by ReefBum | Dec 24, 2015 | Corals, Fish, Reef, Science, Tanks
Reef Tank Tip – Resist The Urge to Submerge There are a number of best practices for reefkeeping and one of the bigger ones in my book is to try and minimize the amount of time I put my hands in the tank. I consider myself a perfectionist and when I started to keep reefs I was always looking at my tanks and tinkering with the rocks or corals to achieve a “better” look. I would buy a new coral and spend a lot of time trying to place it just right, moving it from spot to spot. This stressed out the coral and made it tough for it to establish itself in its new environment. What I learned over time is that Mother Nature needs to by AquaNerd | Dec 21, 2015 | Tanks
Aquarium maintenance companies are often asked to set up up a fully functional reef aquarium as quickly as possible. You know, just like they do on those reality TV shows. Well, entertaining TV aside, that’s not how it works in the real world of reefkeeping is it? A successful start to a reef aquarium requires establishing the necessary bacterial colonies to manage nutrient loads and avoid toxic accumulations of nitrogenous waste. Nevertheless the speedy set up of a life-sustaining reef aquarium is an appealing concept if it can be done in the interest of the inhabitants. And we’re not talking here about cycling a new system with stressed out damselfish. New on the reefkeeping scene is a system aimed at the professional aquarium maintenance by AquaNerd | Dec 19, 2015 | Fish, Invertebrates, Science
In our last article, A Closer Look At Sleeper Gobies, Genus Valenciennea, we covered the diet, care and behavior of the 15 recognized species of Valenciennea gobies. Today we look at another genus of sand sifting gobies known as, Istigobious. Istigobius is a genus of gobies found in fresh, brackish and marine waters along the coasts of the Indian and western Pacific oceans. Istigobius was described originally as a subgenus of the genus Gobius (Whitley, 1932; Murdy and Hoese, 1985) and then in 1979 Hoese and Winterbottom reviewed the family and subsequently elevated Istigobius to generic status. Similar to Acentrogobius, Istigobius’s morphology differs by having its nose extend beyond the top of its mandible (lower jaw). Additionally, Istigobius was found to be most closely related to Exyrias, though Exyrias by Lemon T.Y.K | Dec 15, 2015 | Science
While studies and surveys conducted on piscine organisms often involve in situ research on living specimens, a great deal of it occur post mortem. In science, death is the gateway of knowledge, and only in death can an animal be picked apart and studied in depth,... by AquaNerd | Dec 15, 2015 | Corals, Equipment, Events, Fish, Reef, Science, Tanks
From the boat, there’s nothing remarkable about the place — just choppy water and a white mooring ball, a few miles offshore. But once we’re underwater, I can see the rows and rows of PVC trees, suspended above the sand in a grid that stretches away into the distant murk. This is a coral nursery. Each tree bears a ripening crop of a hundred or more pieces of coral. The smallest fragments are pinkie-sized, twirling on their tethers as other divers kick by; the largest hang like many-limbed chandeliers, turning slowly in the current. When I get closer, I can see the individual polyps, the anemone-like creatures that make up each fragmented colony. Nestled in the crenellated openings in their solid skeletons, they
