Losing Nemo...

[ScottyK]

Bacardi- Yes, I rank Regals in the "Better Left in the Ocean" category. Moorish Idols are even tougher though. It's a shame because pics of Moorish Idols and another toughie, Pinnatus Batfish (Black with red fringe), are what got me into marines back in the 70's. That, and my books showing pics of Rodney Jonklass collecting exotic fish in his vintage skin diving gear. I never tried an Idol, but did go through the pain of watching a Batfish die.

One of the reasons I no longer volunteer at the Public Aquarium is that once you get to see the business side of it, it can really burst your bubble.

I love Rainbows too! They make great schoolers in my African Cichlid tanks.

I currently keep Africans from lakes Malawi, Tanganikya, and Victoria (including some rarities). I also have a live planted tank with some unusual African Tilapias, and several species of Killies. I also have a few species tanks with "oddballs".

I recently dismantled my reef tank because I'm moving cross country in less than a year. When I settle in I want to convert it to a Marine Mangrove/Seagrass ecosystem and stock it with Sea Horses (farm raised in captivity from http://www.oceanrider.com of course).

When you get back into Marines, look at some of the new literature, and you might not want to use your big, expensive filter. Much like the DIR movement with diving, Marine fishkeeping is going away from the heavy technology approach, and towards more natural filtraton methods. Feel free to post or PM me if you need any advice on the setup.

Scott

 

[BacardiSpice]

I'm looking forward to getting back to Pacific diving and the Moorish Idols - they're stunning, either singly or in schools, and I remember coming across their nocturnal colour change on my first night dive. Back when I used to spend more time in Aquarium shops I found it heartbreaking to see them for sale, knowing that none of them was going to make it in a home aquarium (or even, from what I've heard, large public aquariums? Or have there been breakthroughs there in keeping them?).

Thanks for the heads up on the changes in aquarium setups! The first glimmers of it were coming through at around the time I left Oz - a lot of people were setting up tanks with an emphasis on live rock and even live sand. The big old Fluval Wet/Dry is on the outs, eh? First thing I need to do is hit the books and mags and find out what's been going on over the last five years - and reclaim some of my tanks. One was comandeered by a family friend who used to breed tropicals up in Queensland, others were nabbed by my sister who, with her herpatologist's license, cares for treefrogs inadvertantly shipped down with bananas from the tropical north. I'll take you up on that offer of a briefing when I can start pulling it all together - want to start out again the right way!

Rainbows make lovely shoalers, don't they? Nicely swimming mid to upper depth. My main display tank had M. Trifasciata, M. Pracox, M. Boesemani and one or two other species, and the courtship displays they put on every evening were breathtaking. They seem to have come down a lot in price in recent years - given how tough they are, and the ease with which they can be bred and raised, this isn't perhaps surprising.

I've seen some knockout African rift lake cichlid tanks - very deep ones with a wall of densly packed fish simulating their natural environment - wow! Always made me consider chucking the South East Asian theme and going cichlid. The mangrove ecosystem sounds incredible too - I saw one great aquarium backdrop of a moulded mangrove roots, and thought it would make either a great rainbow or brackish water setup.

 

[ScottyK]

The last thing I saw in print about Idol survival in public aquariums was a couple of years ago. Things were still pretty dismal. The odd one or two would do OK, but it seemed that even the ones having some success weren't exactly sure why. If I had to guess I would say that, even if you have a perfect habitat ready, they succumb due to the inability to handle the stress of capture and shipping. That, coupled with being picky eaters makes it hard to get them "over the hump", so to speak.

If you want to add some Cichlids to a SEA themed tank. you can try some Orange Chromides. They (along with Green Chromides) are the only Cichlids native to that area, and will do OK in with the rainbows. They are however, one of the most primitive cichlids, and do not have the complex behaviors of the Rift Lake, or South American species.

I'm going to go with live Mangroves. I'll be moving to an area where there are actual Mangrove habitats. I'm planning on contacting a local biologist.I would like to see if there would be any risks associated with transplanting the seedlings back into the wild after they outgrow the tank.

 

[BacardiSpice]

I love the idea of catch and release mangrove trees! Poor things need all the help they can get in many parts of the world. although locally where I lived/will live in Sydney, they've finally stopped 'reclaiming' mangrove habitat and have recognised it for the vital marine nursery that it is.

 

[ScottyK]

When you start looking into the marine hobby again, you will be glad to see is the incredible advances being made in the aquaculture field. You can now have a tank full of fish, inverts and even corals without "anything" coming from the wild.

Stony corals especially are doing so well that successful reef keepers actually need to prune off fragments to keep them in check. You can find these "frags" for sale by looking in aquarium related classifieds and websites.

Some of the Victoria cichlids I keep are possibly extinct, or on the brink of extinction in the wild. In the same way that freshwater hobbyists are helping to save rare killies, livebearers and cichlids, reef keepers might someday be helping to re-seed damaged reef habitat.

Pretty cool

 

[BacardiSpice]

!!!!! Hard corals? I remember that every now and then someone would ask about keeping, say, staghorn, and the response was generally not too encouraging! Most were recommended to keep their invert tanks restricted to, say, mushroom or carpet corals. I never could really grasp the mentality of someone who would see something for sale, purchase it on impulse, and *then* research its care ("I just bought a sea apple - how and what do I feed it?").

I'm a fan of captive breeding programmes (some of those rainbowfish, for example, have such limited habitats in the wild that, even if comparatively common, all it takes is impact on one area to affect their future viability of a species). I hope that the 'attrition' rate of captive marine species continues to improve, and that breeding and propogation of both vertebrates and invertebrates is ever more successful. A world wide, varied genetic pool for us to draw on in the future is something worth aiming for! Good to see that dedicated hobbyists and professionals such as yourself are working to improve captive stocks, with the possibility of one day repopulating wild stocks in mind!

 

[ScottyK]

Interestingly enough, stony coral care is now so well understood that certain corals, like the Elegance (C. jardinei) are recommended as anemone surrogates for Clownfish. They are easier to take care of, and the fish don't seem to care.

Clown's actually do great without either. I've had Maroon and Occelaris clowns pair off, spawn, and live long lives in natural system tanks with only live rock.

Here's a link to see a pic and some info on C. jardinei. Thought you might find it interesting,

http://www.animal-world.com/encyclo/reef/lg_stony/elegance.htm

Scott

 

[agilis]

I just thought you might like to know that you are not the only aquarists reading this board. I actually signed up today in order to post, but have been reading things here for a while.

I'm a long time snorkler, and have been scuba certified since 1972. I set up my first marine aquarium when I was in high school, in 1962. Way back then, all- glass tanks were not available, and information was hard to come by. I have been in the hobby quite a while, and met Rodney Jonklass on Curacao. The late, great, Bob Straughn was an early source of good information. I visited his shop in Miami, and learned a lot about collecting from him. I still collect some of my fish, both in the Caribbean and here in New Jersey. Last week I collected a few Gulf Stream tropicals in Barnegat Bay, N.J., including a Short Bigeye Catalufa, P. altus. We get lots of butterfly fish, trunkfish, lookdowns, and the occasional juvenile angelfish here in the late summer and early fall.

Hepatus tangs are not hard to keep if you are an experienced and skilled aquarist. They need very high water quality and proper nutrition to do well. They tend to develop head and lateral line erosion if they are not properly maintained, but I have seen some alive but faded and unpleasantly scarred after 4 or 5 years in substandard conditions. My feeling is that if you don't have the ability and commitment to maintain an animal properly, you should not have it at all, not even a guppy. Quality, not quantity, should be the goal of fish keepers, in my opinion. Too many people get greedy, and can't resist the temptation to keep adding fish. I have had stable aquariums, with no new fish, and no losses, for periods as long as 10 years. A few small fish, allowed to grow together in a large tank, can go on trouble-free for a very long time. I have a 180 gal with a Queen Angel, a Spotted Drum, a Rock Beauty, two Royal Grammas, two Black Caps, and a Square Anthias. This aquarium was set up 8 years ago, with all the fish, except the Anthias, collected by me in Jamaica on the same trip, as small juveniles, and placed in what was for them a huge tank simutaneously. The Anthias was added a few months later. No new fish have been added since 1995. At first the tank looked empty with a few tiny fish, but they have developed into big beautiful adults, the two holocanthus angels do not squabble, they eat just about anything, including the supposedly difficult to feed Rock Beauty, which is about 5 inches long. The magnificent irredescent emerald Queen is about8 inches, not counting the dorsal and anal fin streamers. The Spotted Drum is about 11 inches long, and takes food from my hand, as do all except the basslets. The Anthias snatches Hikari Marine S pellets from between my fingers.

Fish keeping is an art, not a science. I use my own modified wet dry filtration systems, natural sump refugia, frequent water changes, strong water movement, alternating opposing powerheads on 2 minute cycles, and food that I make myself, or collect from the ocean in the summer and freeze.

I am a diver primarilly because I am a fish lover, a fish watcher, and an occasional collector. I agree that the trends are moving back to the natural approach, which, BTW, was what people like Straughn and Lee Chen Eng advocated back in the 1960s. There are a lot of hucksters out there promising to provide easy plug-in technology that makes it possible for anyone to keep Marine fish. It is not true. Being a successful marine aquarist, keeping your fish healthy for many years, not months, requires a great deal of time, commitment, and skill.

Let me end by pointing out a few things: books, not internet sites, are essential to developing a solid base of information; most so-called experts in the commercial trade are really not; and finally that the fish originally discussed in this string are all simply Clownfish. There are dozens of species, and several distinct genera. Perculas and ocellaris are very closely related, and may not really be fully specifically distinct. There are subspecies that are intermediate, and much depends on the geographic origin, and the genetic isolation or connections of source reef areas.

Good luck with your fish keeping, and consider collecting a fish or two on your own. It's great fun, and they are almost invariably healthy and disease free.

 

[ScottyK]

Agilis- Great post and great to meet you. You've got a couple of years on me. I set up my first aquarium in 1972, the same year you got certified. I was not into diving yet as I was only five years old

I was a big reader even then, and remember books and mags were featuring Mr. Eng and his natural systems. Small fish load, tons of live rock, and a touch of aeration. Most of the literature in the 80's made a big deal out of trying to debunk those articles. Little did he know he was 30 years ahead of his time.

I did mention in my rambling that an expert willing to give public aquarium type care to a Hepatus could do all right, but I have yet to see one really thriving in a home aquarium of any size. Maybe the new miracle mud systems coupled with a refugia would do the trick, but I have not tried that yet. I progressed up through the Berlin System and my long running reef was an NNR plenum ala Bob Goemans. I hated tearing it down and parting with my mated pair of Maroons, but I am moving next spring.

I have collected my own fish, and my dream is to go on a collecting trip to the Amazon or East Africa. For now, I settle for doing the Gulf Stream tropical thing too This has been a bad year for tropicals though. The water didn't get warm enough on LI. I saw a trigger last week, but that's been it.


Anyway, thanks for introducing yourself, and I'll look forward to chatting you up about fish. Keep in touch, as I'm going to be looking to unload about ten tankfuls of stuff before I move. They'll be free to a good home, and you're fairly close to me.

Scott

 

[JustAddWater]

I have not seen Finding Nemo, but my five year old niece recognizes my two Sumatra Clownfish, and knows that they spend much time in the anenomae. I have a 45 gal. reef tank with the previously mentioned clowns, a watchman goby, Australian damsel, miniature lion fish, clams, and xenia soft coral that propogates so fast that I often trade it back to the LAS for credit.
I have kept some kind of aquarium(s) since I was about nine; nearly 30 years. I think it is a fun, educational hobby for kids. I just hope my niece doesn't ever try to reintroduce my clowns back to nature.