by AquaNerd | Jul 15, 2014 | Corals, Fish, Science, Tanks
Coral fluorescence is one of the many mysterious things that draws aquarium hobbyists to reef tanks like moths to a flame. And it apparently draws a lot of divers to venture out on dangerous night dives as well. Armed with intense blue lighting rigs, the crew from FireDive Gear took to Masbat Bay in the Red Sea to view various marine organisms, and the resulting footage just blows us away. Demoed in the annotated short version above, the clip shows images of the corals during the day followed immediately by a video clip of each of the fluorescing corals at night. The list of animals featured in the video includes a Tridacna maxima clam, feather starfish, hermit crab, a handful of different fish, cuttlefish, octopus, and a neon green carpet anemone. While the video above is a couple of years old, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share its beauty with all of you. by AquaNerd | Jul 15, 2014 | Science, Tanks
#3 of 10 in Esquire’s 10 of the World’s Coolest Aquariums The internet is rife with lists. People just love them. Lists featuring the top ten of this or top five of that summarize their points in a very concise, easy to read format that people with short attention spans can actually make it through without getting sidetracked. We can’t say that we dislike lists, in fact we love them just like everyone else, except for those cases where the list isn’t at all researched or just hypes up something normally quite mundane. Recently, we came across a list of “10 of the Word’s Coolest Aquariums” in the UK version of Esquire, and suffice it to say, we were less than impressed with their featured tanks. While we certainly welcome a bit more of the positive spotlight on our hobby, we could easily have thought of ten far better aquariums than those that made the list. So, to help fix their list, we’ve come up with a few notable tanks that should top Esquire’s compilation… 1. Chingchai’s 1000-gallon DSPS Tank Chingchai’s world famous reef aquarium 2. David Saxby’s massive L-shaped aquarium David Saxby’s massive L-shaped reef tank 3. by AquaNerd | Jul 8, 2014 | Fish, Science
Have you ever watched one of those shows on one of the “science” channels that shows how the Earth would look if humans vanished? More often than not, the shows dictate how nature would take back the concrete jungles, with buildings becoming overgrown with plant life and eventually disappearing into the ever growing greenery. Most of these programs are sensationalized beyond belief, but if you want a glimpse at a real life example, there’s a mall in Thailand that has become flooded and is now home to thousands of fish. According to The Verge, the New World shopping mall in Bangkok was abandoned in 1999 after a fire tore through its facilities. It flooded with several feet if water, inviting all sorts of aquatic wildlife into its domain. Since the fire, and subsequent floods, thousands of koi and catfish have taken up residence in the mall, making for some gaining sights. According to rumor, the fish were intentionally introduced, which comes as no surprise seeing as how people seem to do that quite often. by AquaNerd | Jul 2, 2014 | Fish, Science
When it comes to deadly creatures, Australia seems to be the destination for the biggest, nastiest, venom-iest animals on Earth. These dangerous critters are both land and ocean based, and people wandering all over the continent have to literally watch every step they take. As further explained in this latest video from SmarterEveryDay the stonefish is one of those ultra deadly creatures that kills by injecting venom into people who aren’t paying attention to each step, obviously stinging divers and beachgoers who are unfortunate enough to just step in the wrong place. But considering how well these fish blend into their backgrounds, we could certainly see how so many people are stung. The video, which we pulled off of Gizmodo, shows just how the stonefish does its damage. When folks step on any of the fish’s 13 venomous dorsal spines, the skin pulls back to reveal some nasty hypodermic style spines each with its own set of venom sacks. As pressure from the foot pushes down on the spine, obviously causing a puncture, the venom is expelled upward into the foot. Unfortunately, the sting isn’t like that of a lionfish, which has been described as nothing more than a bad bee sting. The sting of the stonefish is deadly by AquaNerd | Jul 1, 2014 | Corals, Fish, Science
Hobbyists have have enjoyed performing numerous growth experiments on Monitpora corals, both encrusting and plating alike. While most of the tinkering has resulted in the blending two or more different colored individuals into one coral, which usually reverts back to a single colored coral, every once in a while something truly special pops up on our radars. Such is the case for The Digital Fishroom, who recently shared their Starburst Grafted Monti. According to the article, this is a naturally occurring pigment graft that has been isolated and successfully reproduced over and over again the last couple of years. What we like so much about this particular graft isn’t just the fact that the base color is two different colors, but that the polyps exhibit some random color morphing as well. If you take a look at both images (one above, one below), you’ll notice that the polyps in the red/orange portion of the coral stay that orangish color for the most part, but randomly show neon green highlights. Similarly, the polyps on the green portion of the coral show those interruptions of orange. And this blending doesn’t just occur where the orange and green base colors meet, but randomly throughout the frags. There are currently only four WYSIWYG frags available for the initial release. They are priced at $200 per frag (includes shipping) and all frags have were made about a month ago…meaning they’re all healed up from the fragging process
