That Fish Blog – Aquarium Advice and Information

We recently upgraded the lighting on our large cylinder display tank in our Lancaster, PA retail store.  Out with the old technology and in with the new.  We said good-bye to the power hungry,  ceiling mounted, heat producing 400W Metal Halide fixture, and installed a sleek, energy efficient, high output 50W LED Cannon LED pendant light — WOW what a difference!  The compact size of the Ecoxotic Cannon does not distract from the display and it provides incredible brightness and shimmering light into the aquarium.

The Ecoxotic 50 Watt Cannon Pendant uses state of the art Multi-Chip LED technology, which allows incredible lumen output in a small package.  Even though the light is only 50 Watts, the Cannon pendant easily illuminates this four foot deep, four foot diameter acrylic cylinder . These fixtures are also incredibly energy efficient, which can lead to big savings over time.

With the help of our friend Ike at Ecoxotic, we chose the 12,000K 50 Watt Cannon for this aquarium, but Ecoxotic has several other options to choose from.  Also available in the 50 Watt model is a 453nm actinic blue pendant. The 50 Watt versions have built in drivers, and are ready to be wired out of the box.  For those of you who need more light output for a serious display or coral farm, Ecoxotic also makes an even more powerful 100W version of the cannon, also available in 12000K and 453nm blue. The 100 Watt cannons use a remote driver (sold separately), swivel bracket mount and standard and dimmable versions are available.  Don’t let the 50 and 100 Watt ratings fool you, these are really powerful lights not intended for nano tanks and other smaller set-ups.

If you visit the store, check the new fixture out for yourself to see the amazing effect it has on the display.

Thanks,

Dave

That Fish Place is. We are proud to introduce a new line of flake foods from Pure Aquatic.  In the rapidly growing product line from Pure Aquatic, the flake foods are the latest offering to hit the shelves here at That Fish Place.  They have a flake formulas suitable for almost any aquarium application.  All Pure Aquatic foods are made in the United States, and packaged fresh, for maximum quality.  Pure Aquatic Flake foods are Marine Biologist tested and approved, and are made with high quality ingredients and are fortified with vitamins and minerals for optimal health. Read More »

Last year, a nice Christmas gift was delivered to That Fish Place from Red Sea. In early December, their brand new Red Sea Max 250 made its grand entrance. After running the smaller version of their aquarium kit, the Red Sea Max 130D, for nearly a year and a half, I was running out of room. So the upgrade started. Now, a little over a year later, I thought I’d share the tank’s progress! Read More »

Over the last couple years, I’ve heard much debate over the use of LED lighting for reef aquariums.  Has the technology really advanced to the point where LED is a viable option for lighting a reef aquarium, or is it just a fad that has no real substance?  Most of the opinions on the subject are heavily influenced dependent on which side you are looking at the technology from.  I have been told many times that LED cannot sustain photosynthetic corals. Some believe the light production is not of adequate quality to keep a reef tank long term.  Not surprisingly, this has mainly come from manufacturers of traditional lighting sources (T5, PC, Metal Halide), and some have been highly critical of the LED technology.  On the other hand, the manufacturers that have invested in LED technology are adamant about the quality and validity of LED lighting.  Those on each side of the fence are understandably trying to defend their own interests in the debate between traditional vs. LED lights for use on reef aquaria. Read More »

After Jose’s blog in May about some of our coworker’s mishaps and misadventures, I’ve been badgered and teased (again) about what we refer to around here as “the eel incident”, one of my own prize foibles that Jose had forgotten when he wrote his blog. Since he wants to tell all of you anyway, here it is in my words….

Along the back wall of our fish room, we have two large coral tanks side-by-side. Now they are coral tanks, but at the time of this incident, we used them for particularly large or aggressive saltwater fish. In the smaller tank on the right, we had a green moray eel affectionally known as Captain who was about three feet long. The other tank had another eel that was about four feet long and was from the old incarnation of our 700 gallon display tank where it used to live with a huge Bumblebee Grouper named Buzz. That eel wasn’t named, so I’ll refer to it as eel B. Read More »