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Salty Confessions: Procrastination Never Pays in Reefkeeping!

by | Feb 5, 2017 | Reef, Science

Ignoring a protein skimmer in need of maintenance could make you pay later! Regular SWS readers know that CC and I always emphasize the importance of staying on top of routine maintenance chores so small problems don’t develop into big ones. Great advice for a hobby in which only bad things happen quickly, right? Unfortunately, my recent failure to follow my own “sage” advice nearly led to disaster. Allow me to set the stage: Over the holidays, my wife, Melissa, and I had to ready our house for a large family get-together. Because we’re generally messy and disorganized people who like to procrastinate, that meant major cleaning and decluttering in the last few days prior to the gathering. On the first day of our cleaning odyssey, I was vacuuming around my reef system (situated in the living room) and noticed that the protein skimmer was in need of a tear-down and cleaning. Specifically, the volume of water discharging from the skimmer was greater than usual and the water level in the reaction chamber was higher than normal—both tell-tale signs that the air-intake was getting clogged.

Paul B’s Unique Perspective on Keeping Mandarins

by | Feb 4, 2017 | Feeding, Fish, Opinion, Reef

Mandarin dragonet (Synchiropus splendidus) Hobby pioneer Paul “Paul B” Baldassano is not your grandfather’s reefkeeper (though he is old enough to be your grandfather!). Nor is his book, The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist: A 60-Year History of Fishkeeping, anything like your grandfather’s hobby literature. In fact, Paul B’s perspective on just about any aspect of the marine aquarium hobby is quite distinct from anyone else’s. For proof that Paul has a decidedly different thought process, look no further than the following passage about mandarins and other dragonets from Chapter 7 of his book (which, by the way, would make a wonderful stocking stuffer for that slightly off-kilter hobbyist in your life):Mandarins and Other Dragonets Mandarinfish and all the other dragonets have the same problem—a tiny mouth and almost no stomach. Mandarins were designed to eat amphipods and copepods, or “pods” as we call them, but a mandarin will eat anything small that moves. I know many people try to “train” such a fish to eat pellets, potato chips, or frozen food, but dragonets hate you when you do that because all you are doing is slowly killing them. Because of their weird digestive tract, which is something like that of a seahorse, they don’t have the ability to store food—kind of like when people get that surgery where they put a band around the stomach so they can’t eat as much

Ogcocephalidae, the Batfish

by | Feb 2, 2017 | Fish, Reef, Science

Good morning friends, I have a wild looking deep-sea creature for you al today called a Batfish, for sure one of the oddest animals on the planet! This was again found deep off the coast of Bonaire by the scientists from the Smithsonian Institution in collaboration with Substation Curacao who have the mini-submersible that dives to 1000 feet.  Batfish consist of about 60 species of fishes of the family Ogcocephalidae (order Lophiiformes), found in warm and temperate seas. Batfishes have broad, flat heads and slim bodies and are covered with hard lumps and spines. Some species have an elongated, upturned snout.

Stream Live Video Underwater with the New IceCap REEF-Cam!

by | Feb 1, 2017 | Equipment, Reef, Video

Yes, you read that right. The IceCap REEF-Cam is supposedly the first underwater video camera capable of streaming a live feed from inside a fish tank. Now how about that! This waterproof camera has a wide angle lens, providing a 120 degree field of view, and can be mounted both inside or outside of the aquarium. So how does it work? Well, all you have to do is download a free iOS or Android app to your mobile device and connect to your home network via Wifi or a direct ethernet connection to begin streaming. This tiny camera (1″ x 1″ x 3/4″) is capable of live streaming in HD (720p) and can be pivoted in multiple directions. You can also capture and store video