Captive Aquatics: An Aquarium and Ecology Blog

Phytoplankton - What Your LFS Isn't Telling You

Ah, the green stuff. The miracle cure, the lifeblood of a reeftank, the savior of fan worms and clams of all ages... Or maybe not so much.  Could it be that phytoplankton actually does more harm than good in a reef aquarium?

In the ocean there is a lot of phytoplankton and it's crucial to the ecosystem. In the ocean. In your tank, however, phytoplankton dies and fouls up your water quality. I mean let's think about it, you're pouring live green stuff into your tank where chances are that only a miniscule part of it will be used for food. In fact, it is arguable if any realistic part of it will be used for food by your tank's inhabitants.

 

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!

Tank Raised Pinnatus Batfish Sighted!

  

A surprsing and welcome new addition into the hobby today are tank raised Pinnatus Batfish.  Like mandarins, they are another of the beautiful species known to have low survival rates, and these tank raised fish will allow knowledged hobbyists to add a beautiful new tankmate.  On an important note however, these new captive raised arrivals are only 3" tall, it's important to keep them in a system that can adequately handle their adult height of 18".

Ozone Use in Aquariums: 5 Reasons to Use Ozone

For some reason, ozonizers and ozone usage has never been as discussed or as widely used as other equipment in the home aquarium, and most definitely not because it doesn't yield great benefit to your aquarium.  Widely used in commercial aquatics applications, ozone doesn't get much love from hobbyists these days, and it should.  Perhaps it's not as easy to 'itemize' and sell as other aquarium products?  Maybe due to lack of information? 

Whatever the reason, Ozone use has many benefits, and I recommend its use in most aquariums.   Captive Aquatics uses ozonizers in every system we install, and I use ozone in my home aquariums, as well!  Here's why:

Marine Fish Survival: Discussing Coral Magazine's Poll

I occasionally write content and polls for Coral Magazine's web portal, and couldn't help but notice the results of a poll the magazine took of the survival rates of fish in the care of it's readers.  One can see instantly from the responses that the sample size is atypical of our hobby, as are the results.  Additionally, assuming the results are accurate protrayals of reader's success rates (and they probably are, more or less) one can see how successful aquarists can easily forget, or not even know about the very high mortality rates that are the norm in our hobby.

 

Starry Puffer in HD Video

A species not often seen in captivity, the starry puffer (Arothron stellatus) simply grows too large for most aquariums.  As Merritt and I are big puffer fans, we have an entire room for large systems for the three largest puffer species (A. stellatus, A. mappa, and T. mbu).  Here is a video of our A. stellatus, dedicated to all you puffer fans!  Want to know more?  Check out our guide to caring for saltwater puffers here.

For more information on puffers, see our care guide to large marine pufferfish!

Sustainable Aquatics Now Offering Tank Raised Angelfish

As their Sustainable Islands project progresses, our favorite aquaculture company continues to offer more and more tank-raised species available to hobbyists.  This week Sustainable Aquatics announced limited availability of tank-raised Queen Angelfish and Blue Angelfish (Holacanthus ciliaris and Holacanthus isabelita, respectively).  Both species are available at 2-3" in size at very respectable prices to dealers. 

A Brief Look at Minimalist Aquascapes - No more box of rocks!

 
I have been a bad reefer: when I received free liverock I took advantage of it.  I took advantage of it to the point where my tank is literally stuffed to the brim with live rock!  At first, I was happy with it.  But once I realized that cleaning it was a burden, I was instantly regretfull.  This made me do a little research on a term I had heard before "minimalist".

Is this really a ‘Dark Hobby’?

Editor's Note: this post introduces Dr. Neale Monks, who should be no stranger to anyone in our community with his many excellent aquatics book and magazine publications!

I have read with interest Robert Wintner's piece on the possible overfishing of reef fish by the aquarium industry as well as Bob Fenner's response  on the Coral Magazine web site. Although both gentlemen make valid points, both have oversimplified the situation in terms of biology, and in doing so, some of the shades of grey between their positions may be lost.

Palythoa Eating Amphipods?!

The photo above is a picture of my absolute favorite palythoas. Exactly one week after the photo was taken, my frag started showing extreme signs of stress. Each of the polyps were closed…actually, would closed and open. You could see the tentacles and mouth being choked off by the stalk of each head. I immediately started checking for any zoa pests. Nudibranch? None. Heliacus snail? Nope. Zoa pox? Negative. I've fought zoa pox in the past and it definitely looked completely different, so what was this new affliction?