Reef Builders | The Reef Aquarium Blog

‘Seahorses and their Relatives’ by Rudie Kuiter is the new Seahorse Bible

Jake Adams — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:40:01 +0000

When veteran sealife author and photographer Rudie Kuiter puts together a book on a group of fish you can be quite assured that he will take the bar and raise up more than a few notches. The first aquarium-relevant book we ever saw from Kuiter was Seahorses, Pipefishes and their Relatives, a modest sized book that was released about nine years ago. Since that time Rudie has been busy with the shutter button because the new book appears to contain three times the amount of content and images than the previous book: 100 more pages, 1200 color images, all of the known seahorses species and subspecies and a large 8 x 11″ format which will fill your field of vision with all things Syngnathidae like no other book ever has. Amazon lists this book for $125 but if you are lucky enough to have Dirk’s travelling Reefer’s Store come to a ReefStock near you, you’ll be able to snag a copy for just $75.

Tunze Cleaning Set will help you maintain your equipment for maximum performance and longevity

Jake Adams — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:57:32 +0000

The Cleaning Set from Tunze is a much needed maintenance kit for making sure your pumps and other critical equipment are kept in peak working order. Product manufacturers can only make their devices so durable and in the harsh, corrosive and biofouling environment of reef aquaria even the best water pumps will fail without regular preventative maintenance. We stress the term preventative maintenance because it is not enough to clean water pumps, powerheads and protein skimmers when their performance is noticeably reduced or when they fail; all aquarium devices which are in contact with aquarium water should be cleaned on a regular basis so that your aquarium can enjoy greater performance from teh equipment and so your product investments can work for you for many years. The Tunze Cleaning Set includes a host of brushes, tools, some mild acid and an instructional video on how to properly service and maintain the products which keep our aquariums alive. The Tunze catalog lists the cleaning set as retailing for over $60 but that was a typo and the 220.700 cleaning set will be retailing for closer to $45 when it becomes available any day now.

ReefStock 2010 pictures part 3: a fisheye view

Jake Adams — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:07:59 +0000

Unless you were one of the few dozen captive bred fish brought to ReefStock, chances are you didn’t get to see the show from a fisheye lens. The tight crowds made it difficult to capture how densely packed the floor was with people. corals and exhibits but ReefStock photograper Adam Knudson of Devo Photography brought his trusty fisheye lens so we could all take in the view like a fish. Many more pictures after the break.

A view across the short end of the Nautilus ballroom which was only 50 feet long.

Many of the coral frag tanks were two people deep and several farmers sold all of their frags at the show.
The LED lighting demo served double duty as illumination for the raffle table, half of the prizes had already been awarded at this point.
The AcanLighting A102 was one of the few LEDs sporting a conventional aquarium light form factor.
The Dive Lounge and bar attached to the Nautilus ballroom made a nice place to retreat with a cocktail
Lots of captive raised and captive bred fish from Sustainable Aquatics
Chris Jung does the Supaman
I think we’ve made it clear how avant-garde the unibody LED+T5 light is

The Nautilus Ballroom where ReefStock was held was absolutely packed with people, it was very loud in there.
Jet-setting Tina from Wet Thumb frags was bagging up frags as fast as she could
Looking down only one side of the sprawling coral vending row
John Ciotti handling the Photon Canon (Unless you’re Mike in which case this is a Photon Canonne)
A view of the Seashine LIFI lighting up one of the ReefScape tanks before it was ’scaped.
Pat and Steve discuss how much they like European water pumps
This frag tank was one of the few using metal halides, a form of lighting which will probably become disallowed at future frag vending events

Transparency shrimp on HD Video

Ryan Gripp — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:59:12 +0000

Another video from Coralmorphlogic has been released as they guys there say: “Featured in the the video is a unidentified shrimp that lives commensally on Ricordea sp. corallimorph polyps. Unlike the other commensal anemone/corallimorph shrimp (Periclimenes pedersoni, P. yucatanicus) that are active fish cleaners, this shrimp moves considerably less. In fact it is nearly invisible. The transparency of this shrimp is such that if you look carefully in the middle of its abdomen, you’ll notice its beating heart. Even the fluorescent pink ring around the edge of the unidentified ricordea polyp’s mouth is visible through the shrimp’s tail.”

via [Coralmorphologic]

ReefStock 2010 pictures part 2: so many LEDs under one roof

Jake Adams — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:02:20 +0000

With over 30 aquarium LED products showed off by more than 15 companies at this year’s ReefStock, were going to go ahead a call it: The future is now and LED lighting has truly arrived to the aquarium world. Spotlights, Striplights, moonlights, twilights, power lights and all form of DIY lights used LEDs to light up the ReefStock conference at the Denver Downtown Aquarium last weekend. In addition to the predominantly LED-using coral frag vendors, the LED lighting demonstration featured lights from Japan, Hong Kong, England and especially the United States. Despite some nefarious restrictions there is no way to hold back the floodgates of aquarium LED lighting anymore and the pictures below demonstrate just how much is available now. Follow the break to see what the future of aquarium lighting will look like. Huge thanks to Adam Knudson of Devo Photography for working very hard to get us all these pictures.

CoraslSky’s LED demo light in the foreground with the 3 colors of Versa discs with their actinic striplight in the background

The Aquaray 1000 HD tile may be somewhat exotic in the states but of course it was present at the reefing world’s largest LED light show.
The thin A102 Acan light drew a lot of looks and comments for it’s sleek and attractive lighting fixture.
Volx Japan’s Ledio LED spotlights are some of the most popular in Japan and they were very kind to send along some of their finely crafted spotlights to show off in the ReefStock LED demo.
Volx Japan’s LEdio spotlights come in a wide range of colors including the mystery purple in the center and the all royal-blue 21 watter to the right.

The NanoCustoms booth was a good place to see LED lights in a range of form factors for the nano reefing crowd.

We put on ReefStock specifically so we could get our hands on exciting new products, like the unibody T5+LED hybrid light
The unibody hybrid LED + T5 light from NanoCustoms is truly in a league of it’s own in terms of power and color rendition.

The MR16 LED spotlights were shown off at ReefStock before anywhere else.
The diminutive MR16 LED spotlights will be a hot ticket when they become widely available to the reefing hobby.
The actively cooled picolight from NanoCustoms was quite a looker at this show. A closer look at the brightness within the CNC milled pico led light.
With 5-6 new LED lighting products to demonstrate the NanoCustoms crew really represented at the reef hobby’s most techno-centric aquarium conference.

Newcomer to the reef aquarium LED lighting scene BlueMoon also made an appearance at ReefStock with the slab of LED lights; only Harvey Fell could commandeer a booth which wasn’t on the floorplan the way he did.
Ecoxotic showed off their new all blue Panorama LED module which can also be retrofitted with light-focusing lenses.
Ecoxotic showed off an uber thin platform from which to attach LED stunners into adequate lighting for a near-pico reef.
The all-blue PAR38 LED light from NanoCustoms was seen at ReefStock; it will be a welcome addition to the 2:3 and 3:2 blue:white PAR38s that have made nanoCustoms a leader in reef aquarium LED spotlighting.
There may have been as many as a dozen AquaIllumination lights in use by coral frag slingers at ReefStock
The Naxandra lights from Underwater World were specifically designed for in-house use on the UWW aquaculture facility but Justin Credabel

The pendant-buddy LED strips from ReefBrite can add a lot of pop to coral colors even with lamps that have a great starting color rendition

Even the freaking EcoSmart VorTech controller was sporting a buncha LEDs.
CoralSky’s Ledil-equipped royal blue LED striplights
CoralSky demo light above, AquaIllumination center and Tropical Marine Center’s Aquaray bottom.

Checking out the undercarriage of the AcanLighting A102, the north american version of the EcoLamps KR92
Cherry Corals has been a long time user of AquaIllumination LED lights.
Rich Ross of the California Academy of Science feels up the housing of the Seashine LIFI fixture from Stray Light Optical
Automatic Moonlight from Ecoxotic
The 50 watt LED photon canon lights up a broad swath of the floor more than 3 feet away.
The ReefBrite LED striplights now can enjoy some company with the help of the 2,4 and 6 light brackets.

A closer look at one of several DIY LED lights at the ReefStock conference. Looks like this one was getting a little extra umph from an un-lensed CoralSky SL.
This unique light has built in fans and it uses small incandescent base spotlights that can easily be replaced or switched out to desired effect.
This ghetto-fabulous DIY LED job was hacked into an old current striplight.
A fish-eye view of the business end of the seashine LIFI

Justin takes some PAR readings from the bottom of the LIFI-lit solana tank
236 PAR through 3 feet of air is nothing to scoff at.

Gerald from Stray light Optical shows off how a single 250watt Seashine can be reflectorized to cast a rectangular shine over the 48″ x 18″ Solana XL 67 (that was so kindly donated to the ReefStock ReefScape competition by Current USA).
The same model of the Seashine LIFI light shining at a higher intensity on the right, and also sporting a much warmer color rendition.

Ecoxotic turned a solar collector into an ‘Automatic Moonlight’

Jake Adams — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:25:53 +0000

Just this past holiday we received a handmade solar collector as a gift from a friend. Imagine our surprise when Ecoxotic came to ReefStock showing off the exact same core device outfitted with blue LEDs for moonlighting a marine or reef aquarium. The automatic moonlight work by having a photovoltaic cell and photosensor on one side, the PV cell colelcts energy and the sensor tells the blue LEDs on the other side when to turn on. So now instead of having a separate timer for moonlighting or twilighting your reef aquarium with this device we’ll be able to jsut set it on the edge of the aquarium and walk away. Not sure if Ecoxotic is serious is serious about bringing this product to market or if it’s just a toy kicking around the R&D department but if they can hit a $20-ish pricepoint with the solar collector-turned-automatic moonlight they will sell a ton of them.

ReefStock 2010 pictures part 1: Setting up

Jake Adams — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:03:37 +0000

With 60-70 participants and about 400 attendees the third ReefStock was the best show yet. The crowd came early and it stayed late for the ReefScape competition, the talks and the raffle. While we were doing all we could to oil the gears of the show, we had the great fortune to get in touch with avid ReefBuilders reader Adam Knudson who volunteered for extreme photography duty. The images you will see over the next couple days are mostly his and we thank him from the bottom of our tropical saltwater heart for documenting every square inch of this show. Continue reading for the first onslaught of pictorial inundation.

Hard work vendors and exhibitors line up for their well deserved meal of gruel.
ReefNutrition has long been a leader in trade show booth presentation.
We had well over a dozen coral frag slingers with several thousand frags and small colonies to pick from.

John and Jake speak with Scott about a new environmental controller.
Dr. Paul feels up some of the new Marco Geode rock.
The ReefStock shwag bag was bursting at the seams with literature, catalogs and free samples.
Ocean’s Paradise brought many nice captive raised specimens of clownfish, anemones and cardinalfish.

Thomas and Stephane from AquaMedic go over the game plan with Shaun about the AquaMedic strategy for the show.
Guin shows off a double Fancy Ocellaris that was hand picked to her specifications.
Marc and Scott talk to John about the thirsty Ecoxotic booth display tank.
Reefkoi gets subjected to a little tomfoolery during the evening of setup.
The coral frag slingers eye up the competition, perhaps making some ‘first minute’ deals before the doors swing open.

Wes looks over his frag booth lit up by a DIY LED light.
There were many fine clownfish donated to the livestock raffle including a wyoming white and two onyx clowns from Ocean Gallery II and a pair of semi’cassos and semi’flakes from ORA.
We can always count on Dirk to bring out a ton of great books, we hear he sold quite a few at this show.
Midwest Saltwater came all the way to Denver to represent their full range of reef aquarium ceramic shelves, ledges and frag stations.
Perfect Australian scolymias lined up like trophies in the aquarium of Mile High Aquatics.
Joy from ReefBrite Prepares to demonstrate their full line of LED, halide and T5 lighting products.

We almost had to charge Dirk extra for all the vertical space he was using.
Elite Reef showed off their affordable line of cone shaped protein skimmers.
Seachem displayed their extensive and mature full line of aquairum products, including the new 2-part solution called Reef Fusion.
Piscine Energetics erected this fine booth what seems like minutes before opening the doors
Sustainable Aquatcs brought many nice captive raised and captive bred fish

Someone had to take a nap in the middle of the afternoon.

CORAL Magazine March/April digital print edition released

Ryan Gripp — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:34:43 +0000

We recently received our print edition of CORAL magazine but the digital edition has just been released. The articles center around Smart Reefs, which was done up by Reef Builders own Jake Adams. You’ll learn about energy-saving products and tactics along with green reef aquariums with using the least amount of energy for the best possible reef tank. This includes LEDs, T5 and efficient pumps and water movers like Tunze and Vortech. Also in this issue is “Feeding Anemones”, Controlling pH, and an inside look at fish from a vertebrate perspective. So go ahead and hit that read link below to check out the latest issue.

[via CORAL]

AquaMedic new rounded/oval aquariums to hit Interzoo

Ryan Gripp — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:44:38 +0000

AquaMedic in Germany has a bevy of new products, some we’ve covered already. One such product is actually quite large and odds are it won’t come to the US market. However our friends in the UK and the rest of the world will be able to enjoy it. The new AquaMedic round-circle aquarium will be available in two sizes 100cm and 120cm in diameter. The frame is made out of VA-Steel and the “high quality” cabinet will have detachable acrylic plates, with retail pricing expected to come in around 2500 euro.

Reef Angel programmable controller for that DIY fix in you

Brian Blank — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:10:22 +0000

The Reef Angel, a new programmable controller, is coming to market and looks to be a great way to get a fully customizable controller at a lower cost relying more on DIY programming and some assembly rather than the turnkey products on the market today. While this may not be the best product suited for the typical reefer, those of us looking to sacrifice some time and energy for overall costs may appreciate this controller kit.

According to the company’s website, “Reef Angel is the first controller kit to offer the reefing hobbyist full control of hardware and software to accommodate all their reefing needs. At your fingertips is the ability to create the most sophisticated controller you will ever need. With a very simple to use interface and easy to learn programming language, Reef Angel will give you endless possibilities.”

The introductory price is $180 for the complete kit, which will give you the main controller, a relay box and communication cable along with a pH probe, three fully assembled waterproof temperature sensors, two float valves, power cord and serial converter cable. Additional options include a pulse width modulation (PWM) booster for Meanwell LED drivers, 1000 mA LED drivers, plus additional float switches, pH and temperature probes.

Based on the open source Arduino code, the Reef Angel will require some programming language skills that should be relatively easy to learn. The site does include some pre-formatted codes and with a robust open source community around Arduino, picking up the nuances shouldn’t be too hard. If the company can get some vocal early adopters on board, I’m sure new codes will begin to pop up on the company’s forum boards.

Below are some some more details on the components:

Main Board

ATMega328P – microcontroller
2x 24LC256 – Serial I2C EEprom memory, one with jumper to block write access.
pH circuit
128×128 color LCD screen
DS3231 – Real time clock with battery backup
Power LED
Status LED, mainly used for alert and diagnostics.
Thumb analog joystick
1x 8 Port I2C expander with inverter gate
1x 8 Port I2C expander with inverter gate circuit only (option to solder direct to circuit board)
Routed enclosure, mounting screws and assembly instructions

Relay Box

Assembled PCB board
8x miniature relays
Relay driver circuit
Override and status LEDs circuit (the circuit is built in the board, but no switches or LEDs are going to be provided)
PWM booster circuit for Meanwell drivers (Additional $15)
1000mA capable LED driver (Additional $25)
2x Plugable terminal connectors for LED cable if any of the 2 above choices are opted in.
8x Outlet sockets
Inlet socket with built-in fuse compartment
Connection wires
Routed enclosure, mounting screws and assembly instructions

Reef Builders | The Reef Aquarium Blog

‘Seahorses and their Relatives’ by Rudie Kuiter is the new Seahorse Bible

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ReefStock 2010 pictures part 3: a fisheye view

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ReefStock 2010 pictures part 1: Setting up

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