Red Sea Gets Smart, and the Plant Racks Fill Up
The full story behind this week's newsletter: the entire Red Sea ReefControl and ReefSense lineup is landing, twenty-two new plants hit the racks, and a quarantine room that is absolutely packed.
Welcome back to your weekly stop at Squeaky's Aquatics. This one is for the reef keepers: Red Sea's brand new ReefControl controllers and ReefSense probes are landing at the shop, and we brought in the whole lineup rather than picking two pieces of it. There is plenty for the freshwater side too, including a plant restock big enough that we had to rearrange the racks. We also finally have a proper water testing and recording system running, which is a bigger deal than it sounds. And the popcorn machine is out this weekend. Here is everything.
The Red Sea Wall Just Got Smart
The whole lineup, controllers and probes, landing at the shop now.
Red Sea spent years quietly building a controller that does not feel like homework, and it is finally arriving. ReefControl is the brain, ReefSense is the senses, and the two talk to each other without a tangle of adapters or a weekend of setup. If you already run a REEFER or a MAX NANO, this drops straight into the ecosystem you own. If you do not, it works just as happily on anything else with water in it.
The full-fat controller: monitoring, alerts, dosing logic, and app control of the whole system from your phone. There is also a ReefControl Lite at $329.00 if you want the core of it without every bell, and a Pro Deluxe Kit at $699.00 that bundles the controller with the probes to get you running out of one box.
Eight controlled outlets, energy monitoring, and no more guessing which plug is the skimmer. The Power 8 Deluxe at $389.00 adds the front control panel so you can override anything by hand without opening the app.
Build the sensor set your tank actually needs. Leak Detector $40.00, Temperature $59.00, 4-Port Expander $69.00, pH and Temperature $119.00, ORP $119.00, and the Salinity and Temperature probe at $200.00. Tidy it all up with the magnetic 4-probe holder, $49.00.
Automatic top-off that reports back to the controller, so the thing refilling your tank is on speaking terms with the thing watching your salinity. Also new this week: the grounding probe, $30.00.
The pick this week is not one box, it is the shelf. Alongside the new gear we carry the REEFER G3 systems, the MAX NANO G2 cubes, ReefLED G2 fixtures, Reef Foundation Pro test kits, Reef Care dosing sets, and Coral Pro salt. It is one of the deepest single-brand walls in the shop, and now it has a controller to run it.
Not sure which controller fits your build? Call us at 470-207-3434 or come stand in front of the wall with us. This is exactly the kind of thing that is easier to sort out in five minutes in person than in an hour of forum reading.
Also Just Swam In
Because it was not only Red Sea this week.
A properly designed sump with a real filter sock chamber, a generous skimmer section, and baffles that actually work. The unglamorous upgrade that quietly fixes half of a reef tank's problems.
A clean, consistent mix in the 10 kg and 25 kg buckets, which is the size you want once you are mixing saltwater every single week instead of every now and then.
For the freshwater crowd: a beginner-friendly way into CO2 for planted tanks, no pressurized cylinder and no regulator to fight with. Greener growth without the plumbing project.
The plant racks got a serious refill over the past week. Ludwigia Super Red Mini, Cryptocoryne Spiralis Tiger, Crinum Calamistratum, Bolbitis Heudelotii, Dwarf Sagittaria, four kinds of Anubias, plus riparium and terrarium options like Bloody Dock and Joseph's Coat. Most of them start at $7.99.
Marked Down This Week
The online headliners. And a heads up: even more deals are in-store only.
A big, quiet canister with a self-priming pump and enough media capacity for a heavily stocked tank. This is the size that normally makes people wince at the price tag, and it is the deepest cut we have on filtration right now. The smaller FZ7 for 60 to 90 gallons is down to $139.49 from $199.99 as well.
Moody, purple-black, and severely underrated. Males carry a long trident tail and a violet-blue eye that catches the light, and a school of them over a planted scape looks like nothing else in the shop. Peaceful, beginner-friendly, and happiest in groups of six or more. In-store pickup.
Four bottles of concentrated trace elements for SPS growth and color, in one box. If you are dosing by hand or building out a doser, this is the cheap part of a nice-looking reef.
Fresh Out of Quarantine
These earned their showroom spot the hard way, with a full stay in our quarantine room first.
It has been a big month of graduations. These finished their QT stay and moved out to the showroom tanks, healthy, eating well, and ready to meet you. Three of them are our picks of the bunch:
Deep sapphire blue across the body with a blazing orange back that runs right up over the head. One of the best looking dwarf angels in the hobby and a good deal less common than the ones most shops stock. It is out on the floor now and it will not be for long.
Powder blue body, jet black face, brilliant yellow dorsal. This is the tang everybody stops walking for. They also have a reputation for being delicate on import, which is exactly why ours went through a full quarantine before it went anywhere near the showroom. Give it a big tank with strong flow and plenty of algae to graze.
Seventeen of the smallest puffer in the hobby, all of an inch long and completely convinced they run the place. A species tank of six or more of these is one of the most entertaining things you can put in a living room, and at nine dollars a fish it is a cheap ticket to a lot of personality.
This is the deepest clown selection we have ever had out at once: Black Ice Longfin $109.99, Longfin Ocellaris $119.99, large Spotcinctus $79.99, DaVinci Grade B $55.99, Wyoming White $49.99, plus Maine Blizzard, and bonded PAIRS of Tangerine Albino Ocellaris and Tangerine Snowflake. Worth seeing in person, because no two are patterned the same.
A female Blue Throat Trigger at $169.99, one of the few genuinely reef-friendly triggers. An Auriga Butterfly at $59.99. A Scopas Tang at $79.99 alongside Convict and Flame Fin Tomini tangs. And two puffers with a lot of face: a Striped Dogface at $109.99 and a small Valentini.
Citron Clown Gobies $34.99 perch on coral branches and watch the room. Bicolor Blennies $34.99 plus Starry and Tailspot blennies. Bluestripe and Yellowstripe Neon Gobies, Green Banded and White Sleeper gobies, and Engineer Gobies that will tunnel through your rockwork and rearrange the aquascape, which is either the appeal or the warning.
Nineteen of them across the showroom tanks. Polka dots, racing stripes, and glowing eyes on one peaceful little fish. Reef safe and happiest in a group. Also out: a medium Filefish, the one fish that actually eats aiptasia.
Twelve assorted Discus at $59.99, which is the most we have ever had on the floor at one time. Six Tiger Oscars at $14.99 for anyone who wants a fish that recognizes them. And six Peacock Gudgeons at $19.99, a criminally underrated little nano fish.
Fifty Brilliant Rasboras, twenty-four Brilliant Rummy Nose Tetras at $6.99 with their noses glowing red, twenty-four Cardinal Tetras at $4.99, twenty-five Ember Tetras at $2.99, twenty-five Cherry Barbs at $5.99, Bleeding Heart, Von Rio Flame and Head-and-Tail Light tetras, plus Paskai, Forktail and Threadfin rainbowfish and Longfin Leopard Danios at $3.99.
Sixty-seven Otocinclus at $4.99 and eleven Bumblebee Otos at $14.99. Panda Corys $6.99, Skunk and Fairy Spot corys, twenty-five Black Kuhli Loaches at $5.99, Bushynose, Blue Eye Lemon, Clown and L-129 False Zebra plecos, plus Glass Catfish and a Flagfish.
Thirty Navy Blue Cobra Guppies at $5.99 in that deep cobra-patterned navy, thirteen assorted male fancies, and twenty Sailfin Mollies.
Showroom fish move fast, and this list is genuinely the biggest we have run in a digest. Come meet them in person at the shop.
More New Arrivals
Cleanup crew, nano stock and a few additions worth knowing about.
Beyond the graduates above, here is the rest of what is new on the floor this week. We restocked the cleanup crew heavily, which is the kind of thing nobody gets excited about until they need it:
Twenty-five of them, plus a dozen large Sun Orange Amanos. If you have hair algae, this is the answer, and it is not close. Amanos work harder than any other freshwater cleaner and they are entertaining to watch doing it. These are not listed online yet, so they are in-store only for now. Come grab them before the algae situation gets worse.
Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, Peppermint Shrimp, Candy Cane and Tiger Pistol Shrimp, Emerald Crabs, Pitho Crabs, Sallylightfoot, and hermits in Blue Leg Dwarf, Mexican Red Leg and Halloween Orange Band. Snails by the dozen: seventy Conehead algae eaters, thirty-five Super Nassarius, seventy Black and White Spiral Tops. Plus Pincushion Urchins and a Yellow Watchman Goby.
Six of them. Electric blue speckling over gold and red, and a genuinely charming personality for a dwarf cichlid. Warm, stable, soft water and they will reward you.
Twenty-four female Delta bettas in mixed colors. If you have been thinking about a sorority tank, this is the batch to build it from, and we are happy to talk you through the stocking and aggression side before you commit.
Fifty Neon Tetras at $3.99, fifty more Otocinclus at $4.99, twenty-five Batik Nerite Snails at $3.99, and both African Dwarf Frogs at $4.99 and the Blonde variety at $7.99.
Just Landed, In Quarantine Now
The top grabs from this week's shipments, doing their QT time now and hitting the showroom over the next couple of weeks.
A small to medium blonde Naso, in QT as of yesterday. These grow into one of the most graceful fish you can put in a big reef.
Seventeen young freshwater angels across three varieties, including the orange-and-black Kois and the flowing veiltails. Growing out in QT now.
Thirteen Banggais and six Yellowtails. Two of the calmest, most reef-appropriate schoolers in the hobby, quarantining side by side.
True Yellow and Pink Spotted watchmen, clown gobies in yellow, black and citron, plus Diamond Sleepers. If you have been waiting on a specific goby, this is the shipment.
Purple front, yellow back on the grammas, and pure electric magenta on the dottybacks. Small fish, enormous color.
A pair of Powder Browns and a Flamefin, all getting a proper quarantine before they go anywhere. Tangs are exactly the fish you want to buy from a shop that quarantines.
Three of them. They build a burrow, hover above it, and duck back down the second you look away. Give them a deep sand bed and some rubble and they will run their own little construction site.
Bicolor Angel, Bicolor Foxface, Arc Eye and Falco Hawkfish, a Carpenter's Flasher Wrasse, a Red Scooter Blenny, four Lawnmower Blennies, and a batch of Ocellaris and Nearly Naked clowns.
Why This Is the Controller We Would Buy
What actually separates ReefSense from the probes you may have been burned by.
Anyone who has run a controller for a few years has a story about the 2am alarm that turned out to be nothing. A pump kicks on, the reading spikes, your phone screams, and you stand in front of a perfectly healthy tank at two in the morning. That is not a controller problem so much as an analog probe problem, and it is the specific thing Red Sea went after here.
The Leak Detector at $40.00 is the one we would put on every single system, ours included. Titanium probes, sensitive across everything from RO/DI to full saltwater, an instant alert to your phone, and a Quick Action that can cut power to your pumps automatically. A leak caught in the first minute is a mopped floor. A leak caught in the morning is a floor, a cabinet, and sometimes a tank.
Owning one is genuinely low-effort: check the pH calibration every couple of months and sanity-check salinity against a refractometer now and then, the same way you would with any instrument you rely on. Do that and the system quietly earns its keep. Ours has caught a stuck heater and a failed return pump, and either one of those pays for the whole thing.
Trivia, Answered
From this week's newsletter: Red Sea corals routinely sit in water hot enough to bleach reefs almost anywhere else in the world. Why are they so tough?
Free Popcorn This Weekend
Friday August 7 and Saturday August 8, and probably Sunday too.
The popcorn machine is coming out. Free popcorn Friday and Saturday, and if the kernels hold out we will keep it running Sunday as well. There is no catch and nothing to sign up for. Grab a bag, take a slow lap around the tanks, ask us something you have been wondering about. That is the entire event.
The Road Ahead
What just landed on the floor, and what is coming next.
New on the floor
A real water testing and recording system
This is the upgrade we are most excited about. Every test we run, on our tanks and on the water you bring in, now gets logged instead of scribbled and forgotten. That means we can pull your last set of numbers up next to today's and actually show you the direction things are moving. Nitrates coming down over three weeks is a very different conversation than one number in isolation, and until now that history lived in somebody's memory. Bring a sample in and see it for yourself.
A lot more live plants
The plant racks have grown substantially, with twenty-two new potted varieties added this week alone and more coming. Swords, crypts, anubias, stems, carpeting plants, and a few riparium and terrarium options for the paludarium crowd.
New lighting through the showroom
Most of this is store lighting: new fixtures across the showroom floor and the shelving, so the whole shop is brighter and it is far easier to actually read a label or find what you came for. Some of it lands on the coral and plant displays too, where light is not just about looks, and those sections have noticeably more punch to them now. And if you have ever wondered whether an aquarium can have its own weather, keep an eye on the displays next time you are in. That is all we are going to say about that for now.
Coming soon
More bettas, and better betta systems
More varieties and considerably better housing for them. Bettas deserve heated, filtered, properly cycled water rather than a shelf of cups, and we are building toward that.
An improved saltwater invert system
Shrimp, snails, crabs and stars have needs that do not match the fish systems, particularly around copper and stable salinity. They are getting dedicated space instead of sharing.
A coral information kiosk with grid placements
A screen on the frag racks where you can look up any coral we carry, read its care, light, flow and temperament, and then see exactly which grid spot it is sitting in. No more hunting the rack or flagging someone down to ask what the unlabeled frag in the corner is.
Reptiles, turtles and frogs
The Exo Terra wall has been up since the start of July, misting systems, heat, humidity, and habitat gear. The animals are the next step, and we will say so loudly the week they arrive.
And always more
We never stop upgrading. There is always a next project on the bench, and a lot of it is thanks to you. Every visit and every order helps us grow.
Coming Soon: A Revised Rewards Program
An easier way to see your rewards, with more ways to use them.
Our rewards program is getting an upgrade. The revised version makes it much easier to check your points balance, and it opens up more ways to earn and redeem them. Already have points with us? Do not worry, none of them will be lost, they carry straight over to the new system. We will let you know the moment it goes live, so keep an eye on the newsletter.
Come See Us
Squeaky's Aquatics, 1885 Braselton Hwy, Suite D, Lawrenceville, GA 30043.
Mon, Tue, Thu 11am to 6pm. Fri and Sat 10am to 7pm. Sun 10am to 4pm. Closed Wednesdays for maintenance, with curbside pickup available.
Free popcorn Friday and Saturday, and probably Sunday. Come get some.
Questions on the new Red Sea gear, or want to skip the wait on a fish still in quarantine? Call 470-207-3434.
Shopping with us online from somewhere else? Thank you, truly. You keep this little shop growing.
Squeaky's Aquatics
