by Reef To Rainforest | Feb 4, 2014 | Conservation, Fish, Industry, Invertebrates, Opinion, Science
Fish catch for the table: reef-side native people depend on their local waters for food and income. Landmark new paper says that a sustainable marine aquarium trade may be a key to the future of healthy coral reef areas By Ret Talbot The fate of coral reefs worldwide is now a well-publicized, front-page, six o’clock news crisis. In fact, three marine scientists just published a landmark paper that leads with this daunting proclamation: “Coral reefs are at the brink of a global, system-wide collapse.” Lead author of the paper, Dr. Andrew L. Rhyne: “Ending cyanide fishing and effective trade monitoring are necessary and critical short-term gains for the marine aquarium trade.” Ending cyanide fishing and effective trade monitoring are necessary and critical short-term gains. For those involved in the keeping of marine aquaria, it is logical—perhaps even imperative—to wonder whether or not embattled reef ecosystems can sustain fisheries pressure in addition to all the other stressors they face. Often the heated arguments come down to these two points of contention: 1. Is it possible to harvest live fishes and invertebrates from coral reefs in a sustainable manner? by Reef To Rainforest | Jan 15, 2014 | Equipment, Events, Fish, Industry, Science
via AquaXplorer Newsletter: Puratek is committed to introducing new and innovative products to the aquarium industry. With the latest release of our Aquarium Management software, AquaXplorer Live, you’ll see for yourself how our feature-rich platform will help you simplify and enhance your aquarium maintenance. New Aquarium Dashboard Comprehensive and intuitive overview on a single page for simple monitoring and control New Extended Feature Set Calendar – Synchronize Insight Controller events and alarms to calendar or link calendar events to your personal Google Calendar and set schedules. Manual Chemistry Tracking – Configure any chemistry parameter you want to measure and trend. Set valid threshold limits and perform graphical trending to see history. Scheduler – Set up schedules to perform maintenance on daily, weekly, monthly or yearly intervals. Equipment Tracking – Keep an accurate list of all equipment in your system including manufacture, serial and model numbers, warranty period, attach receipts and user guides for safe keeping and more. Expense Tracking – Customize exactly how you want to track your expenses by setting up categories to log where and when you purchased things. by Reef To Rainforest | Jan 6, 2014 | Fish, Industry, Science
ORA’s newest introduction for 2013 – Blue Hypnea Macroalgae Other forms of this widespread Indo-Pacific seaweed are used in Asian kitchens as salad ingredients and in industry as a source of the thickener carageenan, but Blue Hypnea (Hypnea pannosa) is an iridescent blue ornamental algae and ORA believes it has a future in reef aquariums. According to ORA: “Though similar in appearance to Ochtodes sp. algae from the Caribbean, this species originates from Micronesia and has slightly different morphology. Blue Hypnea grows in very dense, matted clumps that loosely anchor to coarse substrates. It is not a particularly fast growing algae so containing its growth is not difficult. “We recommend moderate to high, full spectrum lighting for optimum coloration and growth. Photo taken under 10K Metal halide with supplemental flash.” Source: http://www.orafarm.com/products/algae/hypnea/ by Admin | Dec 20, 2013 | Fish, Industry, Science
Here’s a feel good story to cap off a year that has been full of aquarium industry drama. A young boy in south Florida, 10-year-old Benji Trevino, recently had his wish fulfilled when Living Color Aquariums teamed up with the Make-A-Wish Foundation to install a large aquarium at his church. Benji, who suffers from Spina Bifida and who has had to have two major surgeries this year alone, has a passion for animals and wants to be a marine biologist when he grows up. So, when he heard what the foundation would do for him, he immediately asked for a six foot long aquarium to be installed at his church. Cranking up the “aww factor”, Benji could have had the aquarium installed in his parents’ home where he could enjoy it daily. Instead, he asked that it be installed at his family’s church, Ministerio Esperanza Church, so that all of his friends and family could enjoy the tank with him. The tank is 270-gallons and features lots of low maintenance fish and elaborate coral inserts. For the original story and the video, be sure to visit Wink. by AquaNerd | Dec 11, 2013 | Corals, Fish, Industry, Photography, Science, Tanks
By: Daniel Leija The use of cell phones is nothing new in this hobby, as they’ve been a vital tool with applications that help us calculate how much calcium to dose in our tank and give us the ability to monitor and control our aquariums from afar. While these apps haven’t been around for too long, comparatively, something that has been in use for what seem like an eternity is cell phone cameras, and hobbyists are always improving aquarium photography with their phones. With the constant competition of who is the best and top dog of the smartphone industry, it is the camera in our phones that is always upgraded. For example, the iPhone 5 has an 8 megapixel camera. This year the iPhone 5s was released, and while it stayed with its 8 megapixel camera, it increased its aperture to f/2.4, allowing up to %33 more light into the camera. It also got really neat features like the burst mode allowing you to capture things in action with more success. It also got the slow-mo feature slowing videos down making for really neat shots of fish eating or swimming. While DSLR macro shots are relatively nice, we all know that is another hobby that gets expensive. Nothing is going to beat a nice crisp shot you get with a true macro lens attached to that awesome camera of your choice, but we have found great success snapping close up pictures of our tanks with our phones
