For those of you who havn’t been in to see the “Zero Edge Aquarium” we have it up and running at the store. Come on by and check it out. The tank is a 20 gallon hex that flows over all of the top edges into a a tray that then gets filtered into the stand. I would have to say that it is one of the coolest tanks I have ever seen. If you can’t make it in this week thats ok because its only going to get better. This week we have a new “Solaris” LED Lighting system coming in that we will be hanging over the “Zero Edge Aquarium”.

Good Luck all!!!

3803278! Stop by for your new AquaFX RO/DI system!!!

Visit Sea in the City today…wish Franchesca a HAPPY BIRTHDAY and get 15% off our regularly priced Zoas!! Lots of new selections from the farm! New Red People Eaters!!! LOADS to choose from!

Just a couple of the many new additions to our tanks list this week:
Hardwicke Wrasse: Just gorgeous! Eating mysis like a champ! Not Reef Safe $49.00
Carpenter’s Wrasse: Great reef safe fish…lots of magenta pink on the fins! $32.00
Red, Pink and Green People Eaters
Stunning PINK/ORANGE Koko Worms. XL!!!

Stop in an see the new ZERO EDGE Display Tank!
Coming Soon: Solaris Lighting from PFO…see what the buzz is all about!

Fish are pets!!! When buying fish, please keep in mind that you are taking on the wellbeing of a living creature that deserves a good healthy home and a proper diet.

Animals, including fish, coral and inverts, are usually grouped into 3 categories: carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore (other classifications such as detrivore and planktivore also exist and will be addressed in future articles).

As we all know from grade school science class, carnivores are meat eaters, herbivores vegetarians and omnivores a little of both. When feeding fish, especially your herbivores, it’s VERY important for them to get foods from which they can derive nutrition. Below is our daily food mix which we use to feed our community reef tank (aggressive fish, angels and fish only tanks are fed a different diet):
Ocean Nutrition Formula Two Cubes (herbivore: tangs, blennies, etc.)
Piscene Energetics Mysis Shrimp (carnivore:a good, meaty food)
Coral Vibrance powdered coral food (1/2 tiny scoop…I use the small blue scoop from the Salifert Test Kits as my guide)
DT’s Oyster Eggs (1/2 tiny scoop)
Frozen Cyclopeez (1 tiny scoop)
Phycopure, our favorite brand of Phytoplankton, approximately 2 mls)
Decapsulated Brine Shrimp Eggs (approximately 1 ml every other day)
Kent Garlic Extreme (usually 1 drop)
Kent Zoe Marine (approximately 1 ml)
Selcon (about 5 drops)
Sure it seems like a lot, but this preparation only takes a few minutes to make. The amounts used each night should be based on the bioload of your individual tank. DO NOT OVERFEED!

I mix all the above ingredients and allow them to thaw in some tank water for about 15 minutes. I always feed my herbivores first as they need to fill up on the algaes prominent in their natural environments. This will help keep them free from HLLE and other problems associated with poor nutrition.

Next I use a turkey baster to gently spray the food mix in the water column. It’s helpful to turn off your pumps to allow filter feeders to grab onto the food. When the majority of the food is gone, I turn on the pumps and add the slurry that’s left to the water column to disperse throughout the tank. The small micron size of the Coral Vibrance is perfect for SPS and the decapsulated brine will hatch within 5-18 hours to provide live food to the tank.

Note: Sea in the City’s policies on fish brought into the hobby and sold to hobbiests is based on a very intense understanding of conservation and environmental responsibility. Please read the following before stocking your tank with animals unsuitable to your setup. We take every measure to insure that you get the proper animals for your tank setup.

By Eric Borneman

I’m afraid this is a very difficult problem, since the number of aquarium keepers is very large and education about something like non-native species is hard at this point. This is especially true given the number of young aquarists, coupled with uncaring and/or unknowing parents.

If I had a dollar for every email or post I have fielded over the years from aquarists who had already released or had plans to release aquarium fish and invertebrates into the wild, I could probably contribute a sizable donation to fixing this problem. Most of them, to be honest, had come from younger aquarists who either no longer were able to keep their tanks running (moving off to college, made to give up their tanks), or those who learned after purchasing an animal that the chances of that particular organism’s survival was very low in captivity. A planned trip to the beach or living near coastal areas makes such “Free Willy” releases all the more common.

As an example, a 12 year old aquarist wrote to me after buying a crinoid (Indo-Pacific origin) - a group with extremely low survival in aquaria. He read later that they eventually died, and asked me how he could make it live. I told him (like so many others) he probably couldn’t, and to refrain from purchasing them in the future, and to also tell the store owner not to purchase them for that reason. He wrote back to me and said his parents were planning a trip to the beach and he was going to release back into the ocean. I quickly responded telling him why he couldn’t do this and fortunately, he listened and just returned it to the store. Equally fortunate was that the store actually accepted the return (though too many customers always want credit or a refund - something store owners are not often likely to do and especially with organisms sold that are known by the store to have a dismal survival record).

There have been heated threads that span many pages on various internet forums among aquarists who protest the notion that release into waters is bad if the animal came from that particular ocean. I have been called to respond to such threads on many occasions, explaining how it didn’t matter if it was the same ocean, or even the same reef, especially since many aquarists keep mixed-ocean displays. Some internet threads in the hobby have even argued that the introduction of Caulerpa from tanks is not harmful to ecosystems and may actually be beneficial, with various thread participants citing studies and refuting others to confirm their view.

Now, I don’t think one should necessarily expect the lay public to understand such advanced topics of ecology and the nature of endemism, non-native introductions, and epizootiology. Therefore, it really is up to education, probably easiest among new aquarists without much knowledge who are in my mind the most likely source of such indiscretions, at the point of sale. Signs in stores, little bits of text added to the omnipresent “livestock guarantee and/or return policy or acclimation instructions” that get put into the bag at many fish stores, an outreach program for store owners, etc. could all be possible partial solutions.

Unfortunately, most (but not all) stores, in my experience, have pretty low ethics or knowledge in terms of the treatment of their livestock, or concern of much more than the immediate sale of the livestock. Four years ago, I presented a list of unsuitable species in the aquarium trade at 9ICRS Bali. Similar information has been disseminated by leaders in this area many times over a time frame over ten years now. There has been little to no change that I can see in terms of the import of these species into stores. Although more focus is thankfully now being given to aspects of the aquarium trade, little change is occurring and profit remains the overriding influence from collection to retail.

The real changes that I can see are in the overall level of knowledge at the consumer level. The issue of release is also at the consumer level. Aquarists, for the most part, have a financial interest and an emotional vested interest in the proper care of their livestock. For the most part, if given an opportunity or the information, they will do the right thing (in contrast to many businesses where profit may be the overriding factor). Supply-side action for unsuitable species and demand-side education for the remainder, though not a perfect solution, seems to me given my experience with such issues to be the most practical and effective way to reduce (though not eliminate) such risks.

For however much it helps, I will be writing another article on this issue for the aquarium publications. It has been addressed by others, and even specifically the Nemo issue, in print and electronic forums many times and many places since the movie came out.

Best,
Eric Borneman
Department of Biology
University of Houston
Science and Research Bldg II
4800 Calhoun Rd.
Houston TX 77204