Captive Aquatics: An Aquarium and Ecology Blog

Avast Marine Top-Down Porthole Review

 

Avast Marine gracefully sent us their new Top-Down Porthole for review. It was designed along with the expertise of Tony Vargas, a reef aquarium expert. The Porthole attaches directly to the lenses of DSLR cameras via three thumbscrews. It even fits some point and shoots.

A Trip To The Dallas World Aquarium

I had a recent free day and decided to take the oppurtunity to catch some photographs at the Dallas World Aquarium. Although there were issues like bleaching and pests (aiptasia and red flatworms), DWA has some really amazing corals and fishes. The acan lord in the picture below was over a foot in length! Many of their aquariums also used LEDs for supplementation. Here are some of the pictures that I was able to capture. Enjoy.

Pacific Coast Imports Gen-X Pumps: Settle For Less

 
 
This is a bit of a longer article so please bear with me.  First and foremost, if you have submersible Gen-x pumps IMMEDIATELY inspect the back of the pump for rust. There is a plastic cover on the back that is easily removable.  This article was written about two years ago, but I went to a local dry goods wholesaler last month and the pumps still had exposed metal so if you've got one of these in your tank chances are you've got a rustbucket.  The sad fact is that this company has been knowingly manufacturing this substandard and quite likely dangerous product for more than 5 years!

When Corals Collide: Our Hobby is Still Full of Surprises!

On rare occasion in his hobby a few things pop up that make you scratch your head and drop your jaw, and as fortune would have it last week Monday one of those days.  While unpacking some corals from Indonesia this colony of Australomussa rowleyensis popped out, and I still have no clue how this happened in nature.

The New England Aquarium Explores Fiji

Known to aquarists for their ongoing work in coral flourescence and the Fiji clownfish, the New England Aquarium 'global explorers' team is back at it, researching the remote Fiji reef of Vatu-i-Ra. 

Who Says LEDs Can't Grow SPS Coral?

LED aquarium lighting is an emerging technology in our hobby, but success is already being had.  Take a look at these pictures of SPS coral (and others) after two months under the Orphek PR-156 I've been testing!

Chalices - Fad or Fiction? 18 Colonies of Eye Candy!

 

'Name brand' chalices with high end prices are everywhere these days, and the formula has stayed simple: bright eyes on a different colored base, preferably with an alternate colored rim.  Chalices can be some of the most colorful corals and we're eating them up hook, line and sinker, but are they really unique and rare gems from the ocean or is it all smoke and mirrors (like the high prices are)?

So without further ado, here are some pictures of a small selection of chalices that I've seen come and go just within the last two months.  All of these colonies went to physical LFS locations across the country where they were sold as full colonies for fair prices, somewhere between $3-10 per eye, so don't forget to support your local LFS if they're a good one!

NOAA's Virgin Islands Queen Conch Research

My naturalist friend Lauren just got back from performing research on queen conchs in St. Coix, the US Virgin Islands for NOAA, and sent over some pics for me to post!  The conchs are being radio tagged and their migration patterns are being tracked.  The queen conch's numbers are on the decline due to overharvesting for their meat and shells.  Check out the rest of the pics (and captions) below!

 

Japan's Unusual Fish Market Ice Aquarium

Editor's Note:  this post introduces John Douglas, a reef aquarist from Alberta who will be posting aquarium and biological news and info from around the web!

The Japanese are always doing things that seem unusual to us Americans, and their frozen "aquarium" is no exception: opened in 2002 near a fish market, this aquarium features over 400 fish and inverts frozen into "aquariums" made of solid ice. Check out the rest of the unusual pictures!

Is Your Local Fish Store a Hidden Gold Mine?

One of the perks of working as a rep at a good, coral based wholesaler is getting to see the huge variety of crazy corals that end up making their way into the hobby.  On the other hand, one of the most unbelievably frustrating things about working with wholesale corals is seeing them get marked up 10,000% by unscrupulous hobbyist vendors.  A lot of people think these hobbyists have great hidden connections, or that they pay huge amounts for them from online vendors, and for the most part these hobbyists are only too happy to let these myths go on.