That Fish Blog – Aquarium Advice and Information

For those of you who weren’t able to attend this year’s TFP/NCPARS Winter Frag Event, you missed a great time! Over a 6 hour period on that frigid Saturday (Jan. 30), our retail store was what can only be described as a reef geek’s dream. What spends most of the year as our pond fish and plant display room, became a sea of people, tables, and tanks. The event had over 400 attendees in the swap area, thousands of coral frags of all kinds, great deals from our manufacturers, and a whole lot of smiles. A big thanks and congratulations to everyone at NCPARS and the TFP staff who was involved organizing and working the event, even though it got a little crazy for a while, things went smoothly and we all had a great time. Read More »

Hello, Frank Indiviglio here.  I thoroughly enjoy keeping lobsters, and have even been lucky enough to work with the Atlantic or Maine lobster (Homarus americanus), known better to diners than aquarists.  Unlike this huge cold-water beast, a number of small, colorful tropical lobsters are ideally suited to home aquariums.  Today I’d like to take a look their general husbandry as well as the care of a popular species, the dwarf red lobster (Enoplometopus occidentalis).

Diet and Feeding Techniques

All lobsters are, to some extent, scavengers, but should not be expected to subsist on leftovers alone.  In aquariums with fishes, lobsters rarely get enough food unless they are individually fed, or, if only diurnal fishes are kept, fed after dark.  Feeding prongs or tubes greatly simplify lobster feeding, and most readily adapt to these implements. Read More »

Hello everyone! We are only ten days away from the second annual TFP/NCPARS Winter Frag Event, being held here at our retail store in Lancaster, PA .  On Saturday January 30^th our store will be invaded by coral reef enthusiast from all over the northeast, we are looking forward to having a great time, and a great turn out.  Last years event was a blast, everyone had a great time, we think this year will be even better.  The event is open to anyone who wants to attend, there will be an admission charge to enter the frag swap market area, and have access to the special speaker presentations, and Raffles.  Visit Fragswapper.com to pre-register and get more information.  Pre-registration is not required.  Whether your just starting out in the reef hobby or you’ve been collecting for years, you may find something awesome to take home to your tank.  There should be in excess of 1,000 frags available between the swap and TFP’s own stock! Read More »

Hello, Frank Indiviglio here. The biggest stumbling block in keeping the fascinating seahorses, pipefishes and seadragons (Family Syngnathidae) is providing them with a balanced diet – all are confirmed live-food specialists, and need a variety of prey items if they are to thrive.  However, once past that hurdle we are sometimes faced with a dilemma unique to these fishes – a buildup of gas in the male’s pouch.

Pouch Malady

Seahorse and their relatives are well known for their unusual reproductive strategy.  Females deposit eggs in the male’s special brood-pouch, where they develop and hatch.  Male seahorses have even been shown to adjust the salinity of the water in the pouch to meet the special needs of the incubating eggs.

For reasons not fully understood, gas sometimes accumulates in the pouches of male seahorses and related fishes.  Animals so afflicted float head down at the surface and soon expire. Read More »

Hi everyone, Cory here.  I’ve blogged before on how the weather can effect fish availablilty , but weather conditions aren’t Mother Nature’s only tools. Sadly, the disaster unfolding in Haiti will effect the lives of hundreds of thousands of people long after the next few weeks as the world gathers to assist the injured and displaced denizens of that beautiful island nation.  Our thoughtss and prayers are with the victims and their families.

As aquarists, you may likely feel some small ripples of the tragedy.  You may see changes in prices and availability of Carribean invertebrates and fish. With a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting the capital city of Port-au-Prince, where a majority of the livestock is housed and shipped, the market may be in for some changes in the next few weeks.  Haiti is an excellent source for Scarlet and Blue leg hermit crabs, Gorgonians, Ricordea, and countless other fish commonly seen in the aquarium trade. With restrictions on collection in Florida, there will no doubt be noticeable change in the coming weeks. There are collection stations through out the Caribbean such as Belize. The problem is shipping and the cost of collecting the organisms, the further away from the US, the more it is going to cost.

The bread and butter invertebrates such as Arrow Crabs, Banded Coral Shrimp, and Peppermint Shrimp will most likely be affected as well. During the summer and fall, hurricanes and tropical storms can lead to 1 or 2 weeks of no collection, which hits the aquarium trade very quickly. No one knows right now what the extent of the damage is in Haiti, but the toll is projected to be devastating. Until we know how much the main infrastructure has been disabled, we may be talking weeks to months of no collection. So keep an eye on the news and if you are interested in something from the Caribbean, you might want to get it now, in case the availability decreases as expected.

On the freshwater side, the frigid temps blanketing Florida may also cause some extended issues with tropical freshwater fish.  The media has been covering the devastating effects of the freezing temperatures on the tropical fish farms based there.  Millions of domestically raised fish, hundreds of species, that are shipped to retailers across the nation have perished during the cold snap.  The toll of this event will be unknown for weeks, even as the temperatures rise again.  Fish not killed by the plummeting water temperatures or devoured by predators as they lay paralyzed from the cold will have to recover from the shock and disease that may have set upon them in their weakened states. From guppies to cichlids, stocks have been impacted. Just a heads up, as you may see some empty tanks in the coming weeks until farmers can replenish stocks and recover from the poor circumstances.

You can read more about the fish farms here.