That Fish Blog – Aquarium Advice and Information

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 »

This past weekend we held our annual TFP/NCPARS Winter Frag Swap Extravaganza, and I would like to thank everyone who attended the show.  Thank you to our participating manufacturers who donated time and products, which made the swap an overwhelming success.

This was our biggest frag event yet, with upwards of 400 people who registered for the NCPARS swap, and hundreds more who showed up to the store for the great sales that went on all weekend long.  Mid day Saturday, you could barely move in the swap, we made a 2500 square foot space, feel like a broom closet.  There was something for everyone, from the rare and incredible corals from Jason Fox, to the guy with easy starter frags in Tupperware containers.

Thanks to our great manufacturers, we had some very lucky folks walk away with some very nice door prizes and raffle items.  From Reef Capable Marineland LED lights to Perfecto and Current USA tank set ups, and much, much more.  If you missed this one, you really missed out on one heck of an event.  We look forward to working with NCPARS again, and growing the show into a regional event.

Felicia McCaulley was here to take some phenomenal photos and a commentary on the event. Read more about this year’s swap here.

Hello, Frank Indiviglio here.  Seahorse husbandry has advanced quite a bit in recent years, with several species having now been bred in captivity.  One stumbling block, however, is the near impossibility of keeping Seahorses with other marine creatures.  Seahorses are slow, methodical hunters, and the live foods they require are also favored by other fishes.  In typical community aquariums, food is gobbled up by other species before the Seahorses even know its feeding time.  But there are some options…following are a few creatures that I’ve experimented with over the years.

Pipefishes

Pipefishes are classified with Seahorses in the order Syngnathiformes, and are also confirmed live-food specialists that hunt in a similarly slow manner.  They are the best choice as Seahorse companions –all those I’ve kept have gotten along very well with Seahorses.

The Banded Pipefish, Doryrhamphus dactyliophorus, strikingly marked in red and yellow, makes a spectacular tank mate for tropical Seahorses. Read More »

Almost every saltwater aquarium that has had live rock or corals has bristleworms. They may not be obvious, you may not see them, but chances are that they are there…and their “attacks” are some of the most common injuries that hobbyists encounter. Read More »

A few months ago I wrote about SeaSmart, a new program/company planning to revolutionize the way livestock is collected and handled, before it ends up in a local retail store. The program was working out extremely well, with an influx of sustainable Papua New Guinea fish to the market every week. The aquaculture portion of the company was on the verge of sending out the first coral frags in the coming months.

Suddenly, at the end of last year, exports from PNG stopped. Read More »