About
Water First, and a Hard Line at Fish Health
AquaReefBasin is a reference for freshwater aquarium water: what the readings mean, what causes them to move, and what to do first. It is written by someone who killed fish by being impatient and would rather you did not.
What this site is
Most aquarium advice arrives in one of two forms: a forum thread where five people confidently disagree, or a product page explaining that your problem is a bottle away from solved. This site is neither. It covers 16 problems, 6 water parameters, the nitrogen cycle, a maintenance schedule and 26 glossary terms, and almost every answer on it begins with a test result and a water change.
That is not a philosophy so much as an observation. Cloudy water, high nitrate, algae, surface film, a stalled cycle and a tank that smells are all, in the overwhelming majority of cases, maintenance problems. They respond to changing water, feeding less, shortening the light period, and leaving the filter media alone. None of that costs anything, and a page that sold you a product for it would be selling you the wrong thing.
Where the numbers come from
Every parameter page and every fix page cites published sources — EPA drinking water and aquatic life criteria, USGS Water Science School material, and NOAA on algal blooms. Where a published standard exists, the bands on this site are built on it and it is linked. Where the right value depends on the species you keep, on pH or on temperature, that is said plainly rather than averaged into a single figure that suits nobody.
Two things are deliberately absent. No product here is presented as having been put through a bench test by us, because none was. And there are no dosing figures for anything, including ordinary water conditioners — concentrations vary enormously between products that look alike, and the only correct number is the one printed on the bottle in your hand.
The line this site does not cross
This site is about water, filtration and equipment. It is not about diagnosing or treating sick fish. Where a problem points at an animal’s health, the page says so, tells you to test the water immediately because bad water is the most common and most fixable cause, and then sends you to an aquatic veterinarian. It does not name a disease, it does not suggest a treatment, and it publishes no medication dosages. One medication appears in the product listings because it belongs to a category we cover; it is described only as its listing describes it and is recommended nowhere.
How to use it
If something is visibly wrong, start at Fixes and find the symptom. If you have readings in front of you and want them interpreted, use Test Reader. If the tank is new, read The Nitrogen Cycle once properly — it explains about half of everything else here. And if you want to stop having problems rather than solving them, Maintenance Schedule is the least glamorous and most useful page on the site.
Products
There are 33 products across Gear, all described from their retailer listings, with no prices and no ratings. Links to Amazon are affiliate links and the site earns commission on qualifying purchases. The full terms are on Affiliate Disclosure. What that arrangement does not do is change the order of operations on a troubleshooting page: testing and a water change come first, every time.
Contact
Corrections are genuinely welcome, particularly on the parameter pages where a wrong number would matter. Write to info@aquareefbasin.com, or see Contact.