Harlequinmania

Click through to see the images. Robert Kolenik is an avantgarde Dutch interior designer who founded Eco Chic Design, whose name "deliberately reflects the designer’s passion for nature." Case in point: The Ocean Keuken, which is best described as a gigantic floor-level aquarium with a countertop featuring a functional stovetop, faucet and sink. The countertop mechanically raises with a push of a button for full access into the aquarium. Robert is available to custom design a Ocean Keuken for any aquarist with a large kitchen (and we assume an even larger bank account). Food may taste a little saltier than usual, but holy moly is this thing amazing! [via Gizmodo] View the full article

Click through to see the images. Richard Ross should need no introduction to readers of Advanced Aquarist, attendees at MACNA, cephalopod fanatics, and marine aquarists. But if you really don't know who Richard Ross is, here is his California Academy of Sciences' Steinhart Aquarium bio. Congrats RR! Well deserved! View the full article

My second set of MP60 Wes finally arrived !

Change my SOL led on my main tank to Vega for better light spectrum

Click through to see the images. After nearly two years of evaluation, NOAA has decided to list 20 new corals as Threatened under the ESA. Originally, NOAA proposed to list 66 species, but scientific review deemed only 20 species necessitated Threatened protection. NOAA has stated that there are currently no prohibitions to the collection, trade, and ownership of these species except for Acropora cervicornis and Acropora palmata, both of which will remain illegal to collect and own. NOAA concludes that the aquarium trade has a negative impact on these species but both its impact and the extinction potential for these species are regarded as "low" at this time. Threatened listing is one step below Endangered listing, which would mean the outright ban of any of these species. It's also important to understand that species listed as Threatened can also warrant individual prohibition on a case-by-case basis such as A.cervicornis and A.palmata. Conscientious aquarists may seek to only trade captive propagated specimens of these species in an effort to maintain the availability of these species within the hobby. However, the reality is that hobbyist-level actions will unlikely have any effect on whether any of these species will warrant special future protection or be elevated to Endangered listing. For starters, it would prove difficult to educate local island collectors about which coral species not to take, so changing hobbyists' demand will have little effect on supply (ie collection). Additionally, hobbyist have no control over the major contributors to the threat to these species such as pollution, coastal development, and climate change. Still, promoting captive propagated (and maricultured) corals is the right thing to do. Hobbyist will just have to wait and see about the future of of these corals in regards to the ESA. Here are the 22 coral species listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act: Atlantic Waters Acropora cervicornis Acropora palmata Mycetophyllia ferox Dendrogyra cylindrus Orbicella annularis Orbicella faveolata Orbicella franksi Pacific Waters Acropora globiceps Acropora globiceps Acropora jacquelineae Acropora lokani Acropora pharaonis Acropora retusa Acropora rudis Acropora speciosa Acropora tenella Anacropora spinosa Euphyllia paradivisa Isopora crateriformis Montipora australiensis Pavona diffluens Porites napopora Seriatopora aculeata From NOAA: NOAA announced on August 27, 2014 its final determinations on our proposal to list 66 corals and reclassify 2. In total, 22 species of coral are now protected as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act, including the two corals (elkhorn and staghorn) listed as threatened in 2006. Fifteen of the newly listed species occur in the Indo-Pacific and five in the Caribbean. None are found in Hawaii. No species were listed as "endangered." The Endangered Species Act gives us some important tools to conserve and recover those corals most in need of protection. The final decision to list these 20 corals is a result of the most extensive rulemaking ever undertaken by NOAA. The amount of scientific information sought, obtained, and analyzed was unprecedented. This information included general reef-building coral biology, habitat characteristics and threats, as well as species-specific spatial, demographic, and other information for the individual coral species in the final rule. The final decision is a significant change from the proposed rule in November 2012, which proposed listing 66 species (a mix of threatened and endangered). We changed our determinations for many of the species for two general reasons: (1) We received and gathered new general and species specific information; and (2) Public comments helped us refine the way we apply all the available information to determine vulnerability to extinction of each species considered. For more information on the next steps and supporting documents, please visit http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/stories/2014/08/corals_listing.html View the full article

BELL win this contest with the most " LIKES" for his post. Congratulation to BELL for winning this contest !!

Click through to see the images. Macropharyngodon pakoko (what a cool name to say!) is most closely related to M.meleagris (the classic leopard wrasse) and M.geoffroy (the Hawaiian potter's wrasse). Like the other eleven Macropharyngdon spp, M.pakoko is sexually dimorphic similar to the differences between male and female M.meleagris. Differences between M.pakoko (a), M.meleagris (, and M.geoffroy © is much more evident in their juveniles, shown in top-to-bottom order to the right. The full description of Macropharyngodon pakoko is described in Zootaxa. View the full article

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You can mix NSW and aged salt water mix. If you intent to use the Alkaline drinking water, do test the PH is if it is not too high or too low. Try to have alot of swimming space in your scaping, and an over sized skimmer if you intend to keep more fishes. Hope it helps.

I am using the samsung webcam , it is very easy to setup without a computer if you buy those with in-build WiFi model.

Click through to see the images. When we imagine evolution, most of us picture a fish taking its first steps out of water to become a land-dwelling tetropod. Of course, this major evolutionary step didn't happen so quickly, but researchers at the University of Ottowa appeared to have taken this idea to heart by teaching birchirs to walk on land. In the process, the birchirs are teaching us a lot about how aquatic life may have transitioned onto land. First thing's first. For anyone who doesn't know what birchirs are, they are just about the coolest fish on earth. They look like prehistoric dinosaur fish with pronounced armored scales, crazy archaic fins, and a head that looks more like a lizard than a fish. In fact, the jaws of birchirs more closely resemble tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates like amphibians, lizards, birds, and mammals) than they do fish jaws. What's more, in addition to gills, bichirs also breath air via a pair of primitive ventral lungs! It's little surprise the researchers concentrated their efforts on bichirs (specifically Polypterus senegalus) because of their ability to live out-of-water. This unique order of fish is as close to the "missing link" as any extant species. 100 bichirs were reared in tanks with only a couple millimeters of water; Constant misting was used to keep their skins moist. 50 other control bichirs were reared in tanks fully filled with water, an environment more akin to their natural habitat; bichirs are found at the bottom of African rivers, swamps, and floodplains, coming up for a gasp of air when necessary. The results? Microevolution. Over the course of eight months, all the bichirs raised above-water learned to "walk" much more effectively than their underwater brethren. The land-dwelling bichirs learned to walk with much less slippage and much better balance and leverage by moving with their fins closer to their bodies while raising their heads higher. Moreover, researchers documented remarkable anatomical differences developing between the two groups. The land-dwelling bichirs grew slightly longer shoulder blades that began to resemble those of stem tetrapods. They also developed bones that resembled the beginnings of an extended neck that is common on terrestrial creatures but absent in aquatic life. While the observed behavioral and physiological changes were regarded as minor, keep in mind that all this occurred within just eight short months! Researchers hope to study multiple generations of bichirs raised on land to shed light on the seminal evolutionary process. The paper is published in the current issue of Nature: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13708 And yes, bichirs are tropical and regularly kept in aquariums. See below: " height="383" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="680"> "> "> View the full article

new shipment from Marine life and GO just landed.

Rows phos and bio sphere work differently so can be use together. Rows phos is to reduce phosphate while bio sphere remove nitrate. If you can bring these two parameter down,yes it will greatly reduce the frequency of your water change.

Click through to see the images. The Washington DC Area Marine Aquarist Society (WAMAS) is excited to announce that MACNA® 2015 (the Marine Aquarium Conference of North America) will take place on September 4th, 5th, and 6th of 2015 at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, in northwest Washington, DC. MACNA is in its 27th year and is the oldest and largest marine aquarium conference in North America. With its historic museums and monuments, and home to the three branches of our government, DC offers a dynamic backdrop that is second to none. A crossroads of history, culture and contemporary style, DC inspires like no other destination and makes MACNA’s return to DC a fantastic choice. For more details please visit our website at www.macna2015.org. MACNA is proudly sponsored by: United Pet Group/Marineland, CoralVue, Neptune Systems, Fluval, EcoTech Marine, AquaIllumination, ReefSavvy/NextReef, Two Little Fishies, Reef Nutrition, Drs. Foster & Smith/LiveAquaria, Ecoxotic, and eShopps. WAMAS is a registered 501©(3) non-profit educational organization dedicated to supporting the local aquarium hobby through educational outreach, fostering new hobbyists, and furthering the advancement of captive bred marine ornamentals. MACNA is a registered trademark of the Marine Aquarium Societies of North America (MASNA). For more details about MASNA and its member clubs please visit www.masna.org View the full article

Click through to see the images. In a Nature paper, published in 2007, the lab of Dr. Russell Fernald at Stanford University showed that fish are capable of inferring which fish to fight for territories based on observations of previous interactions with other territorial fish [1]. After observing a series of interactions between several males, they are able to use deductive reasoning to infer an implied dominance rank among the observed individuals. Later on, in 2010 the Fernald lab showed that females are able to remember which males had won or lost in a fight, and when given a choice, preferred winners over losers [2]. Work performed by Dr. Trevor Hamilton and Erica Ingraham at MacEwan University has shown that fish can remember where they are receiving food 12 days after the training period had ceased (unpublished data). It makes sense that fish would be capable of remembering where to find food or mates, how to avoid predators, or where to best lay eggs, as these decisions significantly impact fitness and reproductive success. Figure 1 (right): Image of a recorded path from video tracking software used at in Dr. Hamilton’s Lab at MacEwan University. Tracking plot shows fish spend more time in areas where they have been previously fed than other areas of the tank. Social learning is another interesting topic currently garnering attention in the field. Dr. Alex Jordan is a Post-Doctoral researcher at The University of Texas. He is currently working to understand the social facilitation of learning in multiple fish species. Dr. Jordan is exploring how group dynamics and an individual’s position within the social hierarchy, or social circumstances, affect both their learning abilities, and teaching abilities. ‘Animals don’t exist in dyads’ Dr. Jordan says, and there are ‘universal social truths’ shared across vertebrates.’ Here, his work controls for a variable ecological environment while exploring how ‘information is communicated and propagated in a realistically complex social group.’ In short, groups of fish are placed in a large aquarium where a stimulus is followed by a food reward. Some species are capable of learning to respond to the stimulus in just a few days, and remember it many weeks (or even months) following the training period. High-tech video tracking software follows individual fish and allows discernment of their stimulus response behaviors (unpublished data). While the story here is not yet written, there are trends that dominant individuals are poor teachers compared to subordinates. He has also seen that fish learn more quickly when other fish that have previously learned the task are present. Although this could be due to a variety of reasons, social learning seems the most plausible. Figure 2: A fish observing aggressive interactions, which sees fish ‘A’ is dominant to fish ‘B’ and Fish ‘B’ is dominant to fish ‘C’ and so on, is able to deduce that fish ‘A’ is dominant to fish ‘E’ and ‘D’. Fish are even capable of transmitting cultural traditions comparable to other vertebrate groups. It has been hypothesized (especially in long lived fishes) that migration routes to spawning grounds are taught to younger individuals by older more experienced fish. The loss of some of these larger and older fish due to commercial fishing may have led to population declines with species such as the cod [3]. While not all fish species have equal brainpower, several are clearly capable of complex cognitive learning. Many reef fishes and cichlid species commonly kept in aquariums are among those well-studied groups shown to be intelligent. So the next time you look at your fish and you think it might recognize you. You might be right! Citations 1. Grosenick, L., T.S. Clement, and R.D. Fernald, Fish can infer social rank by observation alone. Nature, 2007. 445(7126): p. 429-32. 2. Desjardins, J.K., J.Q. Klausner, and R.D. Fernald, Female genomic response to mate information. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010. 107(49): p. 21176-21180. 3. Brown, C., Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics. Anim Cogn, 2014. View the full article

Forget to mention that thanks to our Sponsor - Reef Depot, they will throw in a free wireless controller for the winner of the AI 26 as well ..

The standing till date ; 1) BELL 2) ClementC 3) MacroVan

4 more day to go till the winner get this AI 26 with controller !

Click through to see the images. You are only as strong as your weakest link. Pacific Sun is breaking the design barriers which have historically limited the precision of aquarium dosing pumps. By using a variable speed motor, they were able to get the original Kore 5th increments down to an already more-than-capable 0.1ml (for more details, read our article about this impressive dosing pump). However, basic drip dispensers - basically airline tubing dangling open-ended over water - limited the Kore 5th ability to dispense higher precision drips. Even something seemingly as trivial as evaporation can affect drips. Pacific Sun has introduced the DropDose, a clever solution to overcome this engineering limitation. The DropDose is a five channel acrylic drip dispenser designed with humidity chambers to negate the effects of evaporation on dosing accuracy. If you're an obsessive aquarist seeking minute dosing precision, the Kore 5th + DropDose was made for you. For the rest of us, the DropDose is still an elegant drip dispenser. The DropDose (along with the new Kore 5th software/firmware patch) should be available in the first week of September, 2014 for a MSRP of €29. Sometimes it's the little things. Here is a video of the new DropDoser in action: View the full article

Click through to see the images. " height="386" style="width: 690px;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="690"> "> "> Goliath groupers have been fished to critically endangered status, but since becoming a protected no-take species, their population are slowly but steadily rebounding. While goliath groupers look like sea monsters, they are known to be gentle giants around divers, as the photo below shows. Now, if you're a reef shark, that's a whole other story. It's a bigger fish eat big fish world out there. Nature is awesome like that. View the full article

Click through to see the images. From a reefkeeping perspective: While several studies have found that activated carbon can induce head-and-lateral-line-erosion disease (HLLE), other studies revealing the significance of odors on fish's and coral's behavior (such as the GA Tech research described below) makes you wonder if media used to absorb odorous chemicals may benefit our livestock's well-being. Foul odors built up over time may also partially explain why fish and corals are observed perking up immediately after water changes. Ultimately, the lesson is to maintain a healthy reef and be diligent about keeping the water as clean as possible because your fish and corals do not like a smelly home. You wouldn't like living next to a garbage dump, so don't make your animals suffer that fate. From the Georgia Tech University Pacific corals and fish can both smell a bad neighborhood, and use that ability to avoid settling in damaged reefs. Damaged coral reefs emit chemical cues that repulse young coral and fish, discouraging them from settling in the degraded habitat, according to new research. The study shows for the first time that coral larvae can smell the difference between healthy and damaged reefs when they decide where to settle. Coral reefs are declining around the world. Overfishing is one cause of coral collapse, depleting the herbivorous fish that remove the seaweed that sprouts in damaged reefs. Once seaweed takes hold of a reef, a tipping point can occur where coral growth is choked and new corals rarely settle. The new study shows how chemical signals from seaweed repel young coral from settling in a seaweed-dominated area. Young fish were also not attracted to the smell of water from damaged reefs. The findings suggest that designating overfished coral reefs as marine protected areas may not be enough to help these reefs recover because chemical signals continue to drive away new fish and coral long after overfishing has stopped. “If you’re setting up a marine protected area to seed recruitment into a degraded habitat, that recruitment may not happen if young fish and coral are not recognizing the degraded area as habitat,” said Danielle Dixson, an assistant professor in the School of Biology at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and the study's first author. The study will be published August 22 in the journal Science. The research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Teasley Endowment to Georgia Tech. The new study examined three marine areas in Fiji that had adjacent fished areas. The country has established no-fishing areas to protect its healthy habitats and also to allow damaged reefs to recover over time. Juveniles of both corals and fishes were repelled by chemical cues from overfished, seaweed-dominated reefs but attracted to cues from coral-dominated areas where fishing is prohibited. Both coral and fish larvae preferred certain chemical cues from species of coral that are indicators of a healthy habitat, and they both avoided certain seaweeds that are indicators of a degraded habitat. The study for the first time tested coral larvae in a method that has been used previously to test fish, and found that young coral have strong preferences for odors from healthy reefs. "Not only are coral smelling good areas versus bad areas, but they’re nuanced about it," said Mark Hay, a professor in the School of Biology at Georgia Tech and the study's senior author. "They’re making careful decisions and can say, 'settle or don’t settle.'" The study showed that young fish have an overwhelming preference for water from healthy reefs. The researchers put water from healthy and degraded habitats into a flume that allowed fish to choose to swim in one stream of water or the other. The researchers tested the preferences of 20 fish each from 15 different species and found that regardless of species, family or trophic group, each of the 15 species showed up to an eight times greater preference for water from healthy areas. The researchers then tested coral larvae from three different species and found that they preferred water from the healthy habitat five-to-one over water from the degraded habitat. Chemical cues from corals also swayed the fishes' preferences, the study found. The researchers soaked different corals in water and studied the behavior of fish in that water, which had picked up chemical cues from the corals. Cues of the common coral Acropora nasuta enhanced attraction to water from the degraded habitat by up to three times more for all 15 fishes tested. A similar preference was found among coral larvae. Acropora corals easily bleach, are strongly affected by algal competition, and are prone to other stresses. The data demonstrate that chemical cues from these corals are attractive to fish and corals because they are found primarily in healthy habitats. Chemical cues from hardy corals, which can grow even in overfished habitats, were less attractive to juvenile fishes or corals. The researchers also soaked seaweed in water and tested fish and coral preferences in that water. Cues from the common seaweed Sargassum polycystum, which can bloom and take over a coral reef, reduced the attractiveness of water to fish by up to 86 percent compared to water without the seaweed chemical cues. Chemical cues from the seaweed decreased coral larval attraction by 81 percent. "Corals avoided that smell more than even algae that's chemically toxic to coral but doesn't bloom," Dixson said. " height="383" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="680"> "> "> Future work will involve removing plots of seaweed from damaged reefs and studying how that impacts reef recovery. A minimum amount of intervention at the right time and the right place could jump start the recovery of overfished reefs, Hay said. That could bring fish back to the area so they settle and eat the seaweed around the corals. The corals would then get bigger because the seaweed is not overgrown. Bigger corals would then be more attractive to more fish. "What this means is we probably need to manage these reefs in ways that help remove the most negative seaweeds and then help promote the most positive corals," Hay said. This research is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), under award number OCE-0929119, and the National Institutes of Health, under award number U01-TW007401. Any conclusions or opinions are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the sponsoring agency. CITATION: Dixson et al., "Chemically mediated behavior of recruiting corals and fishes: A tipping point that may limit reef recovery." (August 2014, Science). http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6199/892 View the full article

Finding the location and organizing the space including the setup of the holding tank would be a big issue. We tried organizing the frag swap before, but unfortunately we dont see the respond.

Click through to see the images. Behold, the power of Reddit to find the most bizarre and fascinating things on the good ol' interwebs: Watch goldfish dual in Streetfighter. No, seriously ... we aren't kidding. Click the link. Some people have way too much time on their hands (we're talking about both the person who designed a system for fish to play computer games ... and the five to ten thousand of people who watch it at any given time). Andrew Hill describes his gift to the world on his twitch stream: I have virtually segmented my fish tank into 9 parts (3 by 3). Depending on which part of the tank a fish is in, it will send a different key press to the game. Aquarius (the orange goldfish) sends key presses for Player 1, and Robert the Bruce (the black goldfish) sends key presses for Player 2. As for the actual code used for color detection and key sending, I do all of it using AutoIt and some shoddy code I cooked up over the course of a few days. Schedule All times are for weekdays in EST. Weekends will vary. 7:30AM - Fish have breakfast, competitive Day begins 5:30PM - Fish have supper, competitive Day continues 10:00PM - Competitive Day ends, score summary is posted, Overnight stream begins, fish mostly just sleep View the full article

Click through to see the images. From Oregon State University: Lionfish characteristics make them more “terminator” than predator New research on the predatory nature of red lionfish, the invasive Pacific Ocean species that is decimating native fish populations in parts of the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic Ocean, seems to indicate that lionfish are not just a predator, but more like the “terminator” of movie fame. The finding of behavior that was called “alarming” was presented today by Kurt Ingeman, a researcher from Oregon State University, at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. Most native predatory fish are attracted to prey when their numbers are high, when successful attacks are easy and when a minimum of energy is needed to catch and eat other fish, according to previous research done by Michael Webster, a fish ecologist who received his doctorate from OSU. As the population of prey diminishes, the native predators often move on to other areas where, literally, the fishing is better. The new research concludes that lionfish, by comparison, appear to stay in one area even as the numbers of prey diminish, and in some cases can eat the population to local extinction. They have unique characteristics that make this possible, and like the terminator, they simply will not stop until the last of their prey is dead. “Lionfish seem to be the ultimate invader,” said Ingeman, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Integrative Biology within the OSU College of Science. “Almost every new thing we learn about them is some characteristic that makes them a more formidable predator. And it’s now clear they will hunt successfully even when only a few fish are present. This behavior is unusual and alarming.” This research was conducted on replicated natural reefs in the Bahamas, measuring prey mortality of the fairy basslet – a popular aquarium fish and a common prey of lionfish. Predation rates were compared between reefs with the invasive lionfish and reefs with native predators alone, and across a range of population levels of the fairy basslet. Ingeman found that when prey fish were present at a low population density, the rate of mortality with lionfish present was four times higher than that caused by native predators alone, such as medium-sized groupers or trumpet fish. The findings are of some importance, researchers said, because fairy basslet live in small local populations, which are most vulnerable to local extinction. It also shows that the mechanisms that ordinarily regulate population size can be altered. “Reef fish usually hide in rocks and crevices for protection, and with high populations, there is a scramble for shelter,” Ingeman said. “Native predators take advantage of this situation by mostly eating when and where prey are abundant. As prey population levels decline, it takes a lot more energy to catch fish, so the predators often move on to other areas.” Because of this process that scientists call “density-dependent” predation, populations of native prey fish tend to shrink when they get too large, grow when they get too small, and are rarely ever wiped out completely. Lionfish, however, have such advantages as an invasive species that they apparently feel no need to move on for better or easier hunting. They may not be recognized as a predator by other fish, leading to high mortality even when shelter is abundant. Lionfish are also very efficient hunters, are well-defended themselves by poisonous spines, and can thrive at deep levels in the ocean. They tolerate a wide range of habitats and water conditions, reproduce rapidly most of the year, eat many different species of native fish and may overeat rare species. Still unclear, Ingeman said, is whether evolutionary pressures may allow native fish in the Atlantic Ocean to adapt new behaviors that provide better defense against lionfish. “There’s a strong pressure here for natural selection to come into play eventually,” Ingeman said. “We know that fish can learn and change their behavior, sometimes over just a few generations. But we don’t have any studies yet to demonstrate this is taking place with native fish populations in the Atlantic.” The lionfish invasion in the Atlantic Ocean is believed to have begun in the 1980s and now covers an area larger than the entirety of the United States. Ingeman’s adviser, Mark Hixon, and fellow graduate students have shown that lionfish can wipe out more than 90 percent of the native fish in some hard-hit areas. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and the Cape Eleuthera Institute of the Bahamas. View the full article

Seem like you are battling some hair algae issue, maybe you want to share with us more of the filtration that you use ?