Feed your fish. They are hungry. That may sound obvious, but most fish in captivity are starving to death because we are so fixated on water parameters. It’s fine to worry about water parameters, but you still need to feed your fish. Yes, water parameters are important and it’s fine to worry about them, but if you want to keep fish along with your corals, they need to eat correctly. You can deal with the corals later.They’re fish, not iguanas! Most of us are spending so much time trying to keep those colorful corals that we forget about our fish. If your fish are not spawning or looking like they want to spawn, they are hungry or not getting the correct food.

The post Want Healthy, Spawning Fish? Feed Them Properly! appeared first on reefs.com.

The vast majority of public aquariums and zoos care about their animals above all else. However, this appears not to be the case with the World Aquarium, in St. Louis, Missouri.The Aquarium was cited with numerous health inspector violations last month, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A popular local and tourist attraction, the aquarium has been open and operating as a non-profit for the last ten years. The Aquarium passed the November inspection with zero violations, but last month’s inspection yielded a litany of violations. Notably, the aquarium was cited for empty water bowls, contaminated water, and a general lack of cleanliness. The Director of City Museum, Rick Erwin, has asked the Aquarium to vacate it’s second floor location as of last week. He also the Aquarium has been behind on rent as of last month. Complaints that the animals were not fed adequately had been received. If you try to visit the Aquariums website, it appears to be down. Whatever happens, lets hope those poor animals get proper care asap.  MORE… More:

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After two and half years of waiting, the renovated Toledo Aquarium will be opening on March 27, 2015.  Nearly 26 Million dollars was spent in the process. When the aquarium was closed for renovations, it held a respectable 46,000 gallons. Today it holds a whopping 178,000 gallons and includes interactive exhibits for visitors, like the Touch Tank and Ocean Lab. The largest exhibit, the reef tank, has gone from 7600 gallons to 90,000 gallons. This amazing transformation inside the aquarium, has not effected the exterior of this historic 1939 Works Progress Administration (WPA) building. The outside of the building remains largely unchanged, with only the entrance changing location, with the renovation making very good use of what was previously unused space. Highlights of new exhibits include a South American Amazon Ecosystem, Gulf of Mexico Exhibit, Flooded Forests, Kelp Forests, Electric Eel’s and Deep Sea Creatures. Excited to add this to my list of must see Aquariums for 2015.  MORE… More:

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While many forms of water purification used in other industries caught on with reef aquarists, ozone never came full circle. Most reef aquarists employ reverse osmosis de-ionization (RODI), carbon filtration and granular ferric oxide (GFO) to maintain water quality. All of these are also used to purify drinking water, or some other commercial application. In commercial water purification ozone use is not uncommon, though for aquarists it’s not something you see on every reef, even those that are featured in “tank of the month” specials or are known worldwide as super systems. Why is this? Ozone has a host of potential benefits, both removing yellowing compounds from water and killing pathogens. Perhaps it’s because there are so many unknowns when implementing ozone. We don’t really know exactly what it does and we don’t totally understand its role in natural seawater. We make an assumption that a higher oxygen redox potential (ORP) equals cleaner water, but even that is up for debate. To make matters worse, ozone carries with it potential risks for both the aquarist and the aquarium. The icing on ozone’s proverbial cake is that it’s both costly and tricky to implement. For those interested in ozone, there are some benefits to implementing it and with some consideration it can be done both successfully and safely.    What is ozone?Ozone is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula OO2, also referred to as tri-oxygen or 03 on many hobbyist grade generators. It’s the same bluish gas found in the ozone layer, protecting planet Earth from the harsh effects of ultraviolet radiation. Ozone has a pungent odor, making a room smell like all surfaces have been wiped down with bleach. Since ozone is a powerful oxidant, it has a variety of consumer and industrial uses. Although, ozone can damage the respiratory tissues and mucous membranes of both plants and animals, making long term exposure (or short term exposure to high volumes) problematic. In industry ozone is used as a disinfectant primarily and also to remove odors and pigments from dyes and water. In water conditioning, ozone is used to both increase clarity and remove pathogens. At high enough levels ozone is a powerful sterilizer making it capable of wiping out every living thing in the aquarium, right down to bacteria and viruses. Why use this in marine aquariums?Ozone is used by many aquaculture and fish wholesalers/retailers to control pathogens.… More:

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Good afternoon from Curacao! I’m busy in the deep-water lab today cleaning out my old photo aquariums and running around town buying some new ones. The aquariums themselves are in good working order and can be used for other things I just can’t use them to do photos in any more because of fine scratches on the front. When you combine a 105 macro lens with a Nikon D-800 and shoot at F-40 through the glass you pick up every little detail including fine scratches that look like they are on the fish but they are from the glass. That’s why it’s just easier to replace them regularly so you don’t have to spend hours working in Photoshop removing unwanted lines. My two Banded Coral Shrimps, Stenopus hispidus are still hanging out in the same vase sponge for months now, I stop and say hi to them every time I swim by

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A scene from Peter Hyne’s 1,300-gal. reef aquarium.

We’re back for another go at this reef-aquarium hobby. This week’s subjects include Peter Hyne’s Toronto aquarium, NERAC, Jimmie Yuen’s old-school equipment, and what is an advanced reef keeper. Download the podcast here, or subscribe to our podcasts at iTunes. Also, follow us on Twitter at reefthreads.—Gary and Christine

Sponsor: Rod’s Food
Rod’s Food website

Peter Hyne’s Tank
Peter Hyne’s build thread

Are you advanced?
Does Having SPS make you an advanced reefer?, Marquiseo, Reef2Reef

The post Reef Threads Podcast #222 appeared first on reefs.com.

 The World Aquarium,a nonprofit facility, has passed a re-inspection as of Friday and will remain open. This good news comes after the Aquarium was cited with a plethora of rather egregious violations last month that one would not equate with standard of care expected at a public aquarium. The violations alleged included contaminated water, empty fed bowls and general lack of cleanliness. The Aquarium is currently located inside downtown’s popular City Museum, and the aquarium has stated they will stay open and in business at least until Labor Day. Rick Erwin, the executive director of the City Museum, had previously stated that he asked the Aquarium to vacate, citing unpaid rent. On Saturday, after hearing the news that the Aquarium would stay open, Erwin stated: “If they passed their inspections, great. We’re happy for the animals. That’s the most important thing.” However he also said the aquarium would not remain in its current location. World Aquarium President Leonard Sonnenschein stated the violations were purely due to timing of the inspection, with the inspector coming right before the weekly deep clean. He also said the Aquarium would be moving, and they would be considering space downtown, in north St. Louis County and in St. Charles. MORE… More:

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We’re back with another episode of Salt Speak! First off, I’d like to thank everyone who reached out with kind words for this new series. It was great to hear the interest in episode 1 and excitement for future installments.In this second episode, I spoke with Than Thein. Than is the owner of Tidal Gardens, a coral propagation greenhouse in Ohio. We discussed a variety of topics ranging from what it takes to grow corals in a greenhouse and how to properly start a propagation business to the state of the reef aquarium hobby and the role of coral retailers. We cover a lot of ground in this chat and I think you’ll really enjoy the discussion. As always, let me know what you think in the comments below. Also, please share this episode with your fellow reef aquarium hobbyists

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Most of the country is now familiar with hydraulic fracturing (fracking). It’s a method used to extract natural gas buried deep beneath the Earth. Despite some of the jargon that gets passed around, fracking hasn’t been around for 30 or more years. It has been used for around eight, as a means to release natural gas locked in layers of shale rock. I am very familiar with the process as I live in western Maryland which lies over the Marcellus Shale. Right now a war has broken out between those that favor fracturing the shale and releasing the gas and those that believe it will risk resident’s health. In states where fracking has been embraced (NY, WV, PA, TX, CO, etc) the process has become controversial as private water supplies suddenly became filled with chemicals, some even becoming flammable. As I learn more about fracking, I can’t help but wonder what it could mean to reef aquarists anywhere the process is embraced. Even if a clean water supply is available, we still require mass amounts of filtration to create high quality synthetic saltwater. Would it be possible to even maintain a marine aquarium if fracking chemicals leached into an aquarist’s water supply? How would an aquarist know their water had been effected and would you not learn until it was too late?    What is fracking?Fracking combines two processes, horizontal drilling which allows a drill to travel deep beneath the Earth (several thousand feet) and turn horizontally. At this point it enters shale which over millions of years has sealed up natural gas. A round about explanation of natural gas is that it’s decayed organic matter so fermented that it contains all organisms’ original energy harvested from the sun. Since the gas is still sealed up, thousands and thousands of gallons of water and chemicals is pumped into the shale at high pressure. The chemicals, along with sand, help break up the shale rock and release the gas. The now toxic water is pumped back out of the ground and into a containment pond. Fracking is a high tech process that utilizes a variety of equipment. It combines sciences like geology, chemistry and engineering. People familiar with the practice have equated it to rocket science, since there are many variables along with a host of unforeseen circumstances. Even after years of practice, it’s still very much a learning process with a large margin of area.… More:

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Recently I had the pleasure/heartbreak of fragging one of my long term Goniopora mother colonies. I had been growing this line of coral for over 5 years, and this particular colony for 3 years; from a nickel sized frag it had become a 7 inch colony. 

Time to cut up this captive grown beauty

 Compared to other coral such as Acanthastrea and Favia, Goniopora are a dream to run through a saw. They cut like warm butter.Though large colonies of some species, like Goniopora stokesi, develop daughter colonies that will bud off and create a little clones, others need to be fragged in captivity to produce new corals. In my experience thus far, Goniopora norfolkensis (the strain I was working with) is one of the latter. 

Several layers of artificial substrate and super glue can be seen in this cross section

 Pictured here is a cut cross-section of my captive grown G. norfolkensis. The coral’s history in captive care is there, like tree rings, documenting the various types of plugs, super glue, and even egg-crates it has been exposed to or grown on. A chronicle of husbandry success. Like other corals, Goniopora’s frags and remaining mother colony heal much faster when fed frequently. I target feed liberal amounts of “Goniopower” from Two Little Fishies in the first week to encourage polyp re-extension. The polyps often remain closed for the first days after fragging, and direct feeding, even with the polyps retracted, gives them extra energy to heal and regrow tissue and polyps along the newly exposed edges. This feeding approach also works with weak old colonies that are receding and whose polyps have stopped expanding. Good luck with your Gonis and happy reefing!   

Happy Mom

… More:

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[embedded content] Opening on 27 March 2015 at London’s Natural History Museum, their new exhibition ‘Coral Reefs: Secret Cities of the Sea’ will offer visitors the chance to encounter 200 strange and beautiful specimens from their collections including the gigantic Turbinaria coral, the venomous blue-ringed octopus and coral collected by Charles Darwin. Run in association with the Catlin Group (those behind the Catlin Seaview Survey), the exhibition will also feature a virtual reef dive, live corals and fish and spectacular underwater photography. Actually, check out this time-lapse of the coral tank installation in the Museum’s Jerwood Gallery.

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In his book The Salt Smart Guide to Preventing, Diagnosing, and Treating Diseases of Marine Fish, Jay Hemdal provides a surprisingly simple method for acclimating marine animals—just one of many useful tips readers will discover in this authoritative tome. Here, excerpted from the book (Chapter 1: Selecting Healthy Specimens), is Jay’s straightforward, step-by-step acclimation technique, followed by five special cases that warrant a modified approach:A simple acclimation process The following process is one that should be employed for all normal acclimation of animals from one system to another. STEP 1 If possible, determine the water quality values for the aquarium that the fish will be coming from and adjust the receiving aquarium’s values to a similar range. As mentioned, if the values can be made nearly identical, no acclimation process is even required. STEP 2 The fish must be transported from one aquarium to another in a manner that minimizes additional stress. The fish should be kept in the dark, and supplemental aeration or oxygen must be used for any transport lasting longer than about 30 minutes.

The post How to Acclimate Marine Animals in 8 Easy Steps—Plus 5 Cases When You Can’t appeared first on reefs.com.

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Photo by Josefin Stiller , Nerida G. Wilson , Greg W. Rouse. CC by 4.0.

 Syngnathid fish fans have a new species to fawn over, according to a recent article in Scientific American Magazine. Until now, only two species of seadragon were known, the leafy and weedy seadragons. No new seadragon species has been discovered in 150 years. This newest addition to the small group, the aptly-named ruby seadragon, was uncovered by a trawler during a routine biodiversity survey by the University of Western Australia’s Marine Futures project in 2007. It was a happy surprise indeed. It is not only a very strange and attractive animal, but is decidedly quite different in appearance and habit than its better-known relatives. For one, while it has the characteristically spiny body form, it lacks the weedy of leafy appendages of the other seadragons. Most notably, it is apparently a deepwater fish; this specimen was pulled from a deep, sandy-bottom reef of about 51 meters (167 feet). The comparatively great depth at which they occur explains the rich, reddish coloration, as red is extremely difficult to perceive at this depth, effectively camouflaging the fish. Of course, its home in an area less accessible to scientists helps to explain why it has remained undetected for so long. Not that we have not seen it before; three were already held in Australian museum collections for decades, shockingly mislabeled as weedies. It was only more recently, after genetic analysis, that researchers could confirm the discovery of a new species–nearly as distantly related to the other weedy as it is to to the leafy. This animal, now called Phyllopteryx dewysea, will likely be the subject of intense hankering by many public and private seahorse aficionados. To read the article, please visit: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/2015/03/24/ahoy-thar-be-a-new-seadragon-in-the-briny-deep/?WT.mc_id=SA_Facebook.… More:

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My FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/coralfish12g In this CoralFish12g video I highlight Pedro's 34g Solana cube tank. It is custom drilled and has a custom sump. The filtration is a fitersock and cermedia bio balls along with a Reef Octopus bh50 skimmer. Light is dual t5 ho with Trulumen blue led strip. He will be upgrading lighting soon. His channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/pnavarro170

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It can’t be said enough – one of the most difficult aspects of keeping an aquarium is dealing with loss. While some of the culprits may fall out of the realm of your control, there’s a great deal of measures that can be taken to ensure your beloved fishes live healthy, vivacious lives while in your care. Nearly all hobbyists will encounter disease at some point, and one of the most crucial steps that can be taken in this instance is being able to properly identify and safely treat the ailing animal within an effective timeframe. The Salt Smart Guide To Preventing, Diagnosing, and Treating Diseases of Marine Fishes is an essential tool in your first aid kit in just this instance! Jay Hemdal, Curator of Fishes and Invertebrates at The Toledo Zoo, put together this invaluable e-book in collaboration with Saltwater Smarts to help hobbyists not only prevent disease, but properly and effectively react when incidences inevitably occur. Recently reviewed by editor Randy Donowitz in our latest issue of Reefs Magazine, we strongly encourage all hobbyists to pick up a copy! 

“The majority of the book is concerned with environmental and husbandry issues that affect fish health and the plethora of specific diseases that afflict marine fish. Cause, symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment are addressed for each disease. If you read these chapters carefully, many of the “mystery” deaths so commonly referenced in the hobby become a lot less mysterious.”

  You can purchase the eBook here for only $14.99 where you’ll receive an instant download in 3 formats. Want a chance to win one? Saltwater Smarts has allotted us 2 copies to give away, just comment below for your chance, it’s that easy!  … More:

The post Giveaway Time! Sick Fish? Get Salt Smart With This Essential Guide appeared first on reefs.com.

Mosaic walkway in the renovated Aquarium (Credit: Toledo Zoo/Andi Norman)Virtually since we launched Saltwater Smarts back in April of 2013, we’ve been bringing you regular updates on the progress of the $25.5 million renovation of the Toledo Zoo Aquarium. Today, we’re thrilled to announce that this ambitious project has finally come to fruition with the grand opening of the new Aquarium taking place. Congratulations to all who were involved in this ponderous undertaking—and special salty kudos to our friend and regular contributor Jay Hemdal, Curator of Fishes and Invertebrates for the Toledo Zoo and author of The Salt Smart Guide to Preventing, Diagnosing, and Treating Diseases of Marine Fishes.I’ve always had a special affinity for the Toledo Zoo. Not only was my first home as a child situated literally a stone’s throw from the Zoo (escaped peacocks, a common occurrence back in those days, would often land atop neighborhood houses, ours included), but I’m also proud to say that from May of 2002 to December of 2005, I had the privilege of working in the Zoo’s marketing department as Writer/Publication’s Coordinator. Panoramic shot of the new entrance (Credit: Toledo Zoo/Bruce Burkhart) The Toledo Zoo boasts many world-class exhibits, but, perhaps not surprisingly, the Aquarium has always been my favorite. If ever my workload got the better of me, I could step away from my computer, walk the short distance from my office in the Museum of Science to the Aquarium, immerse myself (figuratively) in the captivating exhibits, and let the stress just drain away. I’ll take a moon jelly tank over meditation any day

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Young H. erectus at mysis feeding table. Photo by Louise Hines In Frozen Mysis Part 1: The Quest For Quality Mysis, we took a look at how to best select quality mysis for our seahorses, and what to avoid. In this long overdue part two, we’re going to take a look at why being picky about our frozen food matters. Just What Does Freezing Do

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Instagram Link: http://instagram.com/coralfish12g In this CoralFish12g video I am going to be vlogging for the first time. I want to know what you think in the comments section below. I call it Vlog of George!

The post Vlog of George #1 – Instagram, Gel Filters, Reef Fuel appeared first on reefs.com.

Some anemone tentacles up close.

It’s time once again to chat with the Reef Evangelist and her minion. This week’s topics include NERAC, the Toledo Aquarium, World Aquarium, Pitcairn reef preserve, and aquarium complacency. Download the podcast here, or subscribe to our podcasts at iTunes. Also, follow us on Twitter at reefthreads.—Gary and Christine

Sponsor: Rod’s Food
Rod’s Food website

Two Aquariums
Renovated Toledo Aquarium Ready For Grand Opening, Francis Yupanco, Reefs.com

World Aquarium Cited For Dirty Facility and Unfed, Francis Yupanco, Reefs.com

Giant reef preserve
World’s Largest Single Marine Reserve Created in Pacific, Brian Clark Howard, National Geographic

Are you complacent?
Beware Marine Aquarium Complacency!, Jeff Kurtz, Saltwater Smarts

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