"If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
Henry David Thoreau
We have among us, down in Arizona, a reef aquarist with a very different reef tank. @Exclusive Corals has a tank that's as bright and colorful as a new box of Crayola crayons. This aquarist isn't chasing an ultra low nutrient system (ULNS) but is instead chasing unusual and hard-to-find...
Filtering your tank by using “algae to fight algae” has been gaining in popularity in the last few years. We are biased about this, because we invented the waterfall and upflow designs that everyone uses now, but nevertheless we wanted to make this in-depth series about everything, including:
History of algae scrubbers
DIY topics
Commercial models
Comparison to other filters
Usage with other filters
Sizing
Lighting
Water flow
Operation
Fresh vs. Saltwater
Effects on animals
Troubleshooting...
Deep by James Nestor
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1 edition (June 24, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0547985525
ISBN-13: 978-0547985527
A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice
An Amazon Best Book of the Month
Amazon Best Science Book of 2014
Scientific American Recommended Read
iTunes Top 20 Books of the Month
Christian Science Monitor Editors' Pick: 10 Best Books of July
BBC Book of the Week
The Week Book of the Week
Finalist for the PEN...
The blobfish, Psychrolutes marcidus, belongs to the same genus as the more familiar blob sculpin Psychrolutes phrictus in the family Psychrolutidae.
Blobfish are deep-sea fish that live off the coasts of Australia, Tasmania, and New Zealand in the Pacific Ocean. They get their name because they literally look like blobs when taken out of their habitat. The scowling, almost-human face and the flabby look is usually how they look when disfigured because of the extreme change in pressure that...
Mussels.
This is a royalty-free image from Pixabay.
This is Part 2 of our article on Shellfish Poisoning Syndromes. We'll pick up with the fourth subtype in our list.
4. Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning
It’s a bit odd that this type of shellfish poisoning is labeled “diarrhetic” when ASP, PSP, and NSP all usually present with diarrhea. In any case, DSP may be caused by more than one toxin.
There’s okadaic acid (OA) and dinophysistoxin-1 and -2 and their esterified forms, referred to as...
A mussel farm in Croatia.
This is a royalty-free image from Pixabay.
Preface:
I’ve always been a bit leery about eating shellfish. In the 1980’s, when I lived in Europe, I ate more than my fair share of raw oysters, cooked mussels, and crab. I knew that shellfish can make people sick, and I was aware of some religious convictions that specifically forbade eating shellfish. But it wasn’t until I came across an article by some Dutch researchers, that I learned exactly why shellfish makes...
A shipwreck off of Honduras.
This is a royalty-free image from Pixabay.
Artificial reefs are something we hear about on a regular basis. There is a growing interest in creating artificial reefs for a few reasons: because of the destruction of natural reefs, which is hopefully slowing down, and because of the economic benefits of allowing a structure already in the ocean to remain there rather than having to remove it to dispose of it.
There are companies that specialize in creating...
Simon Ellis (R2R member @ca1ore), a Connecticut reefer with 30 years of experience, is a frequent contributor to the Reef2Reef Articles Section. He recently wrote the article about building your own Algal Turf Scrubber (ATS), and the article about automatic water changes.
He's the perfect candidate for our Profile of Reef Aquarist, and, as luck would have it, he's also a professional writer among other things. So, what he has to say is not only informative but beautifully written. I asked...
The class, Cephalopoda, falls under the phylum, Mollusca. While cephalopods are not commonly kept in home aquariums, they remain an extremely diverse and interesting group. Many of the cephalopods are very short-lived (octopus), many are very difficult to keep alive in captivity (squid), some have very special requirements (nautilus), many have venom, and the octopus has the added difficulty of even keeping it inside a tank.
Let's take a brief look at this group, all of which are marine...
