Harlequinmania

Click through to see the images. Right whales consist of three species: the North Atlantic right whale (E. glacialis), the North Pacific right whale (E. japonica) and the southern right whale (E. australis). All three are on the Endangered Species list with the North Atlantic right whale classified as 'endangered' whereas the North Pacific species is listed as 'critically endangered' as there are roughly 50 left in the world. Understanding these creatures is of utmost importance if we are to bring them back from the brink of extinction. Using the latest underwater autonomous vehicle technology and newly developed software, scientists have taught these roving torpedo-shaped robots how to identify the songs of the right whale. When spotted, the robots report back to home base to let scientists know the whales are in the vicinity. Read the press release below on how they accomplished this: Press Release Two robots equipped with instruments designed to “listen” for the calls of baleen whales detected nine endangered North Atlantic right whales in the Gulf of Maine last month. The robots reported the detections to shore-based researchers within hours of hearing the whales (i.e., in real time), demonstrating a new and powerful tool for managing interactions between whales and human activities. The team of researchers, led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientists Mark Baumgartner and Dave Fratantoni, reported their sightings to NOAA, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the Marine Mammal Protection Act. NOAA Fisheries Service, in turn, put in place on Dec. 5 a “dynamic management area,” asking mariners to voluntarily slow their vessel speed to avoid striking the animals. The project employed ocean-going robots called gliders equipped with a digital acoustic monitoring (DMON) instrument and specialized software allowing the vehicle to detect and classify calls from four species of baleen whales – sei, fin, humpback, and right whales. The gliders’s real-time communication capabilities alerted scientists to the presence of whales in the research area, in the first successful use of technology to report detections of several species of baleen whales from autonomous vehicles. During the expedition, they identified four individual right whales, including #3611, seen here, an unnamed male. To identify the animals, the experts examine unique features on the whales, such as scars, patterns of color, and the patches of thickened skin on their heads, called callosities. The oceanographic research project was underway from Nov. 12 through Dec. 5, operating in an area called the Outer Fall, about sixty miles south of Bar Harbor, Me., and 90 miles northeast of Portsmouth, NH. Right whales are thought to use this area every year between November and January as a mating ground. Two gliders were deployed by Ben Hodges and Nick Woods, also of WHOI, on Nov. 12 from the University of New Hampshire’s 50-ft research vessel, the Gulf Challenger. The vehicles surveyed the area for two weeks, sending data to the researchers every two hours via satellite, prior to the scientific team’s arrival Nov. 28 on the University of Rhode Island’s research vesselEndeavor. The gliders continued to survey for another week before being recovered by the Endeavor on Dec. 4. “We put two gliders out in the central Gulf of Maine to find whales for us,” says Baumgartner, who specializes in baleen whale and zooplankton ecology. “They reported hearing whales within hours of hitting the water. They did their job perfectly.” Using the gliders’s reconnaissance data and continued real-time updates, the science team was able to locate whales in just a few hours of searching. “We found our first right whale on the first day that we were surveying in decent weather conditions because the gliders were up there doing the leg work for us, to tell us where the animals were in real time,” says Baumgartner. The innovative whale detection system provides conservation managers with a cost-effective alternative to ship- or plane-based means of identifying the presence of whales, and gives whale ecologists new tools for understanding large animals that spend most of their lives out of human eyesight below the sea surface. Whale researchers want to learn what draws whales to this part of the ocean during the late fall and winter. However, high winds and rough seas typical of that time of year make studying the animals very difficult. “This presents a huge knowledge gap,” says Baumgartner. The labor-intensive work of surveying for whales, overseen by NOAA, is usually done by human observers on ships or airplanes, and is limited by the conditions at sea. “We’ve been doing visual based surveys for a long time – either from a plane or a boat. They have a lot of value, but they are limited, especially at certain times of the year,” says Sofie Van Parijs, leader of the Passive Acoustic Research Group at NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC). “These gliders provide a great complement to this system. Knowing where right whales are helps you manage interactions between an endangered species and the human activities that impact those species.” Chief scientist Mark Baumgartner secures a glider (with its wings removed) after it was recovered Dec. 4 from its three-week mission. The gliders are equipped with an underwater microphone and an iridium satellite antenna. The success of the project is a result of years of productive collaboration among engineers, biologists and physical oceanographers at WHOI, scientists at the NEFSC Protected Species Branch in Woods Hole, and federal funders like the Office of Naval Research and NOAA’s Applied Science and Technology Working Group Program via the Cooperative Institute for the North Atlantic Region (CINAR). The gliders are operated by Fratantoni, a physical oceanographer; the DMON acoustic monitoring instrument was developed by WHOI engineers Mark Johnson and Tom Hurst; and Baumgartner, who has nearly a decade of experience identifying whale calls, wrote software for the DMON to enable it to recognize unique calls of sei, fin, humpback, and right whales, and to keep a tally of when and where it heard each call. By integrating the DMON into Fratantoni’s gliders, the team had the ability to search large areas of the ocean and to receive data in real time. “No one of us could've done this project alone. But by teaming up, we created a really nice group of people with expertise that was tailor made for this problem,” says Baumgartner. “Now, we can know that there's an animal in a particular part of the ocean within hours of a call being made, as opposed to months later,” when the instruments have finally been retrieved and the data has been reviewed. Gliders – approx. six-foot-long, torpedo-shaped autonomous vehicles with short wings – have been in use by oceanographers for about a decade. They move up, down, and laterally in a sawtooth pattern through the water by changing their buoyancy and using their wings to provide lift. Battery powered and exceptionally quiet in the water, the gliders are equipped with an underwater microphone on the underside of the vehicle near its wings, and an iridium satellite antenna on the tail section. The vehicle surfaces every few hours to get a GPS position and transmit data to shore-side computers. The DMON – a circuit board and battery about the size of an iPhone – sits inside the glider recording audio and generating spectrograms, a form of the audio that facilitates complex sound analysis. From the spectrogram, Baumgartner’s software generates a “pitch track,” a visual representation of a whale call, and estimates which species of whale made the call based on characteristics of the pitch track. Tallies of each species’ detected calls and even a small subset of detected pitch tracks can be transmitted to shore by the vehicle. “Each pitch track takes less than 100 bytes, whereas transmitting just one of those calls as an audio clip would take about 8000 bytes of data,” says Baumgartner. This makes the system efficient and economical. And, adds Baumgartner, it’s also really flexible. It is easy to update the software to include a larger repertoire of whale calls into the software’s “call library.” In addition to demonstrating the utility of the robots for the management and conservation of baleen whales, the project also has ongoing scientific objectives. One goal of the shipboard research team, in addition to spotting the whales, was to take measurements and collect biological samples of the tiny crustaceans or zooplankton upon which the whales feed, in an effort to characterize the oceanic conditions and to understand how those conditions impact the whale’s food and ultimately attracts whales to the study area. “Untangling how that happens is a big deal,” says Fratantoni. “We wanted to figure out what right whales were feeding on in this area,” says Baumgartner. “We took profiles of the temperature and the salinity of the water and sampled zooplankton throughout the water column to understand what might make this area attractive to right whales.” Analysis of these data is in progress now. Additional team members included representatives from the New England Aquarium who maintain a catalog of right whales and are experts in identifying individual right whales from patches of thickened skin on their heads, called callosities. Through their efforts, the team recognized four of the individual whales sighted during their week on the research ship -- two males born in 2006, one male born in 2004, and one female born in 2008. (via Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) View the full article

Still available,

Click through to see the images. Bills H.R. 69, the Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing Enforcement Act of 2013, and H.R. 71, the Coral Reef Conservation Act Reauthorization and Enhancement Amendments of 2013, were introduced January 3rd by Guam's Democratic delegate Madeleine Z. Bordallo. The goal of H.R. 69 is to help regulate illegal fishing by giving additional powers to the U.S. Coast Guard and the NOAA. These additional powers include the ability for inspection and monitoring of illicit boats. The bill also updates several international agreements and increases the ability to share data with other governments to identify and punish other nations that are not complying with regulations. H.R. 71 bolsters the Coral Reef Conservation Act of 2000 by implementing recommended changes from the United States All Islands Coral Reef Committee (AIC) and Secretariat, which is a collaborative initiative to conserve coral reefs in U.S. jurisdictions. The goal of the bill is to better the NOAA's capacity to respond to emergency and disaster-related situations and to reduce vessel impacts on coral reefs. According to the Saipan Tribune: “These bills will help strengthen existing measures to protect our ocean resources and waters around Guam,” said Bordallo. “Illegal fishing threatens the economic and social infrastructure of fishing communities, and the security of the United States and our allies around the world, by decreasing opportunities for legitimate and conscientious fishermen. The IUU Fishing Enforcement Act would further enhance the enforcement authority of NOAA and the U.S. Coast Guard to regulate IUU fishing and prevent the depletion of fishing stocks worldwide. “Additionally, I reintroduced the Coral Reef Reauthorization bill because this legislation has stimulated a greater commitment to protect, conserve and restore coral reef resources within jurisdictional waters of the United States. As a result, we now have a much better grasp of the condition of our coral reefs and more focused management capability than at any time in our history.” (via Saipan Tribune) View the full article

Click through to see the images. The Art of the Planted Aquarium centers around two aquascaping competitions based on size: XL competition: 150 liter (~40 gallons), 100x50x50 cm (40x20x20") Nano competition: 20 liter (~5 gallons), 25x25x30 cm (10x10x12") Aquariums are judged on "originality, composition of planting, harmony of planting and decoration, condition of plants, room arrangement, creative effect and long term development the design." 2013's The Art of the Planted Aquarium will be held between January 25 to 27, 2013. Organizers expect another big turn out (over 55,000 avid nature aquarists attended in 2011!). Until then, enjoy these two compilation videos of 2012's contestants showcasing all the entries for the XL and Nano competition. The video is provided by Polish aquascaping website definiteaquascape.tv. The designs would make nature aquarium guru Takashi Amano proud. We know this for sure because Amano was both the judge and guest lecturer for The Art of the Planted Aquarium 2012. XL Competition: " height="383" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640"> "> "> Nano Competition: " height="383" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640"> "> "> View the full article

Click through to see the images. According to Wyatt Patry of Jellyfish Aquarist, Cubic has just named their North American distributors for their awesome jellyfish tank: Polyp Lab and Xenia Inc, both of which are based in Canada. For those that do not remember, the Cubic jellyfish aquarium is 26" x 10" x 24" kreisel-like aquarium that comes as an all-in-one solution for keeping jellyfish. It features a built-in filtration system and fully adjustable LED lighting with remote. It is expected to cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 US when it arrives in the states. View the full article

Click through to see the images. The Art of the Planted Aquarium centers around two aquascaping competitions based on size: XL competition: 150 liter (~40 gallons), 100x50x50 cm (40x20x20") Nano competition: 20 liter (~5 gallons), 25x25x30 cm (10x10x12") Aquariums are judged on "originality, composition of planting, harmony of planting and decoration, condition of plants, room arrangement, creative effect and long term development the design." 2013's The Art of the Planted Aquarium will be held between January 25 to 27, 2013. Organizers expect another big turn out (over 55,000 avid nature aquarists attended in 2011!). Until then, enjoy these two compilation videos of 2012's contestants showcasing all the entries for the XL and Nano competition. The video is provided by Polish aquascaping website definiteaquascape.tv. The designs would make nature aquarium guru Takashi Amano proud. We know this for sure because Amano was both the judge and guest lecturer for The Art of the Planted Aquarium 2012. XL Competition: " height="383" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640"> "> "> Nano Competition: " height="383" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="640"> "> "> View the full article

Another new week !

Best way = more water change . Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

There is a few inquiry about this lighting if it is suitable for SPS, and personally i have tried it and i feel so far it is one of the few "proven" LED that will grow your SPS, although might not be as fast as traditional lighting like MH. Price negotiable if taking the 4 pcs of lighting together.

U should test with other test kit brand like salifest which is more accurate imo. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Yes ph 7.8 is too low for the fish, buffer it up to ideally 8.3 Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Click through to see the images. The AquariusPC is a fully operational computer system designed inside a liquid-filled 5 gallon aquarium for the ultimate in silent, cool computing. Yes; The Intel/AMD CPU, motherboard, Nvidia/ATI videocard, memory, and power supply are completely submerged! And yes, you can turn on this computer to surf the internet, crunch your tax numbers, or play a game of minesweeper . Hofer pulls of the seemingly impossible feat by filling the AquariusPC's "aquarium enclosure" with pharmaceutical grade mineral oil, chosen for the following properties: High heat conductivity No electrical conductivity Odorless and colorless Low viscosity Non-flammable Non-oxidizing These characteristics allow the electronics to function normally without fear of short-circuiting, all while the mineral oil provides cooling that Hofer claims is "much more reliable than fan or liquid cooling systems." An air pump provides convective circulation of the solution in order to transfer heat out of the aquarium. The only part that is not submerged is the hard drive, whose moving parts would not properly function because the density of the oil interferes with its mechanical parts. The bottom of the AquariusPC is even lined with gravel for the full aquarium effect. Prices range from $500-600 for a fully assembled computer ... not bad considering you'll be the only guy on your block with a PC aquarium; It's a guaranteed conversation piece. Here is a video of the AquariusPC in action. View the full article

Congratulation again to Hon kit for winning one set of the Polyplab Reef Resh worth $ 189.00 sponsored by

On behalf of SRC, I would also like to take the opportunity to thanks our member jquek for accepting the roles of being our official photographer taking the time to his place for the photo taking. If not we will not be able to capture the wonders of the winner tank. All photos shown here is taken by jquek .

Some personal Q & A questions 1. How long have you been reefing? Ans: I began reefing in 2003 and stopped in 2007. I re-commenced the hobby in October 2011. 2. How did you get into this hobby? Ans: The Finding Nemo movie was the catalyst that sparked my reefing interest. 3. Are you a fish guy or a Coral guy? Ans: Very much a coral person, in particular SPS corals. 4. What is your main concern when looking around for your reefing equipment? Ans: Value for money 5. What is your favorite past time Ans: Keeping a reef tank, what else! 6. What is the satisfaction you got from this hobby? Ans: To see my saltwater animals grow and thrive in my tank. 7. Any advice for newbie in this hobby? Ans: Start with easier-to-keep fishes and corals and look for an experienced reefer or two who can function as a mentor of sorts (this is where forums like sgreefclub.com can be very handy!) Final Acknowledgement and thank you note. I would like to thank my missus for her patience and understanding in putting up with my glass box of saltwater in the living room (thanks dear!) and to all the reefer friends that I have met and have given me excellent advice and support throughout my years of reefing.

Live Stocks - Fish: Yellow tang Mystery Wrasse Radiant Wrasse Black oceallaris clownfish African flamenback angelfish

LPS corals I keep are: Scolymia australis, Euphyllia divisa (true octopus coral), lobophyllia (brain coral), blastomussas, favites which I also keep a variety of zoanthid corals in one corner of my tank.

Addictive used I utilize the Fauna Marin Ultralith system (zeolite stones, bacteria, bacteria food & amino acids) to keep nitrates and phospates as low as I possibly can as well as Fauna Marin Reef Color Elements for tweaking SPS coral colours. I also dose Two Little Fishies’ C-Balance which is a two-part solution to replenish calcium and bicarbonate (alkalinity). I find it is very helpful in maintain stable Ca and dKh levels as well as supplying trace elements which are beneficial to the corals. As my tank is SPS dominated, I further augment my bicarbonate replenishment with sodium bicarbonate dissolved in warm water which is added daily via a dosing pump. Live stocks – Corals About 75% of my corals are SPS types. Species I keep include: Acropora yongei (Bali Green Slimer), Acropora Loisettae, Acropora Nobilis, Acropora millepora, Acropora horrida (Chips acro), Montipora danae, Montipora Verrucosa, Montipora captitata, Acropora valida, Acropora Hyacinthus, Acropora Echinata, Acropora Hoeksemai, Acropora Gomezi, Acropora Batumae, Stylophora Pistilatta, Acropora Tortuosa, Acropora Chesterfieldensis, Seriatopora Hystrix, Acropora Abrolhosensis, Acropora Sarmentosa, Montipora Capricornis, Acropora Abratanoides, Poccilopora damicornis, Acropora Sameonsis, Poccilopora Eydouxi, Acropora Verweyi, Montipora Porites, Montipora Digitata

I have to remove some of the discussion here to keep it clean, since it is getting more unrelated discussion to this section anymore . Please take the discussion under the other section i.e kopi thiam if you wish Thanks

We are proud to featured this quarter Tank of the Quarter ( TOTQ ) winner . Honkit beautiful SPS dominated reef tank to be be showcase . Congratulation to Hon Kit !!! Theme of your wining tank : Hon Kit’s SPS dominant reef tank Brief Introduction of your history of setting up your tank I am honoured to be choosen as the latest TOTQ winner and it is with joy and thankfulness that I am writing this. My reefing roots sprouted almost a decade ago in 2003 when after watching Finding Nemo the movie, I was inspired to set up a saltwater tank in my home. It was a simple 50 gallon bowfront tank that was converted from an old goldfish tank with no sump. When things turned sour in my tank with livestocks suffering, I decided to pull the hobby plug in 2007. However, little did I know that the reefing poison is permanently ingrained in my nervous system and try as I might, after a four year hiatus, I finally succumbed to temptation and set up a new reef tank in October 2011 which was slightly more than one year after having moved to my new home. Ironically, I initially intended to keep a simple fish only tank with a few interesting invertebrates to keep costs down. However, having tried keeping SPS corals before, the SPS bug bit me deeply and I decided to plunge into it again (although my bank account certainly protested!). With this in mind, I firmly intended to do the best I could for an SPS dominated reef tank and thus I embarked on a few steps which were firsts for me namely: 1) Use RO/DI water exclusively 2) Utilize a probiotic method religiously (I began with Prodibio but eventually switched to the Fauna Marin Ultralith system) 3) Slow stocking of fishes (one fish every 2-3 weeks) and enforcing a limit on the number of fishes I intended to keep in my tank 4) Use dead rock for rock scaping as live rocks are filled with pests and unwanted algae It’s been almost 15 months since my tank was up and running and I am glad that things have been relatively smooth with the occasional algae break-out notwithstanding. Tank specifications Salinity: 1.025 Temperature: 25-27 degrees celcius Ph: Unknown Calcium – 400 Alkalinity– 7.5-8.0 Magnesium – Unknown Tank: Hardware Skimmer: Skimz SM251 Mechanical filtration: Filter sock Dosing pump: Kamoer Chiller: Drop-in titanium coil with 1 HP Daikin air-con compressor Biopellet / reactor: None Chemical filtration: Activated Carbon Main return pump: Eheim 1262 Wave maker: Tunze Turbulle 6125, Tunze Turbulle 6155, Vortech MP40wES Others Equipments : ATI Sunpower 6X39W + DE retrofit T5 2X39W Lighting period : 4 bulbs on for 9.5 hours, 4 bulbs on for 4.5 hours

Or fill up the whole bottom with zoas lol.. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

Click through to see the images. University of California press release Flushing Nemo: Home aquarium species a potential threat to California waters Well-intentioned children and aquarium hobbyists seeking to “free” their pet fish down a toilet bowl or into a local waterway may inadvertently be contributing to the threat of invasive species downstream, according to a new report from the University of California, Davis. In a report released today to the California Ocean Protection Council, lead author Susan Williams, an evolution and ecology professor with the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory, found that more than 11 million non-native ornamental marine individuals — such as tropical fish, seaweed and snails bound for aquariums — representing at least 102 species are being imported annually through California’s ports of San Francisco and Los Angeles, primarily from Indonesia and the Philippines. And 13 of those species have been introduced to California marine waters — presumably after being released from aquariums. While that number is low, the report cautions that 69 percent of the introduced species established themselves successfully in California, signaling a potential threat to marine ecosystems. Some non-native, invasive species can rapidly spread and outcompete native species for food and habitat. “Although relatively few aquarium species have been introduced compared to species in other pathways, such as ballast water, they are highly successful because they’re grown to be hardy and robust,” Williams said. “They have to be tough to survive in the trade.” The aquarium trade represents a $1 billion a year global industry and a popular home hobby, second only to photography, the report said. It has also introduced some of the world’s worst invasive species, such as the seaweed Caulerpa, the “killer algae” that infected two lagoons in Southern California in 2000 and cost California more than $6 million to eradicate. Another invader is the highly predatory lionfish, which regularly enters the state’s ports through the aquarium trade — 20 lionfish were imported into San Francisco International Airport on a single day, the report said. Introduced to Florida in 1999, it spread rapidly throughout the Caribbean Sea and along the East Coast by 2010. Lionfish have not been reported in California waters, but the fish is able to withstand cooler temperatures. If released, a lionfish could establish itself as far north as San Francisco Bay and, even farther, as oceans continue to warm, the report said. Photo by Dr. Robert Ricker, NOAA/NOS/ORR While the report highlighted lionfish and Caulerpa as species of special concern, it identified at least 34 species deemed able to tolerate California’s current marine climate. The report is one of six that the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory coordinated for the state, each exploring a different vector, or pathway, through which invasive species can enter California ocean waters. The other pathways include aquaculture, live seafood, live bait, fishing vessels and recreation vessels. Williams said it makes sense to focus on invasive threats from the aquarium trade because they can be managed primarily through public education, with minimal regulatory action or expensive measures. “Unlike some other vectors, we can easily prevent unwanted introductions from the aquarium trade,” she said. “Aquarium hobbyists can follow some simple practices — like ‘Don’t dump your aquarium’ — to avoid releasing aquarium species into natural water where they can become an expensive and harmful pest.” Williams said that people who no longer want an aquarium species can contact the vendor from which the species came or the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (formerly called California Department of Fish and Game) to learn how to dispose of or return it responsibly. For the risk assessment, researchers analyzed state and federal agency databases of non-native species associated with ornamental aquariums, as well as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inspection records for live animals imported into California ports, and state permit records for restricted species. The researchers also observed a routine, one-day inspection of live organisms arriving in air cargo at San Francisco International Airport for a snapshot view of the inspection process. The scientists discovered several data limitations: Regulatory agencies do not track the ultimate destination of the aquarium species once they clear customs, so it is unknown how many species stay in California once they arrive. Both Caulerpa and lionfish are also readily available for sale over the Internet, which presents a data gap for researchers and a regulatory challenge for agencies. Further, regulatory authority for the trade is fragmented across state and federal agencies, and there is no central source of information on the species, regulations, permits or other relevant records. “From the hobbyist or industry side, it is really hard to figure out the rules and regulations for holding live organisms in the state — for importing, possessing and trading them,” said Williams. “So one of our conclusions is that a more centralized information and permitting system would benefit the regulators, industry and hobbyists, and enable scientists to collect more information and better assess the risk.” The study was funded by the California Ocean Protection Council and California Ocean Science Trust. View the full article

Click through to see the images. For the last year, we have followed the Standford research on this topic in our blog posts "In search of supercoral" and "Stanford researchers help predict the oceans of the future with a mini-lab." Now the results are in and they shed new light on what it may take for a coral to survive seas with larger temperature fluctuations. Press Release In a future shaped by climate change, only the strong – or heat-resistant – will survive. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesopens a window into a genetic process that allows some corals to withstand unusually high temperatures and may hold a key to species survival for organisms around the world. "If we can find populations most likely to resist climate change and map them, then we can protect them," said study co-author Stephen Palumbi, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and director of Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station. "It's of paramount importance because climate change is coming." Coral reefs are crucial sources of fisheries, aquaculture and storm protection for about 1 billion people worldwide. These highly productive ecosystems are constructed by reef-building corals, but overfishing and pollution plus rising temperatures and acidity have destroyed half of the world's reef-building corals during the past 20 years. The onslaught of climate change makes it imperative to understand how corals respond to extreme temperatures and other environmental stresses. Although researchers have observed that certain corals withstand stresses better than others, the molecular mechanisms behind this enhanced resilience remain unclear. For their study, Palumbi, lead author Daniel Barshis, a Stanford postdoctoral scholar, and other researchers looked at shallow-reef corals off Ofu Island in American Samoa to determine how they survive waters that often get hotter than 32 degrees Celsius / 90 degrees Fahrenheit during summer-time low tides. Utilizing cutting edge DNA sequencing technology, the scientists examined the corals' gene expression when subjected to water temperatures up to 35 degrees Celsius / 95 degrees Fahrenheit. "These technologies are usually applied to human genome screens and medical diagnoses, but we're now able to apply them to the most pressing questions in coral biology, like which genes might help corals survive extreme heat," said Barshis. Heat-resistant and heat-sensitive corals had a similar reaction to experimental heat: hundreds of genes "changed expression" or turned on to reduce and repair damage. However, the heat-resistant corals showed an unexpected pattern: 60 heat stress genes were already turned on even before the experiment began. These genes are "frontloaded" by heat resistant corals – already turned on and ready to work even before the eat stress began. "It's like already having your driver's license and boarding pass out when you get close to the TSA screener at the airport, rather than starting to fumble through your wallet once you get to the front of the line," Palumbi said. The findings show that DNA sequencing can offer broad insights into the differences that may allow some organisms to persist longer amid future changes to global climate. "We're going to put a lot of effort into protecting coral reefs, but what happens if we wake up in 30 years and all our efforts are in vain because those corals have succumbed to climate change," Palumbi said. As with strong corals, finding species most likely to endure climate change – "resilience mapping" – is the first step toward protecting them, Palumbi said. "The solutions that we're looking for must, at least partially, be out there in the world." Provided by Stanford University View the full article

Selling my set of LED since i will be concentrating on my angel fish only tank at the moment, and the light is too strong for my fish. Ecoxotic cannon pendant LED - 50W white ( 12k) - 2 pcs Royal Blue - 2 pcs Price : Bought brand new at about $ 800 ++ each , letting go now at $ 550.00 each. Prefer to sell the whole set of 4 unless there is a offer to take 2 each. Age of the light is slightly more than one year and without warranty anymore, but local support is by Reef systems which carry all the replacement parts if required in future. Please note that the price is ONLY FOR THE LIGHT SET, and does not include the hanging kit and railing system shown in the photo. Viewing and testing of the light at CCK ave 3. PM me if interested

Aquamarine Bali fish and coral shipment just arrive today. Anyone went to check out yet ?