by Reef To Rainforest | Apr 11, 2013 | Corals, Fish, Photography, Tanks
Here is a 250-gallon (950-L) reef aquarium owned by Greg Heifner in Colombia, Missouri. The system operates with a 150-gallon algal turf scrubber located below in the basement. Note the profusion of red mushroom anemones on the right-hand-side of the aquascape. From his YouTube posting: 250 gallon reef lit with 560 1-watt LEDs. Algae turf scrubbing system.The tank was lit for years with 900 watts of MH and 80 watts of Actinic florescent. My refrigeration (chiller) unit hardly ever comes on anymore with the cooler LEDs.Half are 12,000K white ones and the others are about 450nm blue.I like these LEDs enough that I am now importing them for other reefkeepers in my community.
by AquaNerd | Apr 10, 2013 | Corals, Eye Candy, Photography, Science
embedded content This video may have already been making the rounds for the past couple of months, but it’s certainly worth mentioning here considering its focus. Put together by the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, the clip features up close footage of a popular aquarium specimen, the Pocillopora damincornis coral. As the video progresses, we get to dive deeper into the coral’s tissues, starting on the surface with some amazing fluorescing coral tissue and moving into individual polyps for a look at their internal structures and symbionts. Wrapping up the up close look at Pocillopora, we actually get a great view of its messentarial tissue expelling symbiont algae and even live coral larvae moving about on their hunt for an appropriate settlement area. Following the Pocillopora, the video gives us a microscopic look at other coral species, including Leptastrea, a couple Porites species, and Fungia. And no coral video would be complete without touching on the danger they face in the wild, most notably bleaching. The video avoids mentioning the often politically divisive topics like global warming and ocean acidification, instead keeping the message much simpler by stating that we need to have a better understanding of corals and their endosymbiotes, and how those two react/interact with their environment. Truly, this is one of the coolest videos we have every seen or posted here on the AquaNerd Blog, and it’s a great science lesson for coral keepers.
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by AquaNerd | Apr 9, 2013 | Aquaculture, Corals, Equipment, Opinion
Recently, our mailbox greeted us with a pleasant surprise in the form of a new book, the 2nd edition of Practical Coral Farming by Miguel Tolosa. Admittedly, we haven’t read the book from cover to cover since we’ve only had it a couple of days, hence the reason why this is just a preliminary review, but in our limited hands on time, we’ve enjoyed both the flow of the text and the information it contains. As expected, the 141-page soft cover book is loaded down with info about corals and fragging techniques, but to our surprise it also has plenty of insider information that sort of lays out how many of the gears move within the industry. As with just about any coral centric book, Practical Coral Farming was full of images, most of which were taken by the author, which isn’t always the case in books these days. There were images from others in the aquarium trade, including several from Marc Levenson that focused on coral pests. But what we were blown away by was the quality of those images. There were plenty of times where we just stopped to look at the pictures, often bypassing much of the text as we excitedly flipped the pages. Text intentionally blurred All that said, there were plenty of areas that could have used more photographs. The chapters dealing with fragging tools and equipment were pretty bare as far as pictures go, but here’s why we that didn’t bother us. This is a book aimed at people wanting to become coral farmers, not your average hobbyist looking for ways to get rid of ich or hair algae. Practical Coral Farming is for the advanced hobbyist and aquarium industry professional, someone who already knows what a coral cutting bandsaw looks like, for example. So, if cutting out a few borderline pointless images saves on the lengthiness of the book, we’re all for it. As for the flow of the text, we got this feeling that the entire book was like one big forum posting, and not at all in a bad way. You know those times when you’re sitting at the computer and you get all wrapped up reading a really interesting and informative thread on your favorite aquarium forum? You start reading and before you know it, you’ve spent two hours at the computer ignoring the rest of the world. Well, that’s how Practical Coral Farming reads, at least in our opinion. We had to force ourselves to put the book down at certain times because we would have probably not stopped. The other thing about this book that bodes well for our readership is its size. The book is small and thin, with large text that’s neatly categorized and broken up by pictures. As most of use seem to be these days, we are just too busy to sit down and read a 300-pager with tiny text and boring science photographs. The book isn’t much larger than my phone, pictured immediately above, which also makes transporting much easier. Just shove it in your back pocket and go. Practical Coral Farming, 2nd Ed. by Miguel Tolosa has a retail price of $19.99 and will eventually be listed on the Practical Coral Farming website. Please note that the website currently has the first edition of the book still for sale. And as an added bonus, $2 from every book sale is donated to Savenature.org.
by Josh Saul | Apr 8, 2013 | Corals, Funny, Photography
This unusual frag showed up over at Cherry Corals and it looks like a hybrid cross of a pinstripe chalice and galaxea. Obviously not the later, but still it has us wondering, what the hell is this...
by Reef To Rainforest | Apr 8, 2013 | Conservation, Corals, Fish, Industry, Opinion
06 Apr, 2013 Seeing red yet? Trade in maricultured and aquacultured corals may (or may not) have a chance. (ORA Red Goniopora / image Matt Pedersen) 11:59 PM EST April 5th, 2013 has passed and Regulations.gov appears to still be accepting public commentary, so you have another 11 hours or so to say your piece online. [Update, comment period has now closed, you can view the document and public commentary here] In light of this one last chance, Julian Sprung, well-known author, MASNA Aquarist of the Year, founder of Two Little Fishies, and a member of the CORAL Sr. Advisory Board, shares his opinions on why failing to speak up isn’t an option. Opinion by Julian Sprung Foreword to my commentary letter [download PDF of Sprung's public commentary] In early January Dustin Dorton and the owners of ORA organized a meeting at ORA with people from NOAA and a group of people from the aquarium industry, from PIJAC, from the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory, and the Florida Division of Aquaculture. I was also invited and was glad for the opportunity. It was an extremely informative meeting for everyone. There were a few key take-home messages. 1. It appeared that this train (ESA listing of corals) was not stopping. 2. The room for control in making a decision is set up by the structure of how ESA implementation works, not by any individuals at NOAA. As they put it, our agency (NOAA) does not have the discretion, only the ESA sets the rules. 3. Public commentary should focus on factual errors in the literature cited in the proposal, and should bring to light any new data from the scientific literature. Public commentary regarding the collateral impacts on industries affected by an ESA ruling have no influence on the decision, because that is the way the ESA is written. They put it this way: Our comments should focus only on whether a particular species is threatened or not. They should not focus on whether NOAA should or should not list. This of course puts the position of public commentary for the most part in the category of useless. Does the general public have the qualification to discuss the threatened or endangered status of specific coral species? 4. Although a read of online information about the ESA suggests that any listing of corals as endangered would make possession of them illegal, the representatives from NOAA assured us that a listing as endangered would not prohibit the keeping of those corals already in aquariums. It would not criminalize our hobby. What it would do is prevent the TRADE of corals listed as endangered. That means no import no export no sale. It was a little unclear whether that also meant no in-kind trading. Basically this threatened the farmers, shops, frag swaps, and any form of business engaged in the commerce of corals, in the USA. By contrast, a listing as threatened would not prevent commerce of those species. Given the conflicting information out there, what do you suppose would happen if corals were to be listed? 5. We were told that NOAA had the ability to control the activity of the US Fish and Wildlife Service at the USA ports of entry, so that FWS would not utilize any ESA listing as a reason to shut down coral imports. Do you believe that? Scientists have already pointed out a broad range of errors in the science used to support the ESA listing proposal, and the statistical methods used. New data has also been presented. Evidence from the scientific literature has been presented that shows the premise of the need for listing any corals is in error. Comments have already been submitted about the status of individual species proposed for listing. While it canʼt hurt to add more to that in the few hours that remain for public comment, and there is no shortage of areas to explore for finding error, I believe that enough is enough. I am not proud of the letter I wrote. There are many very good scientists at NOAA. I donʼt wish to offend them but I canʼt help but be offended by what is happening, and felt the need to call what I see. Why should NOAA tell us that we cannot question the use of the ESA for coral conservation? Who are we really talking to with this public commentary? The ESA is not an agency, NOAA is. Are their hands so tied by the ESA structure and the petition submitted by a litigious Center for Biological diversity? Craig Watson, who also was at the meeting at ORA, submitted a letter that pointed out the fact that using the effects of greenhouse gas emissions as a basis for listing corals that are not now threatened with extinction sets a terrible precedent and exposes the ESA to attack. After all, as he put it: “If the predictions on climate change used in the petition and the subsequent review are accurate, there is very little life on this planet that one could not argue would be equally ʻthreatenedʼ or ʻendangered’ …..If approved and adopted by NOAA, the precedent established by this use of the ESA will result in a list of endangered species that is so inclusive, there will be little to no meaning to the list of endangered life within the ESA program.” Do you support the premise of the Endangered Species Act? I do. What I donʼt support is misuse of the act, and misuse of science for a policy agenda. Aquarium hobbyists are encouraged to submit their written commentary to NOAA. - Julian Sprung Download or View Julian Sprung’s public commentary as submitted. PIJAC’s recommendations on how and what to submit - US NOAA Coral Species Listing
by Josh Saul | Apr 6, 2013 | Corals, Photography
Check out the unusual coloration on this Acropora echinata or turaki that showed up at Route 66! The echinatas that show up in the hobby are usually the bright blue “ice” color, whereas this one has a cool lime green base with white...
