by Admin | Mar 10, 2014 | Conservation, Fish, Science
Dr. Clyde Tamaru and Ms. Karen Brittain of the University of Hawaii are important partners in Rising Tide Conservation. Karen has been focusing on looking at all things related to broodstock management, egg collecting and larval rearing for the Bandit Angelfish (Apolemichthys arcuatus). Back in December, Reed Morgan led his Boy Scout troop in building the first phase of our new microalgae culture area, which is part of Reed’s Eagle Scout project. The older boys built and painted a bench for the new algae cylinders. They constructed a wood frame and assembled and attached light fixtures to the frame. They made a PVC airline to the cylinders including drilling and tapping the air valves. The younger boys moved and spread gravel in the area fronting the hatchery that becomes slippery in the winter. I was very impressed with how hard they worked and how helpful they were towards each other! We had to wait for backordered bulkhead fittings for the cylinders so did not get to fully complete the project that day. The fittings are here now and Reed completed the project in January. This project now allows us to grow five 100 liter cylinders of algae in the space we formerly had room for one 200 liter rectangular algae tank. This gives us many more options for growing what we need and is greatly appreciated. Also appreciated is the loan of the cylinders from the Dept. of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Aquatic Resources. by Fused Jaw | Mar 5, 2014 | Conservation, Fish, Science, Seahorses
Hippocampus mohnikei found during Thailand survey. My name is Lindsay and I’m a PhD candidate and researcher with Project Seahorse. I study seahorses in their natural habitat to understand threats to seahorses and ultimately aid in conservation efforts. I’m currently working in Thailand and wanted to share a little bit about my current research. Last year I spent eight months in Thailand gathering baseline information on seahorse populations along the Andaman (western) coast. The first month I spent building relationships with my new Thai partners and training my research assistants. In the three months that followed, I searched for seahorses by diving and snorkeling at various locations to determine several ideal locations for future research. The results of our intensive searches for seahorses yielded only eight individuals, an unexpectedly low number for the area surveyed. On a positive note, two of these individuals were sightings of a seahorse species never before seen on the Andaman coast; the Japanese Seahorse Hippocampus mohnikei. This was a very exciting discovery – and I’m in the final stages of submitting a paper discussing the increase in range of this species. Hippocampus mohnikei among seagrass. The overall low numbers of seahorses found in our initial survey lead me to question why we found so few seahorses. Was it because we were surveying in the wrong habitats? Using inappropriate methods (Even though they had worked elsewhere)? Or was there so much fishing, and therefore accidental capture of seahorses in fishing gear, there were few seahorses remaining in the areas surveyed? Understanding how to answer these questions has now become the central question to my PhD research. Not to be discouraged, I spent the next four months interviewing fishermen, asking for their input on how often they catch seahorses, what habitats they live in, and creating maps where seahorses can are found. With this information, I have been able to identify many locations on the Andaman coast where fishers report high occurrences of seahorses. I’m now starting my second field season, in which I will test the efficiency of different underwater sampling methods. By searching in areas where divers and fishers have reported sighting seahorses, I can evaluate what conditions increase the likelihood of finding seahorses as well as determine which methods are the best for sampling. Hippocampus trimaculatus found during survey. By combining the data from fishers regarding the incidental capture rate of seahorses along side the mapping of fishing grounds; I will now be able to estimate how many seahorses are captured by fishers each year. This finally allows me to assess if there is a link between fishing and low numbers of seahorses. I’ve just returned to Thailand and have started my second year of research (diving) this week. Our first site is a place in Phuket called Kata Beach – where several dive instructors have reported constant seahorse sightings over the past six months. We’ve been diving here for a week so far and have seen six seahorses – mostly Hippocampus kuda and Hippocampus spinosissimus! Looks like this season is off to a good start. Thanks again to everyone who helped support my research last year. It was an exciting and challenging year and I’m looking forward to more seahorse adventures in 2014. Lindsay is raising funds to support her assistant’s salary. Assistants are the unsung heroes of conservation research and dedicated field assistants are priceless. They willingly put up with the demands of field research – long hours, remote locations, and physical exhaustion with little financial reward. Working in a foreign country can challenging; a local assistant knows his or her community, and will help build bridges between researchers and their communities. Donate ifyou can, and please share the link:https://experiment.com/projects/searching-for-seahorses-sustainability This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2014 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Conservation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. by Robert Loren | Mar 5, 2014 | Conservation, Corals, DIY, Invertebrates, Science
Although notoriously intolerant of tissue damage, the beautiful Heliofungia actiniformis is an exciting addition to any reef display. Willing to test this coral’s vitality, I made an attempt to propagate... by Admin | Mar 4, 2014 | Conservation, Fish, Science, Tanks
Larval development of yellow tangs from 15 to 50 days posthatch (dph). Photo credit: Dean Kline and David Hoy. Research on culturing yellow tangs began at the Oceanic Institute (OI) back in 2001 around the same time as initial, exciting breakthroughs were achieved with dwarf angelfish (by OI and others like Frank Baensch and Karen Brittain). It seemed, back then, that we were just around the corner from some major steps forward with the culture of previously thought “impossible to rear” species. Indeed, there has been incredible progress with the culture of marine ornamentals since that time. However, yellow tang have proven to be far more difficult to rear than many of the other targeted marine ornamental fish species under investigation. More than a decade later, we are finally seeing some exciting progress with rearing this species and will share updates about our work on this site. On Jan 1, 2014 we stocked a 1000L tank with about 40,000 yellow tang eggs. In this rearing attempt we experimented with very high water turn-over rates, and very clean (ultra UV dose) water. As in previous studies, we again used the calanoid copepod, Parvocalanus crassirostris, as our feed. While this was only one tank (we are currently testing these methods again), we immediately noticed far more fish making it through the early larval period than ever before. We were really excited to see 1000’s of fish making past the first 2-3 weeks and ended up with more than 600 at day 35. We have since moved the fish to smaller tanks and are investigating potential settlement cues, like photoperiod and substrate. The fish recently crossed day 50 and appear to be looking very close to settlement. We’re observing fairly high mortality during this period of transition, but still have more than 150 fish distributed among our tanks. We are hoping at least a few make it through, but regardless are very encouraged by this recent progress! With newly obtained support from Rising Tide Conservation and the Hawaii Tourism Authority, we are looking forward to pushing this culture technology forward. This work will be supported by an HPU graduate student (Emma Forbes) who will introduce herself in a separate post. Stay tuned for updates from OI and Emma! by AquaNerd | Jan 27, 2014 | Conservation, Science
Captive-bred yellow tangs (Zebrasoma flavescens) may be coming to an aquarium near you. That’s the reality thanks to the efforts of the Oceanic Institute of Hawai‘i Pacific University (OI-PHU), who announced Friday that their groundbreaking research to breed yellow tangs has gotten a much needed infusion of cash…$75,000 to be exact. The funding comes from multiple sources, with the Hawaiʻi Community Foundation and the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority making up the bulk of that with their $35,000 donation. The Sea World/Busch Gardens Conservation Fund contributed $8,000 and the Oceanic Institute provided $32,000 worth of in-kind support. It is said that the funding will support a year long project which has the goal to bring the current level of yellow tang breeding up to the point that the research team can have its first ever captive rearing of the species. As part of the announcement, the OI-HPU also highlighted the fact that research scientist Chatham K. Callan, Ph.D., has lead the way with yellow tang breakthroughs when he discovered “breeding techniques that allow them to culture viable eggs in significant quantities and successfully rear the resulting larvae through their critical first few weeks of life.” As part of this joyous announcement, Callan will be speaking to the Science Pub-Hawai‘i tomorrow, January 27th. If you would like to read more about this ambitious work, be sure to visit: “OI-HPU yellow tang research gets boost from multiple funders” Story via MARSHReef
