Captive Aquatics: An Aquarium and Ecology Blog

Photo of the Week 6/22

Living Legend:  A large brain coral residing in the Belize barrier reef, likely for centuries.

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Your First Nature Aquarium [Part III]

This is the conclusion to the three part nature aquarium series.  If you haven't read Your Fish Nature Aquarium [Part I] and for the second part click here.  Now for the conclusion to Your First Nature Aquarium!

The CO2 system I used was the Hydor CO2 Green NRG Exclusive (thanks to Hydor USA for their generous sponsorship!) which was perfect for my setup.  The kit includes a CO2 tank, diffuser, tubing, bubble counter and easy to follow instructions.  I can easily change the number of bubbles per minute or increase them without hassle.  I was able to have everything installed and working in 30 minutes!  After the CO2 was set up, I quickly planted my plants and added water.  The following is a list of the plants used in this tank: 

Product Review: AquaPlus Water Conditioner

I've never been a big fan of slime coat replacement water conditions - they generally don't have that much of an effect, and they make your protein skimmer go nuts with foam production.  I'm even less of a fan of additives that aren't made by Seachem.  However, Hagen/Nutrafin's Aqua Plus is awesome.

Photo of the Week 6/15

 

Gotcha! Marine Biologist Darrin Dukes displays his latest catch: a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle.  Darrin is participating in the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, tagging and monitoring sea turtles in the Gulf of Mexico.  Learn more about this fascinating and important project at www.seaturtles.org.

 

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Mike Maddox to be featured on Blue Zoo Radio!

Captive Aquatic's Blog own Mike Maddox will be featured on Blue Zoo Radio, the aquarium hobby's one and only weekly radio show.  Blue Zoo Radio features weekly aquatic experts as guest speakers, and offers an archive of their interview sessions.  Tune in this Monday at 8:45pm EST (7:45 central) to listen to Mike's expert opinion!

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"Saving" Fish: Don't Do it

Ever since I started in the hobby, I have been "saving" fish or invertebrates.  When I "saved" a fish, I would purchase a fish that was in poor health (clearly going to die at the store) and nurse it back to health at my home.  This may seem heroic, but it is not.  In reality the act of saving a fish hurts more than it helps.

 

Adopt a CritterCam Critter!

National Geographic is now offering the ability to adopt a CritterCam animal!  For those who don't know, the CritterCam is an awesome invention that literally straps a video camera to an animal, often a sea animal, to record previously unknown information about its daily life.  Read about the CritterCam here!

© Captive Marine Aquatics / CA Blog / Sponsor Info

Photo of the Week 6/09

Man vs Wild: marine biologist and Captive Aquatics blog contributing author Cara Valinoti observing bottlenose dolphins at an under-construction marine mammal behavior facility while on a research trip in Central America. 

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Review: Tropical Fish Hobbyist Digital

 I've had the pleasure of having a digital subscription to TFH for the last two months, and I must say: I've been enjoying it.  I'll be the first to admit I'm not the magazine 'type', for lack of a better expression.   To give you an idea about my reluctance to subscribe to print magazines, I've written for several, and purposely subscribed to none!  However, I've been an avid reader of Advanced Aquarist (a superb online saltwater aquarium magazine) since its inception, but any magazine in print is out of site, out of mind!  However, when TFH was offering $1 digital subscriptions on Earth Day, I thought "what the heck, if it's online, I'll read it" - and I have.

Tip: Vitamin Supplements

 Proper nutrition is very important for the long term health of all fish.  In my case, I am particularly concerned about the long term health of my Map Puffer, one of my prized marine carnivores.  I feed my puffer and other carnivores a wide variety of frozen seafood from the grocery store, frozen formula diets, and occasionally freeze-dried foods.  Although freeze-dried foods should never account for more than about 25% of a carnivore's diet, they are excellent ways to deliver vitamins (and medications) to your fish!