Captive Aquatics: An Aquarium and Ecology Blog

Thai Navy Protects Sea Turtles

For the past two decades the Royal Thai Navy has been active in sea turtle conservation by supporting the Thailand Sea Turtle Conservation Center (they released 20,000 green & hawksbill sea turtle hatchlings this year!), and by keeping training exercises away from nesting grounds.  Check out this video of the hatchlings being released:

Want to know what you can do for sea turtles?  Help leatherback sea turtle habitat conservation, and only eat ocean friendly seafood!

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LiveAquaria Accepting Species Requests!

I'm no fan of local fish stores, but I am a big fan of a few online fish stores, LiveAquaria being one of them.  Lucky for us, they're now accepting suggestions for their WYSIWYG category! 

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Green Sea Slug: Part Animal, Part Plant!

Image courtesy of Wired Science

As many hobbyists know, sea slugs of the genus Elysia ingest chloroplasts from algae they feed upon and store them in their bodies for additional energy.  However, a new sea slug, Elysia chlorotica has been discovered that makes its own chloroplasts, just like a plant or algae would, from genes that it takes from its food! 

NanoReefBlog Giveaway!

The NanoReefBlog is having a contest and giving away a bunch of loot!  Head on over there and sign up to win.  Stay tuned, because the Captive Aquatics blog is having it's own giveaway soon with some nice stuff (hint: at least one protein skimmer!) being given away.  Subscribe to receive free email updates or to our RSS feed so you don't miss out!

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Help Protect Leatherback Sea Turtles!

Leatherback sea turtles are the most endangered of the seven sea turtle species: 95% of the population has died in the last few decades.  The Monterrey Bay Aquarium and NOAA are asking us to help them pass legislation that would protect 70,000 square miles of "critical ocean and beach habitat" that these giants need to feed and reproduce.  To let your voice be heard, comment online via regulation.gov here, and of course, read more about these awesome reptiles at the Monterrey Bay Aquarium or get all the details and a map of the protected zone at the NOAA Leatherback Turtle webpage. 

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Nanocube 28 LED Hands-On

Unfortunately, JBJ's new 28 gallon LED-lit nanocube that was sent to me for review arrived with a broken back pane, but I snapped a few quick pics before I had to hand it back to UPS, and thought I'd share!  Full review to be posted when I get a replacement in one piece! 

Closeup of the LED lighting system

Updates soon...I Promise!

We've fallen behind on the blog, and we know it!  With the holidays, running the 'biz, and just myself and Merritt posting during this month, we haven't been giving our readers much love.  Incidentally, this means we have a literal pile (as tall as I am!) of aquarium products we've received but haven't yet reviewed.  Stay tuned for product reviews I promised already, in addition to heaters, LED lighting fixtures, wavemakers and more at the end of the month or the beginning of 2010.  In the meantime, have a happy and safe holiday season and new year!

Ecoxotic LED Aquarium Lights Now Shipping

An Ecoxotic rep emailed me a few days ago to inform me that their new Panorama series LED fixtures are now shipping as of yesterday!  Looks like we'll be getting a review unit, so stay tuned for a hands-on!

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The Nano Reef Blog is now Live!

I thought our blog here was a fairly spiffy bit of web coding, but the new Nano Reef Blog that just went live, from a web designers' perspective, is a beauty.  Launching with an impressive selection of features, I'm impressed so far - and I think we all know aquarium sites and publications don't impress me easily.  Maybe they'll let me write for them? 

I especially enjoyed the excellent interview with Anthony Calfo, and I'm taking the liberty of quoting my favorite part here:

Q: Will we ever see an Anthony Calfo Limited Edition coral? How so you feel about the whole ‘collectors’ aspect of this hobby – do you think it’s out of control? Did you see that a chalice coral frag recently sold on eBay for $2000!

A: I find the so-called limited edition, “rare” and designer corals horrifying. It is a staggering misrepresentation of what among collectible specimens from the reef is actually rare (few) and what is not (most). If you look at the model by which gouging sellers is doing business, it is almost always nefarious. Is a coral rare because a small importer can’t afford to buy 100 corals to get 20 select colors? But instead buys 5 or 10 pieces and statistically gets less of what they want? Is a coral rare because an aquarist frags a tiny parent colony monthly and can only get a few of pieces rather than act as a proper farmer and let the broodstock growout to a size that affords the monthly collection of dozens of frags (or better still… let the parent colony mature to a size at which it will planulate and yield thousands of new colonies per year). That’s not rare… that’s just bad business. Such sellers are ignorant at best and too often nefarious (ahem… a waiting list? Really?!?!). At the end of the day, however, it comes down to the (modified ;) ) P.T. Barnum wisdom, “A fool and his money… were lucky to ever get together in the first place.”

Without further ado, go check out Nano Reef Blog! 

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Reef Central Continues to...

...Fail, as Reefbuilders put it?  That's right: as if RC wasn't already a laughingstock amongst professionals and serious aquarists, the RC mods are at it again, this time removing thousands of posts created over half a decade by the Seachem staff.  Seeing as Seachem stopped paying RC's exorbitant ad rates (nearly $1000 per month + $1 per click!) RC has decided to remove years of knowledge from their forum section (likely the majority of the only real knowledge RC had to offer). 

Being a money-mongering forum is one thing (although they try to hide it, RC is a cash cow bringing in ~$10,000 per month - but don't mention this on their forum, it's a ban-able offense) but eradicating years of knowledge about some of the world's best aquarium products and water chemistry information that the Seachem staff kindly provided (about products that virtually every reefer uses) without archiving it, is inexcusable.

Do yourself a favor: don't visit Reef Central, and check out a legit source of aquatics information that universities and the like use: WetWebMedia.com.  You aren't missing out on anything at RC, I promise.

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