My father teaches marine biology and oceanography at a college in Maine (an obvious gateway to this hobby), and something interesting is always happening in his lab. This week a friend brought in a species not generally considered native to the Gulf of Maine, a Balistes capriscus, the gray triggerfish.
It is a gray triggerfish, Balistes capriscus, and is about 12" long. They have a wide diet including algae, invertebrate (worms and sand dollars) banacles and arthropods. We're feeding it shrimp right now. It comes to the surface to take it but I've read they can give you a good nip with that beak and strong teeth. Apparantly they can produce some interesting sounds by grinding their teeth that are amplified by the swim bladder. They have been found from Nova Scotia to Brazil but 60 degrees F seems to be the minimum temperature they can endure. Picture is attached.
This fish has remained quite shy since I acquired it in March. It will tolerate viewers sitting quietly in front of the tank, but any rapid movements or strange behaviors, specifically related to cameras, send it hiding amongst the rocks. I was finally able to get a half decent picture, by sneaking up like National Geographic nature photographer.
Despite the shyness, this is a great species for the smaller reef aquarium. It is a calm fish that spends most of its time perched on the rocks (or hiding), which makes a nice contrast to the typically boisterous clownfish and chromis that I keep.
The less informed may be inclined to think of this as an April Fools joke, but you can in fact train fish to perform daring stunts such as wriggling through a soft rubber hoop. I got my dad the official Fish Training Kit thinking it would make for a good joke, but as the video below shows, fish training is in fact serious business:
The trainer and her star lumpfish (Cyclopteridae one of my favorite cold water species!) are native to the New England Aquarium, and I found this lovely post not from their irregular and uninformative member's newsletter, but via the excellent Zooilogix blog.
I've never really tried out the video function on my camera, and that is reprehensible. So here is a quick shot of Boris and a few of his friends, partying it up as is their custom.
This post was supposed to be an update on the new corals and fish I added a week ago, but first I'd like to introduce you to Boris the Destroyer, a superglue eating hermit crab:
The first inhabitants to take up residence in my tank were hermit crabs and snails, including Boris here. While the rest of the hermits are fairly mild-mannered, Boris is a special individual. At some point in the past year, he killed a Nassarius snail, took over the shell, and promptly grew to three times the size of his fellow hermit crabs. I've always wondered how he managed to grow so fast, and why he shows particular interest in new coral additions to the tank.
It turns out Boris has been eating the super glue (Cyanoacrylate) that I use to attach coral frags. Over the past week, each morning I've awoken to one particular Monitpora frag knocked loose from the rock work. I'd reattach it, only to have it knocked loose again the next day. Each time I re-glued the frag, Boris would make a beeline from anywhere in the aquarium straight to that coral. I thought he was picking delectable treats off the foreign frag plug, but after a few days I realized he was actually chipping off and eating the super glue. There can be no doubt that he has gained super powers from this diet, and poses a threat to civilization.
I had banned the naming of aquarium inhabitants ever since a pair of cichlids my girlfriend had named after F. Scott Fitzgerald characters were found floating upside down, but as Boris is surely immortal, I have no problem bestowing him with the name.
The Plectranthias inermis is doing great. Although still quite shy, I have seen it venturing further into the open. I was worried about how small it was compared to the other, more boisterous fish, but everyone seems to be getting along well.
The corals were, as usual with Live Aquaria, healthy and attractive frags. I noticed what could possibly have been STN setting in on a nub of the blue branching Montipora, so I snipped that off. The green branching piece took quite a beating, as it was a target of Boris, but seems to be recovering decently. The green cap is also good, although I am considering moving it to a position with more light.
You can also see in one of the following photos how insanely fast the Montipora caps I got a few months ago have grown. They have easily doubled in size, and one is moving in on its neighbors. I am hesitant to mess with success here, but something may need to be moved soon.
Fresh off a plane ride from the Live Aquaria facility in Wisconsin:
Plectranthias inermis (Geometric Pygmy Hawkfish)
I have been following the Diver's Den RSS feed for a few months, waiting for a unique fish suited to a smaller reef aquarium, and I'm hoping this will be it. Given my recent issues with nitrates, likely from heavy feeding, this will probably be the last fish I introduce into the tank. As such, I was looking for a lively and interesting specimen.
Montipora sp.
I have had great success with the growth and general health of Montipora species in my tank, especially when compared to other stony corals. Hopefully these new specimens will do just as well. All of these corals were grown in an aquaculture facility, while the fish was likely wild caught.
Live Aquaria is easily the best site for ordering aquatic life, with unmatched quality and shipping, as well as a stay-alive guarantee. I've been a big fan for quite some time, and the majority of my reef's inhabitants originated from them.
They've just added an RSS feed for their Diver's Den, which provides what-you-see-is-what-you-get specimens on a first come, first serve basis. The feed should let you keep tabs on their stock without having to remember to check the site.
Now I just need to get them signed up on Brightcove for all their videos.
Update: The only downside is that unlike browsing the actual site, with the RSS feed you get a view into things that have already sold! So waking up this morning, I discovered I was too late to get in on these beautiful Montipora color variations! So sad.
A little over a year ago, on my first trip to San Francisco, I stumbled into a temporary aquarium space for the California Academy of Sciences. They had an enormous, two-story coral reef setup, along with an aquaculture facility for propagating more corals. Talking with the staff informed me that the tank was a test to see if coral could be grown in captivity at extreme depths, and the propagation facility was for growing out colonies to populate a much larger tank that would be located in their permanent building, scheduled to open late in 2008.
Being out there for business this week, I took advantage of a few spare hours to get over and check out the finished tank. Unfortunately there wasn't much stocked in the form of corals yet. I'm not sure if they are adding species in slowly or what. There was an enormously large and diverse population of fish however, along with some other innovations. A large sand bed with a full grown mangrove tree was attached to the aquarium. A walled off section for sharks and rays, as well as a shallow lagoon area was also attached to the tank. The reef tank is impressive in size and ambition, but as all reef keepers know, it will take several years to reach it's true potential.
The california coast tank was also quite large, and featured an enormous wave box. From what was visible, it appeared to work on the same principal as the systems common to home aquarium. But check out the size of these waves:
My favorite section of the aquarium was the staff picks. Here small aquariums and terrariums were set into a wall, featuring a favorite species or biotope of each staff member. There was an incredible reef tank here, with a coral wall built along the left hand side leaving dramatic open space through most of the tank. Very cool.
Below are some photos I snapped, and there are a few more to be found on my Flickr account.
My favorite tank design:
Primary viewing window for the reef (there are several others):
Some of the reef lighting. There was another tier of lights above this, as well as natural sun lighting through the roof:
I absolutely love ordering from Live Aquaria. They have the best service, a wide range of livestock, and great shipping. There is one part about ordering from Live Aquaria that can trip me up though: they have two different facilities. One is in Wisconsin, and seems to be primarily for aquacultured coral. The other is in California, which I imagine handles imports from the Pacific. This time I based my order around the fish I wanted, and filled it out with other specimens available from their California facility.
My reef has only had three fish for its first six months: our resident firefish, who was the original inhabitant, and the pair of clownfish I added at the end of summer. While moving slowly on additions is always a virtue with keeping a reef aquarium, I decided it was time to move forward with a group of fish I've always wanted to keep: Chromis viridis, the Blue Chromis. The layout of this tank was originally created to allow for a large open swimming area at the top, specifically for small schooling fish like the Chromis. I purchased five juveniles, which will hopefully adapt well and add a lot of colorful motion to my aquarium. As nice as corals are, you really can't beat the visual appeal of a group of colorful fish. It makes the tank appealing from across the room as well as close up.
Below is a full list of what I ordered from Live Aquria. I also purchased some coral frags from a member on Reef Central. Both orders should be arriving Tuesday.
The first day of fall, and my first post in awhile. I have some topics from the summer I'd like to write about at length, including the loss of a few coral specimens, the acquisition of several new ones, and some changes to the equipment in the tank. These are summarized below and will be discussed in future posts, but first some new photos:
As mentioned earlier, this summer we moved to a new apartment in Harvard Square. Moving a reef tank is a challenge, and doing it during July does not help, but things came off without a hitch. I will attribute that to careful planning and a lot of luck. Here is the tank in our new living room:
I also recently switched from my Koralia 3 powerhead to a Vortech MP20, after reading many good things. I can vouch for all the positive reviews about this unit:
And some new corals:
Summer Loses I had a few coral losses related to one event this summer. We were in LA for a long weekend, and I did not leave the cooling fans running on my tank because of the rapid evaporation they cause. It had been as of late and didn't seem necessary. Apparently it was not so cool that particular weekend, and my corals suffered. I lost all but one polyp of my green zoas, and two of my fastest growing SPS colonies.
As a result of this, I'm currently planning on investing in a controller that will be able to accurately monitor the water temperature and turn the fan and heater on as appropriate, in addition to shutting down the metal halides as an emergency last step. At this point I am looking at the Reef Keeper II as the best option.
Changes in Equipment As mentioned above, I have moved to a Vortech MP20 to provide water flow. The corals and fish have become much more active with the improved water circulation, and the undertow has kept detritus from accumulating in places on the rock where it previously did.
Additionally, I've decided to stop my experiment with Zeovit. Because my tank is so sparsely stalked and has never had an issue with excess nutrients, it seemed unnecessary and potentially harmful to be running a powerful filtration option. I have switched my power filter back to running two bags of carbon and some live rock rubble.
New Species I've added several new animals to the tank over the summer. I have become quite interested in the large polyp stony corals and will be looking to get some more in the near future. • A pair of tank-bred clownfish, Amphiprion ocellaris • Two peppermint shrimp, Lysmata wurdemanni • Neon green trumpet coral, Caulastrea curvata • Brown and green candy cane coral, Caulastrea furcata • Yellow cup coral, Turbinaria peltata • Short tentacled plate coral, Fungia repanda
When I came home from work tonight the firefish was out front and center, and he's been at the glass begging food and attention ever since. I managed to get some decent pictures of him (her?) and the new coral:
Today we took a trip over to Skipton's and looked for a good first fish for the reef tank. As a person with a history of past impulse purchases, I wanted to make sure I limited my selection to species I had read about and knew would be good fits for my tank. I made up an email with common names, photographs and scientific names of the six fish I was interested in and mailed this to my iPhone. This turned out to be really helpful when staring down the tanks full of gorgeous saltwater fish.
We ended up deciding on a Purple Firefish, Nemateleotris decora. Here is a shot from when he was drip acclimating.
Quite the looker, and the colors are even more vibrant under the metal halide lighting. Its been hiding under a rock on the side of our tank for the majority of the time so far. I saw it eat a few marine food flakes that I dropped in experimentally, so hopefully all is well and its just being shy/angry about the new tank. I also picked up some frozen food while at the store, mysis shrimp and a marine blend. Once I see this guy show himself around the tank I will try out a little of that.
I also couldn't resist getting this Zoanthus colony. I've really wanted some polyps for the tank, and they were too nice to pass up. The polyps are most closed up in this photo, I will take a better one tonight showing its placement in the tank.
Its always fun when your professional life intersects with your hobby. Working for an online video service, the potential for this is quite high due to the number and variety of video publishers we work with. Blenny Lips has always been one of our favorite small video publishers, publishing great scuba shots from Bonaire:
