Aquatic Passion Photo of the Month Winner – August 2009

Aquatic Passion – Photo of the Month

August 2009. Its time again to check out our photo submissions in the Aquatic Passion forum. Simply visit this thread and cast your vote: Photo of the Month

For next months contest you can visit this page “Photo Contest” and upload-link to one of your photos! You just might win something too!

Oh yeah!

Moorish Idol Video – A Most Excellently Beautiful Fish

Here is another short video of a beautiful fish that is almost impossible to keep in an aquarium. The moorish idol played a main role in the film ‘Finding Nemo’. The film character was named ‘Gill’ and was sort of a father figure and protector to Nemo in the movie.

The Moorish Idol is one of the most beautiful aqarium fish. Unfortunately, they are extremely difficult to keep in captivity and should not be purchased for your aquarium. Best leave this one where it can survive, in the ocean! Another fish that looks similar to the Moorish Idol, but can be kept successfully in an aquarium is the Longfin Bannerfish, Heniochus acuminatus. Other species of Heniochus can also be easy to keep in an aquarium.

The Moorish Idol, Zanclus cornutus or “Crowned Scythe”, is the only member of the family Zanclidae. It eats sponges, tunicates and other benthic invertebrates in the wild, which explains why aquarists have an impossible time getting them to eat in captivity. This is a beautiful fish that should be left in the ocean.

Damselfish – Garibaldi Video

I have been working on short videos for many of the fish at animal-world. See the example below of the Garibaldi, a damselfish found in coastal waters of the eastern Pacific, like California. The first time I went under the water as a training scuba diver, one of these swam up to my face and looked me directly in the eye. Needless to say, I was hooked on scuba diving from then on!

The Garibaldi Damselfish is a ‘cheeky fish’!

The Garibaldi Damselfish is found in coastal waters of the Eastern Central Pacific Ocean where the water is cooler than tropical locations. We have see this fish in the kelp forests off the California coast in conjunction with the cooler water Catalina Goby, named for an island off the California coast. They are known to divers as ‘cheeky fish’ since they are curious and unafraid of divers. The Garibaldi is one of the largest fish in the damselfish family, it is a striking orange color, and as a juvenile, is marked with many blue spots. The fins of the juvenile are also outlined in blue adding to its beauty.

The Garibaldi Damselfish is a very long-lived fish, it can live up to 25 years. This damselfish should be housed in an aquarium of at least 100 gallons with plenty of live rock to accomodate their territorial nature. They are extremely aggressive towards their own kind, and only one Garibaldi should be kept in a single aquarium. The diet should include various meaty foods, herbivore preparations, and flaked foods.

The Garibaldi is sexually dimorphic; the male is larger than the female and also has a lobe on the front of the head.
These fish have not been successfully bred in captivity.

Banded Sea Snake

Some photos of a dive trip to Sabang Bay near the town of Puerto Galera in the Philipinnes. This is a banded sea snake that we followed up a wall, over a flat, and then up to the surface. I caught him just as he was passing another diver on the way to the surface. It is amazing there are no bubbles obscuring the snake in the photo!

Harlequin Rasbora Video

And yet another video! Wait a sec… I get the feeling Im repeating myself. But of course it always seems like that. Like when we added like a pillion cichlids. Same as with the rabbits, and the turtles, the list goes on and on. Anyway, we’ll have more cute pets next time, for now its a video about the cyprinid fish. Oh Yeah!

We have two formats available, Vimeo and YouTube. You can select which format from the video player page here: http://animal-world.com/video/playvideo.php?vid=3&vidType=Extra . Here is the freshwater angelfish as seen on Vimeo.
Here is the Harlequin Rasbora video as seen on Vimeo.

Freshwater Angelfish Video

Woah… its been a long time since I last posted! Thats cause I was busy making more videos
We have one now about Freshwater Angelfish and the two types available to the aquarium hobbyist. We plan to add a video now and then to the site, probably on the family or main atlas pages. We have two formats available, Vimeo and YouTube. You can select which format from the video player page here: http://animal-world.com/video/playvideo.php?vid=3&vidType=Extra . Here is the freshwater angelfish as seen on Vimeo.

Clownfish Video

We have decided to make some videos about different kinds of fish. Greg Rothschild has put this one together for us – he has captured ALOT of cool looking clownfish in this video. The video also talks about general aquarium setup and maintenance which applies not only to clownfish but to saltwater aquariums in general. For this reason we feel it may be a little (or alot?) too long. In the future we want to talk specifically about the fish in the video and make them shorter. Anyway… check it out and let me know what you think!

Monterey Bay Aquarium: White Shark Webcast

Video Webcast from the Monterey Bay aquarium. I signed up for the “Ocean Action Team” newsletter. This event sounds really interesting.

Uncover the mystery of the white shark
Video webcast: Friday, September 12 at noon Pacific time

For only the fourth time since 2004, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has a young white shark in the Outer Bay exhibit.

Tune in next Friday, September 12, to learn how she’s doing and what we hope to learn from her time here. We’ll also share exclusive video of our three previously exhibited white sharks.

Our white shark experts, including curator of field operations John O’Sullivan, white shark researcher Chris Perle and host Ken Peterson, will update you on the latest discoveries about white shark behavior. They’ll talk about our ongoing white shark research project and what we learned during our 2008 field season in Southern California. Our guests will answer your questions throughout the program.

Register for the White Shark Webcast. Click here to register today for the webcast.

We hope you can join us!

Aimee David, Alison Barratt & Ken Peterson:
Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Ocean Action Team
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email:oceanaction2@mbayaq.org
web:http://www.oceanaction.org

Kui the Tortoise in the News

Remember Stephen Lynch and his book about Kui the tortoise from a few posts back? Well… heres a video about Kui from KHNL News in Honolulu.

Read More About Kui

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