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Oscar the guard fish
When most fish see a predator like a cat stalking them, they run for cover. Not oscars. These fish are almost dog-like in personality ... and they also share an equal disdain for cats.
Oscar vs Felix
While all fish have personalities, only a few fish have enough personalities for people to regard them as pets. For saltwater, tinker's butterflyfish and dogface puffers may come to mind. For freshwater, oscars clearly fit the bill. A big part of what makes an oscar a "pet fish" is their eagerness to interact with life outside their glass box, and not just with their owners.
Take cats for example. Cats are notoriously interested in aquariums. Oscars are notoriously interested in protecting their aquariums. When you mix the two, you get some entertaining results.
Oscar KOs Felix in under 30 seconds!
An adorable kitten is lucky there's a pane of glass between him and what he thinks is his play toy:
Who's stalking who?
Baby sand tiger sharks cannibalize their siblings in the womb
.Size differential between the hatchling (H) and an embryo (E) from the same uterus in one of the litters we sampled. In all five litters sampled prior to EC, we observed a similar size differential.
The first one that hatches devours all of his sisters and brothers before they're even born! Talk about sibling rivalry!
Part III of the Paletta LED Experimental Saltwater Reef Tank - with Mike Paletta and Sanjay Joshi
In part three of this three part series, AmericanReef's Russ Kikel visits with Mike Paletta and Sanjay Joshi at Mike's home near Pittsburgh, PA. It's been approximately 8 months since Mike setup a new 75 gallon reef tank to test the effects of LED lighting. In this video, he and Sanjay share their thoughts on keeping corals under LED lighting.
Impressive large reef from Dublin, Ireland
We started off this week sharing an incredible minimalistic nano reef. We'll end the week at the other end of the spectrum. This is Stevor's giant 1500 litre (400 gallon) biopellet reef packed with stony corals. He's definitely doing something right; his corals show unbelievable growth rates.
Aquarium Specifications
- 1500 litre (400 US gallon)
- 84"x30"x28" with Opti-white front glass
- 300 litre sump
- Deltec SC2560 skimmer
- 3 part doser
- 3 litre biopellets
- 1 litre carbon fluidized
- Eheim 5000l return
- 2x Tunze 12000 lph
- 2x Tunze mod 6080
- 2 x Arcadia 400W BLV14000k metal halides
- Aquatronica controller
When we say his corals exhibit "unbelievable growth rates," we're not kidding. But don't take our word for it. Take a look for yourself. This is a video of his aquarium just a little over a year before the video above:
To be honest, we're surprised he can achieve such remarkable growth rates with just two halides over this large aquarium. However, his success is undeniable. Great job, Stevor! For anyone interested in corresponding with him, he is an active member of the Irish Fish Forum (here is his reef tank thread).
Seahorse tails provide inspiration for robotics, body armor
Image of a mature seahorse (Hippocampus kuda) showing the locations where tail sections, composed of three bony segments each, were cut (dotted lines) for compression testing (LEFT). μCT scan of a juvenile seahorse skeleton (Hippocampus kuda) (RIGHT).
Researchers evaluating natural ways of making something both strong and flexible often take inspiration from nature. In this case, they are looking at seahorse tails due to their strong, flexible properties.
Sardines are apparently delicious
April 25, 2013: A beautiful ball of tightly packed sardines.
On April 25, Kobe’s Suma Aqualife Park introduced a giant school of sardines into their open ocean exhibit in preparation for their big "Go-Go-Golden Week” tourism event. By opening day on April 27, the size of the sardine ball was a fraction of its original size thanks to the sharks, mackerels, and tunas in the aquarium. Oops.
It's not the size of the fish in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the fish
Small fish are not always to be trifled with. Photo by Brian Gratwicke.
We've all seen it: Smaller fish terrorizing larger tankmates. Now science has validated what aquarists already know: Size doesn't necessarily matter when it comes to survival of the fittest. Small aggressive fish can out-compete larger fish.
Do you want a degree in Aquarium Science?
Davidson County Community College in Thomasville, North Carolina, becomes the second school to offer an Aquarium Science degree.
Now there are two options: Oregon Coast Community College and now Davidson County Community College in Thomasville, North Carolina.
Minimalistic nano perfection
A small space with big ideas.
This nano reef tank proves you can accomplish big things with just a few elements within a small space. We don't have any details about this aquarium. All we know for certain is it's beautiful.
Goldfish gets its world turned upside down ... and right-side up
Einstein happily swims upright now with his new buoyancy vest!
What would you do if your beloved fish developed a swim bladder disease and could no longer swim upright?
Jurassic Aquarium?
Saving fish DNA with a little assistance from frogs
By learning how to slow-freeze frog embryos for the first time, scientists believe they will be able to cryo-preserve fish embryos in the near future, thus saving their DNA for posterity. Sounds awfully reminiscent of Jurassic Park, doesn't it?
Why do soft corals like Xenia pulse?
Photo courtesy oceana.org.
Scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology have discovered why Heteroxenia corals pulsate. Their work, which resolves an old scientific mystery, appears in the current issue of PNAS.
Coral skeletons may play an important role for their resistance to bleaching
Coral skeletons don't just provide structural support for Acropora. They help corals deal with intense tropical sunlight. Photo by Jon Connell.
Coral reefs are stressed the world over and could be in mortal danger because of climate change. But why do some corals die and others not, even when exposed to the same environmental conditions? An interdisciplinary research team from Northwestern University and The Field Museum of Natural History has a surprising answer.
Reef Italia
Our staff is busy prepping our next magazine article to publish tomorrow: A featured reef aquarium from the UK that is guaranteed to impress fish and coral lovers alike. To whet your appetite for reef eye candy, here is a video of another beautiful aquarium: The Italian reef of 'Gionanni57.'
The first 40 seconds of the video shows the gorgeous lakeside view of Gionanni57's home overlooking Lake Iseo and Monte Isola. We're then treated to snippets of his reef aquarium until the full tank is revealed at 2:35. We're not sure which we'd spend more time gazing: his lake view or his reef view.
Squid beaks provide inspiration for medical devices
The squids beak possesses interesting physical properties, which might improve certain medical devices.
How might you ask? It all boils down to the squid beak's physical properties and how it attaches to soft tissue.
Let us know!