tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-1846807 2013-04-24T23:37:41-05:00 A freshwater, saltwater, reef aquarium and aquatic ecology blog with beginner and advanced articles, led reef aquarium lighting info, aquarium product reviews, and more! TypePad tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017d42b5e6cc970c 2013-04-24T23:37:41-05:00 2013-04-27T09:27:40-05:00

As many hobbyists have noticed, invertebrates are making a comeback in the hobby. Many hobbyists are keeping invertebrate tanks only due to their interesting characteristics and funny behavior. The popular invertebrate on the scene are the cherry shrimps, Neocaridina heteropoda. These fun little shrimps are creating a storm around the globe along with other color morphs. This is a simple guide to highlight the care and requirements of these intriguing shrimp and to give key points on how to breed them. (photo from: http://www.smartblue.net/akvateam/card_images) First, cherry shrimp are originally from Taiwan and have been selectively bred to obtain the red color we commonly see in stores. The adult size of a cherry shrimp is 1.6 in (4 cm) making it great for smaller aquariums. The cherry shrimp requires water with a pH of 6.5 - 8 and a large temperature range of 57–86°F (14–30°C). The other requirement is "clean water", in other words, do regular water changes, do not over feed and keep the filter media clean. The aquarium system for these little guys would be differen t depending on you final goal. If you want them to survive, but not breed, a system with a filter would be fine....

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017ee92852c2970d 2013-03-10T18:09:07-06:00 2013-03-10T18:31:54-06:00

Here's a nano reef we have set up stocked with species found on the fringes of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Coral, tunicates, a peacock mantis and more can be seen! Being able to use natural seawater makes a huge difference in the survival and growth of all sorts of neat invertebrates covering the rock:

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017d41325554970c 2013-02-21T07:51:58-06:00 2013-02-21T08:02:21-06:00

Being a researcher and living near the Great Barrier Reef has it's perks! We took a day trip to a small nearby island and snapped a few photos with a point-and-shoot (they're not as good as Haille's excellent photos from Florida, but oh well!). There was a surprising amount of life only a few dozen meters offshore (or even closer, the first picture shows zooanthids growing on a boulder adjacent to shore!), and we thought we'd share: Diving or even snorkeling on a reef can't be described, it must be experienced. If you've never done it, you need to - it never gets old! Related articles Video of an LED-lit Estuary Biotope Nano Aquarium

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017ee6b547dd970d 2012-12-28T01:50:42-06:00 2012-12-28T01:54:18-06:00

Here's a video featuring a biotope we've set up featuring only species we collected by hand from a local estuary, some endemic to the area (click the video to view in HD). We've also seen juvenile reef species such as the achilles tang and racoon butterflyfish, protected by turbidity and mangrove roots. The biotope features a mud bottom with planted with a few mangroves of various species. The system receives weekly water changes with raw natural seawater, and is fed with the results of plankton tows. While not very large (35 liters, ~7 gallons), it sure is fascinating. The tunicate colonies are especially neat, and have many small tunicates, sponges, and tubeworms encrusting over a single large tunicate! Estuary environments are very important both as a 'nursery' for juvenile fish, but also as a natural 'filter' for runoff received from dry land. The importance of these ecosystems cannot be overstated! Species list: - 3x juvenile Tetractenos spp. (likely hamiltoni) pufferfish - 1x anglerfish of unknown species - various crabs, sponges, tunicates, tubeworms, and snails - various macro algae and mangrove species The system is lit with natural sunlight assisted by an LED fixture (the fixture is not currently available stateside...

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017744c79770970d 2012-09-16T20:39:46-05:00 2012-09-17T08:25:17-05:00

This guest post by My Reef to Yours Coral Frags will teach you all about fragging branching SPS coral! Fragging live SPS is easy and is a great way to share coral frags with your friends. This article will cover most branching SPS such as Acroporas, Birdsnest, and others. If it has branches, we can frag it safely. Tools needed: Latex Gloves Wire Cutters or Bone Cutters Superglue Gel Frag Disks or Rubble Rock You want to wear gloves during this process to protect the coral and to protect you. Take a bowl a fill it with tank water. We can then place our mother colony in the bowl for safe keeping. Examine the colony and determine what branches you want to take your frags from. Simply take your cutters and cut the branches you want to frag at the base of your colony. You are fine to remove the mother colony from the water during this process, you just don’t want the coral to become dry. Once you have finished your trimming you can place your colony back into your tank and place the fragged pieces into your bowl with the tank water. Next we will want to attach...

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017c31b83778970b 2012-09-07T20:07:19-05:00 2012-09-09T01:17:36-05:00

Well, this is my first post as me, although you've probably seen my pictures posted here. My name is Hallie Carter and I'm an environmental ecologist, photographer and dive master currently living in FL! I hope to provide interesting pictures of marine life to compliment those posted by my friends who are living in the southern hemisphere! I had a a great bridge dive today off the coast of Singer Island, FL! The visibility wasn’t great at first, but once we hit slack tide it improved immensely. We checked out the new artificial reef which was very popular to a lot of schooling fish. We also found a juvenile jack-knife fish, batfish, and even an orange seahorse. Notice the difference in biodiversity compared to the previously posted great barrier reef photos where Mike and Merritt are. No two reefs are the same...anyway, on to the pictures!

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c01774484a227970d 2012-09-04T19:39:41-05:00 2012-09-09T01:18:32-05:00

Our friend Haille is a dive master and environmental ecologist currently working off the Florida coast. She also happens to snap spectacular photographs that we shamelessly share here! The hawksbill sea turtle is a beautiful and smaller species of sea turtle that's unfortunately been hunted for ornamental purposes in the past.

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c0177447bd30c970d 2012-09-02T23:30:22-05:00 2012-09-09T01:20:12-05:00

In between research we decided to take a vacation to Cairns and got a lot of photos. We stayed on a semi-private beach where a mangrove estuary met the ocean. Tidepools were everywhere with a variety of gastropod and barnacle species as well as trapped blennies, gobies, and damsels. Rock anemones and crabs were abundant as well! Cairns is very close to the great barrier reef (see photo taken from the air above) and close to some of the several island research stations I visit for collecting trips. More photos: In additon to it's abundance of aquatic life, Cairns is tropical and features hundreds of miles of tropical rainforest, much of it on the mountain ranges that are up to 3000m tall!

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017c317ba800970b 2012-08-26T11:43:26-05:00 2012-08-26T11:43:26-05:00

I'm working on a study that is attempting to locate apex predator breeding areas so that the areas can be marked for conservation. The process includes capturing, measuring, tagging, and releasing various shark species, but today it included the odd looking shovelnose ray! Remember, humans could not and would not exist without sharks - sharks are an integral part of the ocean's food web, and all life on land requires the ocean food web to function!

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017617105ae7970c 2012-08-06T20:36:17-05:00 2012-08-06T20:37:00-05:00

I'm performing research on various outposts scattered throught Australia's Great Barrier Reef. Here are some photos taken from the southernmost tip of the reef showing sea turtles and baby (12m long!) whale sharks. Some pictures feature the bleaching which is what we all hope to get to the bottom of. Many more pictures and many other locations will be added as time permits, as will the results of our findings, although that could be months or years ;). Enjoy!

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c017616b58d17970c 2012-07-25T17:34:34-05:00 2012-07-25T17:37:19-05:00

Loggerhead hatchlings heading to the coast in the early morning hours (Thanks Haille!)! Enjoy :)

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c01676898a14a970b 2012-07-18T16:44:49-05:00 2012-09-10T01:22:22-05:00

Pet owners love to talk about how their beloved animals have personalities. Cats are often “haughty” or “affectionate,” while dogs can so often be “calm” or “fun-loving.” These aren’t just variations in breeds, they also reflect difference in the personalities of individual species. Even the most avid fish lovers will have to admit that fish generally aren’t the brightest species on the planet, so many of us don’t expect our fish to have wildly varying personalities. [Editor's note: the following is a guest post by Dabney B. from Okeanos Group] Well, surprisingly, that misconception is completely false. Fish have been scientifically proven to have very distinct personalities. Researchers led by Lynne Sheldon at the University of Liverpool have observed fish and discovered unique differences among individual fish behavior and preferences. The researchers took bold and shy fish and paired them together in fights. They would occasionally stack the fights in one combatant’s favor by pairing a particularly large fish with a much smaller fish. It may not have been the most humane experiment ever conducted, but it produced some fairly interesting results. Fish that won their fights generally became bolder, while fish that lost fights typically became more cautious. One...

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c0168ec1bcab3970c 2012-06-05T18:18:41-05:00 2012-09-10T01:22:55-05:00

Aqua Illumination's Vega + Powerpuck customization shows the most promise for LED fixtures that we've seen in, well, at least a year if not two, and possibly ever. The fact that they're offering multiple diodes, a drag-n-drop configuation (with a spectrograph!) makes this fixture possibly the only fixture we'd spend money on. Interchangeable, customizable LEDs? Yes please! Kudos to AI for what is sure to be a stellar LED light. We can't wait for the release! From AI's website: "Continuing the industry-shaping trend started five years ago with the release of our original AquaIllumination LED Module, we are pleased to announce the AI Vega- controlled by our adaptive AI Power Puck, the pinnacle of our engineering efforts. The AI Power Puck provides nearly limitless color combinations, allowing custom configuration of each individual Power Pucks as desired. As you customize and change the location of your Power Puck, its adaptive capabilities intelligently tells our proprietary control system the location and type of each LED. This allows each color to have independent control regardless of quantity or position within a module. The AI Vega will begin shipping this summer in our traditional silver/white as well as the popular black housing color combination....

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c0168ec1b8487970c 2012-06-05T17:01:55-05:00 2012-06-05T17:01:55-05:00

Our friend Haille Carter took this photograph while working for Purda Vida Divers & Surf. Too cool!

Captive Aquatics tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a010535f11c3d970c0167668c2649970b 2012-05-16T18:09:41-05:00 2012-05-16T18:09:41-05:00

Near-shore mangrove habitats are being destroyed all over the world to the detriment of all, especially local fishermen

Captive Aquatics