Spear fishing the invasive Lionfish

Started in 2010 to help increase awareness and to help reduce the invasive population of lion fish in the Caribbean The Florida Keys Lionfish Derby is in its second year and doing well.

Dive teams in the 2010 three-day event managed to snag 664 of those little buggers out of the ocean – not bad. This year divers more than doubled last years three-day event and caught 1,518 Lionfish with the top dive team hauling in 110 in a single day.

Keep up the good work guys!

Source: Sport Fishing

A longnose seahorse, or Hippocampus trimaculatus

Soon enough seahorses may start to become a much more popular thing in our aquariums again thanks to The Penghu Marine Biology Research Center of Taiwan.

Their research and process has allowed them to breed “tens of thousands” of seahorses in one single batch. The potential this offers the marine ornamental industry is large since most wild caught sea horses have a terrible survival rate.

Leave it to those enterprising Taiwanese to go ahead and make another break through in breeding fish!

Source: Taiwan Today 

The Shedd Aquariums beluga whale, Puiji, was one of the two original beluga whales that have called the aquarium home since 1989 when they were first introduced.

Puijis health had been declining for several weeks and was being treated for an infection. During her life at the aquarium she gave birth to two baby belugas who still call the aquarium home: Bella – 5 and Nunavik – 2. Puiji was 25 when she died and lived what would be considered a full life span with the typical beluga living 25-30 years.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Source: The Washington Post.

After visiting the Backer show this last weekend the interesting topic has come up a few times about the recent growth of LED usage in aquariums and whether it is a worthy investment.

LED’s are cool – really – they emit almost no heat, never shift spectrum and cost about a 1/4 to operate in energy costs. On top of that it gives the cool ‘shimmer’ effect that everyone loves but have only been able to get with metal halides until LED’s came along.  Sounds to good to be true? Well for reefers it is – the problem comes in with the fact that LED’s are so precision they don’t emit enough of the other colors in the nearby spectrum that corals have been proven to need – mostly the reds/ambers right now are the problem. Not having these colors has been proven in tests to cause corals to either grow very slowly or not at all.

So to keep this little tidbit short they look great on a marine tank but if you want your corals to grow – we would say stick with the T5 HO or halides for now but keep an eye on the technology as it has been improving exponentially in the last few years.

As some of you may know the Philippines were hit hard last week with two typhoons causing a whole lot of problems including 12.8 billion in damages – surpassing the 2009 typhoon’s 10.9 billion dollar bill.

So if you are shopping for fish this next week don’t expect a whole lot of selection since a lot of fish that are commonly kept in aquariums are imported from Manila.

Source: Inquirer News.

Since airing in August “Tanked” has been getting rave reviews and tons of publicity from the New York Times to late night TV appearances. The aquariums showcased push the envelope in aquarium design, having converted phone booths, jukebox’s, kegs, guitars, and even classic cars into aquatic masterpieces that most anyone would be proud to own.

Conversely, criticism has been pouring out of quite a few hobbyist forums and aquarium news outlets. Allegations are generally that the show does not provide enough education to viewers and portrays the aquariums as ‘instant’, they don’t know what they are doing, and promoting bad husbandry.

As a person that has worked in this line of business for years – every single day – and sells these custom aquariums I find this whole thing amusing.

A majority of our clients that are purchasing these aquariums are not hobbyists and have absolutely no desire to be one. They do not call a custom aquarium company like us or ATM because they want to take care of – or for that matter know anything about their aquarium. They are typically individuals and businesses that are looking for a hands off an aquarium that ‘just works,’ they are typically busy  doing other things and only want to have to feed the fish and be able to make a phone call and have the problem solved if one comes up. Certainly there are clients that purchase these custom tanks and wish to take care of them on their own but not many first timers are looking to make the kind of investment an acrylic aquarium is.

The assumption about these guys and what they know (or don’t know), what they do, and how they do it are all just that – assumptions. Since none of us were there when they shot the footage these fish could be going into tanks that have been setup for weeks and, properly cycled with ammonia dosed into the tanks. They could have also put the fish in the tank for a few hours (as is done all the time at trade shows, club meets, etc) and then taken back out after the video was shot.

Regarding the livestock that goes into the aquariums, a few sayings come into play;

1) You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink

2) The customer is always right.

When a client has spent 5k – infinity on a new custom aquarium and they would like to have the entire Finding Nemo crew in their aquarium for their kids there’s not a whole lot you can do besides tell them the risks of proceeding with what they want done. They buy reef inserts because they are not looking to build a reef tank over the next several years and they do not want the expense or hassle related to keeping a live reef.

When it comes to the lack of real technical educational value of the program, your right they don’t discuss the filtration systems, fish compatibility, water quality/parameters, etc. The lack of discussion has little to do with the fact that it couldn’t be shown, it comes to the fact that no one is sitting in front of their TV show on a Friday night at 9 PM going ‘God I want a biology lesson,’ they are however going ‘woah that’s a cool aquarium, never seen that done before.’

There are many other people and businesses that don’t have a TV show that are ‘responsible,’ by the definition that is implied by these disgruntled folks, for causing the death of large numbers of fish. Interestingly no one points the finger at glass tank manufacturers for printing fully stocked aquariums on their packaging (and no one complains that they toss in reef safe tap water purifier samples or less than the best fish diet) or internet retailers who have no contact with the buyer, therefore they have no idea if they are shipping their fish into a certain death situation. This is just two examples of which there are many more that hobbyists may fortunately never see.

While I understand the worry about people trying to just dump fish into an aquarium and get an instant tank, I have great faith in my peers that own stores, that no legitimate LFS would ever sell someone an aquarium and tell them to take it home and fill it with fish in the same day. The fact remains that most people who would ever try to create an instant aquarium are the people who buy 10 gallon freshwater setups and 20 bucks worth of fish at your local big box, and the story always ends the same way.

Aquarium ownership has grown exponentially with over 12.7 million US homes claiming to have an aquarium in 2011 and with that will come new hobbyists that will catch the fish bug and inevitably develop what may become the next greatest filtration system, captive breeding capability, etc. The best way to help the ornamental fish industry if you are concerned hobbyist is to start with yourself and start by making the choice to stop buying fish that are not sustainably captured and stop buying corals and fish that have low captive survivability altogether.

We support ATM and Tanked for helping to bring the wonders of the ocean into every US home in a way which may inspire us and our children to become the next generation of oceanographers, marine biologists, or fish geeks like us.

Paracanthurus Hepatu - Common Names: Blue Tang, Blue Surgeonfish

The guys over at Fisheries Research Institute’s Eastern Marine Biology Research Center in Taiwan are making a heck of a splash having successfully bred the much-loved Paracanthurus Hepatu – better known as a Blue Tang or to anyone under the age of 12 “Dori.”

Deterioration of marine ecosystems and over harvesting has caused a significant decrease in the number of tangs available for ornamental use. The trick that led to the breakthrough was finding live ciliate that the tangs consume – and need – in order to survive.

Climacostomum is one of many types of protoplankton known as ciliates because they are covered with cilia, which make their edges look somewhat fuzzy, and help them swim through the water. Ciliates that live in water that is low in mineral nutrients, and thus food prey, often have algal partners living inside them, which provide food in exchange for minerals needed by the algae.

They are expecting to have completed developing their mass breeding technology by the end of next year and start shipping them soon thereafter.

Sources: Taiwan Today ,  U Of W – Madison

Huge public aquariums are high on the list of things to see for just about every fish geek, and while they are cool they consume a lot of energy. The critical life support systems cost big bucks to run and need a reliable source of energy, a thing that the Yorkshire Aquarium thinks it has found in energy provided by ocean tides.

The cool device pictured above is manufactured by Neptune Renewable Energy has the ability to take energy found in tides and convert it into energy that will be used to power the aquariums life support systems. The huge advantage of these is that since they are placed deep in the ocean they are far less susceptible to mother natures forces and always produce power unlike wind energy.

The company has plans to build an even bigger and better one next – which will have the capability to power an estimated 5,000 homes.

For more info follow the source link.

Source: EarthTechling.

There used to be a time when an aquarium was a geeky thing to have – long gone are those days. From just showing off to, a real living piece of art these aquariums are NOT your standard pet store fixture.

Search the internet now days for custom aquariums and you will find there are thousands of results with aquariums from basic aquariums to the most exotic things you can imagine. Price tags on these aquariums range anywhere from $5,000 to $150,000 and have capacities of thousands of gallons.

The draw for many certainly starts as the ‘wow’ factor but almost always turns into a complete and true fascination with the tranquility and beauty that these living pieces of art provide. Aquariums have been proven, clinically, to reduce heart rates  and are currently being used to help with development of communication skills in children with have autism and returning soldiers.

So the question on everyone’s mind is who is spending that much money on an aquarium. The answer is a lot of people from national corporations like Bass Pro Shops, Scheels, & Cabelas; celebrities such as P. Diddy(1), Mariah Carey, Kanye West, Usher, Chis OchoCinco (2), and Nelly (4). This is not to say that there aren’t a vast number owned by many other business owners, as well as your next door neighbor because aquariums are everywhere in every shape and size.

Humans natural attraction to water and the beauty of the ocean continues to draw a seemingly never-ending audience. In 1999 it was estimated that there were over 9 million aquariums in US households alone and the industry has shown no signs of slowing down. So if you find yourself on a search to add tranquility to your home or just think its time to add a shark tank to really show how much money your making, you can feel confident you are not alone.