus live rock doing the filtration) is the on-ramp to saltwater without reef-tank price tags. The full 30–55 gallon starter build, part by part, from Sea Cave in Erie, PA.

Corals scare people off because the internet jumps straight to acropora, $1,000 of equipment, and alkalinity charts. That's the wrong end of the hobby. Start with soft corals that forgive your mistakes, learn the three levers (light, flow, stable chemistry), and earn your way up the ladder.

You don't need CO2 gear to grow aquarium plants. Anubias, java fern, crypts and a modest light on a timer basically run themselves. The whole low-tech setup, plant by plant, from Sea Cave in Erie, PA.

Everyone gets the same advice: quarantine new fish. Then they picture a second tank to scrub and stock, and skip it. The truth is a QT (quarantine tank) is the barest tank you'll ever run, and it's the single best way to keep ich and other diseases out of the display you actually care about.

Filter: 4–6× your gallons in flow per hour. Heater: 3–5 watts per gallon. Light: matched to your goal. How to size all three to your actual tank, free from Sea Cave, Erie PA's aquarium shop since 1975.