by AquaNerd | Jun 13, 2014 | Corals, Science
It looks like “Operation Rock Bottom” has claimed yet another would be coral poacher. The federal probe targeted at the illegal harvest of marine life in the Florida Keys has led to a long list of arrests and convictions, with the latest sentence being handed down to Jonathan Hale of Country Critters in Patchogue, New York last week. As we mentioned in our “initial coverage of this sweeping operation, Hale was out on $25,000 bail after being charged with buying and selling live rock and corals taken from the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, as well as falsely labeling overseas imports. According to a followup story on the Keys News, Hale has been sentenced to two years of probation and $10,000 in fines following his guilty plea. This is a considerably lighter sentence than the potential five years in a federal prison that he was facing. Luckily for him, he was willing to accept a plea bargain and the prosecuters were willing to play ball. As for the specific details of Hale’s involvement, the Key News story claims “Hale met with an unnamed harvester in Marathon on Sept. 30, 2012, and discussed pricing for Ricordea Florida coral specimens, tarpon and sharks. by AquaNerd | Jun 12, 2014 | Science
We sure do love our colored sticks, and Reef Raft USA has one that is particularly beautiful. Recently displayed on the Reef2Reef forums, the stunning D-Day Acropora sports an exotic combination of colors, including a blue base, neon yellow corallites, dark red polyps, and hints of green laced throughout. It’s a beautiful coral to say the least, and although it sports a pretty exotic price tag, it’s a coral that is high up on our list of favorites among the Acroporids. The D-Day Acro sports a striking resemblance to the TCK Pikachu Acro that we shared back in April, though that electrifying Acro was far more monochromatic, consisting of bright yellow tissues with red polyps. It lacked the blue and green that makes the D-Day a standout coral, though we wouldn’t be surprised if they turned out to be the exact same coral that has taken on a slightly different appearance due to lighting or some other external factor. The price for Reef Raft’s D-Day is set at $400 per 1/2″ – 1″ frag and a total of five will be made available, at least initially. by AquaNerd | Jun 12, 2014 | Fish, Science
The internet has a severe obsession with lists, especially top “insert random number here” lists of whatever obscure parameter could be thought of. While we tend to avoid them like the plague, we do entertain them when it involves aquarium related stuff…like this list of the 10 most expensive tropical fishes. To no surprise, the list was almost completely comprised of marine fish, 8 out of 10 in fact, with just a couple of insanely expensive freshwater fish taking the top two slots. This list, like most others, isn’t completely accurate but it does include several holy grail level fish that very few of us could ever afford and continue to pay mortgages and car notes, or keep our spouses. On to the list. The bottom 8 fish on the list of the most expensive tropical fish include: 10. Candy Basslet – $1,000 9. Clarion Angelfish – $2,500 8 by AquaNerd | Jun 5, 2014 | Corals, Equipment, Industry, Science
Although we’re pretty caught up in the Interzoo hype, we haven’t forgotten about all of the amazing corals that attract us to this hobby in the first place. To prove my point, we’ll now shift our focus to a really interesting find from our friends at , an East Coast marine aquarium livestock wholesaler based out of North Carolina. They recent received a batch of hammer corals from North Australia, and as you can clearly see in the images and video, they are full of what appears to be eggs. These eggs have accumulated in the tentacle tissues of the coral, with some of them forming large bundles and others freely floating within the tissue like ping pong balls trapped in an aquarium. We don’t see any of these eggs being released into the water, but clearly something out of the ordinary is going on here. Kris Cline, owner and Operations Manager at Carolina Aquatics, says that in his 18 years in the hobby and industry, he’s never seen anything like this. And to be honest, neither have we. I mean, we’ve seen corals spawning in aquariums before, but never have we see this sort of egg accumulation in the tissues and be this visible. Kris went on to explain that the exporter told them that the Euphyllids are spawning on the reefs right now, and did it around this time last year too by AquaNerd | Jun 4, 2014 | Fish, Science
Cardinalfish are no strangers to the marine aquarium scene. The hobby has seen plenty of species from this group make an appearance, though the trade has been primarily focused on two in particular, the Banggai cardinal (Pterapogon kauderni) and the Pajama cardinal (Sphaeramia nematoptera). Despite the overwhelming popularity of these two species, Oceans Reefs & Aquariums is testing the waters with a newly aquacultured species from Japan, the rare Spotnape cardinalfish (Apogon notatus). As noted on the ORA blog, the Florida-based fish breeders acquired a batch of wild spotnape cardinals, but due to a lack of information being available, they didn’t really know what to expect in terms of behavior, feeding strategies, breeding, etc. But that didn’t stop the experts from giving it their best shot, and after some time they were successfully breeding the fish and learning all sorts of information about them. One of the biggest takeaways from rearing this fish is that, despite their muted colors, a small group of these cardinals is quite striking. They sport “silvery, rose gold colors” as ORA puts it, along with a spot just behind its eye and one on the tail. The fish has a maximum size of 4″, and their social nature makes them great for community reef tanks. Though ORA is having loads of success with this species, they are at a bit of a crossroads. They can either continue to raise and breed the fish, assuming there is a commercial demand for them, or they can shift their focus toward other species
