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THE REEF & MARINE AQUARIUM MAGAZINE<br />
Giant Clams<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2012
EDITOR & PUBLISHER | James M. Lawrence<br />
INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHER | Matthias Schmidt<br />
INTERNATIONAL EDITOR | Daniel Knop<br />
SENIOR ADVISORY BOARD |<br />
Dr. Gerald R. Allen, Christopher Brightwell,<br />
Dr. Andrew W. Bruckner, Dr. Bruce Carlson,<br />
J. Charles Delbeek, Dr. Sylvia Earle, Svein<br />
A. Fosså, Jay Hemdal, Sanjay Joshi, Larry<br />
Jackson, Martin A. Moe, Jr., Dr. John E.<br />
Randall, Julian Sprung, Dr. Rob Toonen,<br />
Jeffrey A. Turner, Joseph Yaiullo<br />
SENIOR EDITORS |<br />
Scott W. Michael, Dr. Ronald L. Shimek,<br />
Denise Nielsen Tackett, Ret Talbot,<br />
Matt Pedersen<br />
SENIOR CONTRIBUTORS |<br />
Dr. Dieter Brockmann, Dr. Roy Caldwell,<br />
Charles Delbeek, Ed Haag, Inken Krause, Alf<br />
Jacob Nilsen, John H. Tullock, Tim Wijgerde<br />
PHOTOGRAPHERS |<br />
Denise Nielsen Tackett, Larry P. Tackett,<br />
Matthew L. Wittenrich, Vince Suh<br />
TRANSLATOR | Mary Bailey<br />
ART DIRECTOR | Linda Provost<br />
PRODUCTION MANAGER | Anne Linton Elston<br />
ASSOCIATE EDITORS |<br />
Louise Watson, Alexander Bunten,<br />
Bayley R. Lawrence<br />
EDITORIAL & BUSINESS OFFICES<br />
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Judy Billard | 802.985.9977 Ext. 3<br />
NEWSSTAND | Howard White & Associates<br />
PRINTING | Dartmouth Printing | Hanover, NH<br />
CORAL ® , The Reef & Marine Aquarium Magazine<br />
(ISSN:1556-5769), is published bimonthly in January,<br />
March, May, July, September, and November by Reef<br />
to Rainforest Media, LLC, 140 Webster Road, PO Box<br />
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CORAL ® is a licensed edition of KORALLE Germany,<br />
ISSN:1556-5769<br />
Natur und Tier Verlag GmbH | Muenster, Germany<br />
All rights reserved. Reproduction of any material from this<br />
issue in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.<br />
COVER:<br />
Giant clam, Tridacna maxima, photo by Daniel Knop.<br />
BACKGROUND:<br />
Seriatopora hystrix,<br />
under UV lighting,<br />
photo by Daniel Knop.<br />
4 LETTER FROM EUROPE by Daniel Knop<br />
7 EDITOR’S PAGE by James M. Lawrence<br />
8 LETTERS<br />
12 REEF NEWS<br />
24 RARITIES by Inken Krause<br />
30 INTERVIEW: CORAL talks with Dr. Rio Abdon-Naguit<br />
FEATURE ARTICLES<br />
38 THE ORIGIN & FUTURE OF FARMING GIANT CLAMS<br />
by Gerald Heslinga, Ph.D.<br />
54 WAIKIKI AQUARIUM’S GIANT CLAMS<br />
MARK 30-YEAR ANNIVERSARY<br />
by Dr. Bruce Carlson<br />
62 ENDANGERED GIANTS<br />
by Daniel Knop<br />
68 KEEPING GIANT CLAMS IN THE AQUARIUM<br />
by Daniel Knop<br />
72 FORGOTTEN FLORIDA<br />
by Matt Pedersen<br />
84 KEEPING ZEBRA MANTIS SHRIMP<br />
Part 1 by Roy L. Caldwell, Ph.D.<br />
95 A KREISEL TANK FOR REARING MARINE LARVAE<br />
by Christian Martin<br />
AQUARIUM PORTRAIT<br />
103 A MUD FILTER AND LOTS OF PATIENCE:<br />
One path to success<br />
by Kevin Bittroff<br />
DEPARTMENTS<br />
111 SPECIES SPOTLIGHT:<br />
Randall’s Watchman Goby by Daniel Knop<br />
115 REEFKEEPING 101:<br />
Phosphate binders—how to use them correctly<br />
by Daniel Knop; The Two Spot Blenny by Inken Krause<br />
120 CORAL DESTINATIONS:<br />
World-class aquarium shops & places to visit<br />
122 CORAL SOURCES: Outstanding aquarium shops<br />
124 ADVANCED AQUATICS:<br />
Lessons from the turf wars<br />
by J. Charles Delbeek<br />
128 ADVERTISER INDEX<br />
130 REEF LIFE: by Denise Nielsen Tackett and Larry P. Tackett<br />
www.CoralMagazine .com
LETTER<br />
Inotes from DANIEL KNOP<br />
n the marine aquarium hobby,<br />
giant clams can be considered<br />
the most beautiful<br />
invertebrates in the world.<br />
As the name implies, the<br />
coral-reef aquarium focuses<br />
on corals and coral fishes.<br />
Giant clams are often kept<br />
incidentally—but they are particularly<br />
attractive and interesting<br />
additions, and very few<br />
aquarium enthusiasts would<br />
want to be without them.<br />
In the past 25 years we<br />
have experienced a transition<br />
from wild-collected to farmreared<br />
giant clams. Even today, I can still picture in my<br />
mind’s eye a wild-collected Tridacna squamosa measuring<br />
14 inches (36 cm) in the sales aquarium of a dealer,<br />
priced at current equivalent of just $80 US back in the<br />
1980s. Anyone who looks around in an aquarium store<br />
today will realize that times have changed. Wild-harvest<br />
clams are no longer commonly offered in the aquarium<br />
trade, nor are they cheap. And that is a good thing.<br />
As we hear in this issue, the politics and regulations<br />
in the island countries of the Indo-Pacific have resulted<br />
A “gentle giant” from the<br />
Pleistocene: this fossil Tridacna<br />
gigas shell is thought to be up to<br />
2.5 million years old.<br />
in a mixed bag of successes<br />
and failures in the attempts<br />
to farm giant clams commercially.<br />
Some promising programs<br />
have lost momentum,<br />
but large giant-clam farms in<br />
the Philippines have now been<br />
able to fill this gap and simultaneously<br />
provide many Filipinos<br />
with a way of making a<br />
living. Profits from this type of<br />
commercial production have<br />
also provided funding and livestock<br />
for the reintroduction of<br />
giant clams on coral reefs in<br />
the Philippines.<br />
And a project initiated by two giant-clam enthusiasts<br />
from Germany is very cheering: they are striving to<br />
save a huge quantity of fascinating Tridacna gigas fossils<br />
from the crushers and grinders of the Kenyan cement industry.<br />
Or would you rather see concrete pillars inscribed<br />
with the words “I was once a giant clam”<br />
Happy reading!<br />
FOCUS: Fireworks<br />
A glance into the filter-feeder aquarium reveals sponges, little tubeworms, and hundreds<br />
of tiny, transparent disc anemones, known as jewel anemones. These azooxanthellate<br />
actinians cover the substrate and rockwork and settle on the aquarium walls, extending their<br />
transparent tentacles. These “jewels” are colorless wallflowers, but, viewed under the right<br />
light, they are a fascinating sight. Here, flashes of green fluorescence outline the bodies of<br />
Pseudocorynactis caribbeorum with glowing streaks of light, like a miniature fireworks display.<br />
TOP: R. KNOP; BOTTOM: D. KNOP<br />
4 CORAL
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correspondence from our readers<br />
COUSTEAU’S MACNA MESSAGE<br />
At the end of September, my wife and I attended the Marine<br />
Aquarium Conference of North America (MACNA<br />
2012) in Dallas, Texas. Having been in the aquarium<br />
industry in some way, shape, or form since 1995, I got<br />
to meet many of the people who wrote the books that<br />
essentially allowed me to be where I am today.<br />
The keynote speaker was Jean-Michel Cousteau, son<br />
of the famous Jacques Cousteau, conservationist and<br />
co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung.<br />
Jean-Michel heads an organization<br />
called Ocean Futures Society,<br />
based in Santa Barbara, California,<br />
and France. He also owns an<br />
eco-resort on Vanua Levu, Fiji.<br />
His speech was very interesting<br />
to say the least. He had me<br />
on the defensive at first battling<br />
with my own thoughts. His talk<br />
was about being good stewards to<br />
the ocean and planet. He shared<br />
many stories of things he has<br />
seen on his journeys to far-flung<br />
islands and remote reefs that,<br />
frankly, would make you sick to<br />
your stomach. In one remote island<br />
location, he found discarded<br />
plastic items floating in the water<br />
from 50 something different<br />
countries, and this was on an<br />
uninhabited island thousands of<br />
miles from nowhere. Cousteau also shared the fact that<br />
many sea birds search the ocean surface to feed their<br />
young. Apparently, tens of thousands of baby birds die<br />
yearly because the mother birds unknowingly feed their<br />
babies plastic pieces.<br />
My inner struggle came about because M. Cousteau’s<br />
speech felt like scare tactics, finger wagging at our industry<br />
at first. I think I had a natural defensive reaction, but<br />
what he showed us and shared with us is undeniable. We<br />
are using the ocean as a giant toilet bowl. By “us” I don’t<br />
mean the aquarium industry, but humans in general.<br />
The aquarium industry has been proven to have a very<br />
tiny impact on wild habitats and we continue, day after<br />
day, to push towards more and more sustainable harvest<br />
of wild animals.<br />
Together with captive breeding and propagation of<br />
livestock, we protect what we love and most of us have<br />
MACNA 2012 keynote<br />
speakerJean-Michel Cousteau of<br />
the Ocean Futures Society<br />
some sort of understanding that we are not here to raid<br />
the reefs and rape the ocean. In fact, we are obsessed with<br />
the ocean. That is why we struggle to maintain tiny displays<br />
of it in our homes. There are careless hobbyists and<br />
unscrupulous stores out there that kill livestock through<br />
bad husbandry or carelessness, but I believe that the<br />
ones who care and try their best far outweigh those who<br />
don’t. Either way, if you know a hobbyist or store that<br />
falls into this “bad” category, let them know by helping<br />
them to educate themselves. If it<br />
is a store, vote with your wallet<br />
and don’t go there anymore.<br />
I don’t believe that Cousteau<br />
is fully informed about what<br />
the aquarium industry has been<br />
striving for these past several<br />
decades, but I might be wrong. I<br />
hope that he stays in touch with<br />
us to realize the things we do to<br />
make less of an impact every day.<br />
Perhaps he began to fill in those<br />
blanks during MACNA. He has<br />
given me greater drive to use as<br />
much captive-bred or propagated<br />
livestock in my client’s tanks as<br />
possible. He has given me more<br />
thought about protecting what<br />
I love. What we love. What he<br />
loves. The ocean.<br />
Thank you Jean-Michel Cousteau<br />
for helping the people who<br />
attended MACNA 2012 to understand that the ocean<br />
won’t magically fix itself and that each and every one of<br />
us has to do more than simply feel bad about the condition<br />
of this planet. We have thrown our trash all around<br />
this campsite…time to clean it up.<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Readers are invited to write the Editor:<br />
Editors@CoralMagazine-US.com<br />
Ben Johnson<br />
Captive Ecosystems, LLC<br />
The Woodlands, Texas<br />
Ocean Futures Society, www.oceanfutures.org<br />
Jean-Michel Cousteau Fiji Islands Resort, www.fijiresort.com<br />
COURTESY OF WWW.OCEANFUTURES.ORG<br />
8 CORAL
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CORAL<br />
11
NEWS<br />
findings and happenings of note in the marine world<br />
Great Barrier Reef losing coral cover<br />
It is easily one of Earth’s greatest natural wonders and<br />
the largest structure built by animals on the planet, but<br />
the Great Barrier Reef is shrinking at an alarming rate—<br />
its mantle of live coral is disappearing.<br />
A new study by Australian scientists reports that the<br />
Great Barrier Reef has lost half of its coral cover in the<br />
last 27 years. The massive reef is composed of more than<br />
2,900 individual reefs and some 900 islands that stretch<br />
more than 1,615 miles (2,600 km). It is described by<br />
some as the “largest living organism” and “the largest<br />
living thing.”<br />
The loss was due to storm damage (48%), Crown of<br />
Thorns starfish (42%), and bleaching (10%), according<br />
to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National<br />
Academy of Sciences by researchers from the Australian<br />
Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) in Townsville and<br />
the University of Wollongong.<br />
“We can’t stop the storms, but perhaps we can stop<br />
the starfish. If we can, then the Reef will have more opportunity<br />
to adapt to the challenges of rising sea temperatures<br />
and ocean acidification,” says Dr. John Gunn,<br />
CEO of AIMS.<br />
According to Dr. Peter Doherty, research fellow at<br />
AIMS, “This finding is based on the most comprehensive<br />
reef monitoring program in the world. The program<br />
started broadscale surveillance of more than 100 reefs in<br />
1985, and since 1993 it has incorporated more detailed<br />
annual surveys of 47 reefs.” Doherty is one of the program’s<br />
original creators.<br />
Worst losses in southern regions<br />
“Our researchers have spent more than 2,700 days at<br />
sea, and we’ve invested on the order of AU $50 million<br />
in this monitoring program,” Doherty says.<br />
Damage by Crown of Thorns starfish (inset) to Beaver<br />
Reef, part of the huge Great Barrier Reef, which has lost<br />
50 percent of its coral cover in just 27 years.<br />
AIMS LONG-TERM MONITORING TEAM<br />
12 CORAL
Bleaching at<br />
North Keppel<br />
Island.<br />
“If the current trend continues, coral cover could be<br />
halved again by 2022. Interestingly, the pattern of decline<br />
varies among regions. In the northern Great Barrier<br />
Reef, coral cover has remained relatively stable, whereas<br />
in the southern regions we see the most dramatic loss<br />
of coral—particularly over the last decade, when storms<br />
RAY BERKELMANS, AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE OF MARINE SCIENCE<br />
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14 CORAL
have devastated many reefs.”<br />
The study clearly shows that three factors are overwhelmingly<br />
responsible for the loss of coral cover. Intense<br />
tropical cyclones have caused massive damage, primarily<br />
in the central and southern parts of the Reef, and<br />
population explosions of the coral-consuming Crown<br />
of Thorns starfish have affected coral populations along<br />
the length of the Reef. Two severe coral-bleaching events<br />
have also had major detrimental impacts in northern<br />
and central parts of the Great Barrier Reef.<br />
“Our data show that the reefs can regain their coral<br />
cover after such disturbances, but recovery takes 10 to 20<br />
years. At present, the intervals between the disturbances<br />
are generally too short for full recovery, and that’s causing<br />
the long-term losses,” says Dr. Hugh Sweatman, one<br />
of the study’s authors.<br />
“We can’t stop the storms, and ocean warming (the<br />
primary cause of coral bleaching) is one of the critical<br />
impacts of global climate change,” says AIMS CEO John<br />
Gunn. “However, we can act to reduce the impact of<br />
Crown of Thorns. The study shows that if they were not<br />
a threat, coral cover would increase at 0.89 percent per<br />
year, so even with losses due to cyclones and bleaching,<br />
there should be slow recovery.<br />
“We at AIMS will be redoubling our efforts to understand<br />
the life cycle of Crown of Thorns so we can<br />
better predict and reduce its periodic population explosions.<br />
It’s already clear that one important factor is water<br />
quality, and we plan to explore options for more direct<br />
intervention on this native pest.”<br />
“Still lovely to visit”<br />
In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Company,<br />
Dr. Gunn noted, “The damage to the reef is patchy,<br />
with some areas affected more than others. Some parts<br />
of the reef are still pretty much as we’d like the whole<br />
of the reef to be, and they give us some hope that that’s<br />
what we could achieve with the whole of it. These are<br />
areas north of Cooktown, and they’re pretty healthy<br />
reefs—in fact, they’re beautiful.<br />
“It’s the areas that have these cumulative impacts<br />
from the three factors that we take account of in the<br />
study that have really come under major pressure. But<br />
even in those areas, there are reefs that are still very, very<br />
lovely to visit.”<br />
REFERENCES:<br />
From materials released by the Australian Institute of Marine<br />
Science (AIMS), http://www.aims.gov.au www.scienceinpublic.<br />
com.au/marine<br />
De’ath, Glenn, Katharina E. Fabricius, Hugh Sweatman, and<br />
Marji Puotinen. 2012. The 27–year decline of coral cover on the<br />
Great Barrier Reef and its causes. Proc Nat Acad Sci (PNAS) 2012,<br />
109 (40): 15967–15968, doi:10.1073/iti4012109.<br />
CORAL<br />
15
New international coral research facility<br />
opens in <strong>Florida</strong><br />
A new $50 million state-of-the-art coral reef research<br />
center, built in part with U.S. federal stimulus funds,<br />
opened in September 2012 at Nova Southeastern University<br />
in Hollywood, <strong>Florida</strong>, at NSU’s Oceanographic<br />
Center at John U. Lloyd Beach State Park.<br />
The center is focused on researching coral reef ecosystems<br />
in South <strong>Florida</strong>, throughout the nation, and<br />
around the world. The center has created 22 new academic<br />
jobs and 300 construction jobs, and will employ<br />
50 graduate students and preserve 22 existing academic<br />
jobs. Fifteen million dollars came in the form of a competitive<br />
grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce<br />
The new 87,000-square-foot (8,000 m 2 ) coral reef<br />
research center near Ft. Lauderdale, <strong>Florida</strong>.<br />
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“By opening this state-of-the-art facility,<br />
NSU is taking a leadership role in<br />
<strong>Florida</strong>’s marine science research and<br />
helping boost an important multibilliondollar<br />
coral reef industry that employs<br />
thousands of South Floridians and sustains<br />
many small businesses,” said NSU<br />
president Dr. George L. Hanbury II, who<br />
went diving on the morning of the grand<br />
opening to visit NSU’s offshore coral reef<br />
nurseries. “The research center is critical<br />
for the environmental sustainability of<br />
coral reefs, which are the lifeblood of our<br />
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Receiving the largest research grant<br />
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Dean Richard Dodge<br />
with an Acropora<br />
cervicornis mother<br />
colony in the<br />
school’s propagation<br />
laboratories.<br />
NOVA SOTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY<br />
16 CORAL
tion<br />
to the ocean.<br />
<br />
the world.<br />
<br />
reefs and environmental conditions.<br />
<br />
stand<br />
connectivity.<br />
<br />
may impinge on reefs.<br />
ON THE INTERNET:<br />
http://www.nova.edu/ocean/excellence/index.html<br />
impinging upon them, said Dr. Richard<br />
E. Dodge, dean of NSU’s Oceanographic<br />
Center and executive director of NSU’s<br />
National Coral Reef Institute (NCRI).<br />
The Center aims to develop solid research<br />
products and information that will lead<br />
to better management and conservation<br />
solutions.<br />
Research at the center allows for<br />
greater understanding of how reefs respond<br />
to threats. Eliminating or mitigating<br />
local threats to coral reefs is part<br />
of that solution. Some of these are easy<br />
fixes that include stopping overfishing,<br />
controlling pollution, and establishing<br />
marine protected areas.<br />
As a multidisciplinary facility, the<br />
center’s coral reef research aims to:<br />
<br />
their ability to recover from injury and<br />
damage.<br />
<br />
on reefs.<br />
CORAL<br />
17
accelerated coral growth<br />
Animating global marine currents<br />
NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has combined images<br />
of the global marine currents between June 2005<br />
and December 2007 into an animation that is available<br />
free on the Internet. In the video, the globe slowly rotates<br />
and the currents can be seen. Two different lengths of<br />
the video are available (3 minutes and 20 minutes).<br />
This model of the circulation of the oceans was produced<br />
within the framework of a project to research glob-<br />
<br />
with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).<br />
Data from satellite photos and buoys were processed<br />
using the NASA computer Pleiades, one of the fastest<br />
computer systems in the world. The pattern of currents<br />
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corals that have been injured, damaged in shipping, or subject to bleaching from<br />
<br />
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and carbonates for steady growth of the coral stone. The two are an excellent<br />
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provides a very plastic representation<br />
of marine currents, for example<br />
the Gulf Stream in the North<br />
Atlantic, which transports around<br />
<br />
into the sea from all the rivers of<br />
the world put together. But at the<br />
same time it is possible to detect<br />
the numerous smaller vortices that<br />
develop from it and ultimately lead<br />
to localized circulatory effects.<br />
The worldwide maritime current<br />
system is a kind of “global conveyor<br />
belt” that transports the larvae<br />
of a huge variety<br />
of marine creatures,<br />
thereby spreading<br />
species. As a result<br />
Above: Frame from NASA<br />
animated video.<br />
Below: Larvae of a Briareum star<br />
coral drifting away.<br />
Right: Drifting Briareum larvae.<br />
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18 CORAL
of larval drift, sessile animals, such as corals, are<br />
also able to travel far. The maximum distance that<br />
can be covered is determined by the length of the<br />
planktonic stage of the life cycle and other factors.<br />
But even more distant regions can be reached by<br />
means of stepping stones in the form of coral reefs<br />
that lie along the way. The larvae of marine organisms<br />
drift as far as they can within their maximum<br />
survival period; then the larvae from subsequent<br />
reproductive cycles drift from there to even more<br />
distant points.<br />
In this way numerous habitats of marine organisms<br />
are linked together through these staging<br />
areas, with the aid of global marine currents.<br />
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CORAL<br />
19
Nowadays it is thought that larval drift from very speciesrich<br />
coral reefs, such as those of the Coral Triangle,<br />
supplies numerous reefs as far away as Okinawa in the<br />
south of Japan with larvae, which settle there and also<br />
colonize damaged reef zones.<br />
The NASA animation of the marine currents illustrates<br />
that coral reefs are not genetically separate units,<br />
but in many cases components of a highly complex network<br />
of genetic exchange.<br />
—Daniel Knop<br />
Lionfishes spit!<br />
The Pacific Red Lionfish Pterois volitans continues to become<br />
more widespread in the Atlantic, at least in those<br />
zones where the water temperature is suitable for it. How<br />
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biologists, is the reason for its rapid spread in the<br />
new habitat: this is a function of its hunting technique.<br />
The trick it uses is to spit at potential prey. But what<br />
appears ridiculous at first turns out to make perfect<br />
sense: the predator uses its mouth to send a surge of<br />
tacts<br />
its lateral-line organ. This highly sensitive system<br />
<br />
in pressure in the surrounding water; it serves the fish<br />
for orientation. The stream of water confuses the prey<br />
fish so much that it becomes disoriented, and the attacking<br />
predator can take it by surprise. Affected fishes<br />
often even turn in the direction of<br />
the stream of water. Pterois volitans<br />
exploits this moment to swallow the<br />
prey, using a suck-snap process.<br />
Curiously, this hunting technique<br />
is seen in 56 percent of attacks on<br />
prey in the Pacific Ocean, but in only<br />
Pterois volitans uses patience and<br />
spit to capture its prey.<br />
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20 CORAL
18 percent in the Atlantic. Perhaps this depends on the<br />
species, and the species composition of the prey may be<br />
different in the two habitats. So far, this spitting technique<br />
has been observed during the hunting of gobies<br />
and blennies, very fast swimmers such as wrasses and<br />
parrotfishes, and nocturnal cave-dwellers such as cardinalfishes.<br />
Mark Albins of Oregon State University and Patrick<br />
Lyons of Stony Brook University have documented this<br />
on video and published their findings in the journal<br />
Marine Ecology Progress Series.<br />
—Daniel Knop<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Albins, M.A. and P.J. Lyons. 2012. Invasive red lionfish Pterois<br />
volitans blow directed jets of water at prey fish. Mar Ecol Prog<br />
Ser 448: 1–5.<br />
ON THE INTERNET:<br />
See a video of the lionfish’s spitting behavior: http://news.<br />
sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/02/video-huffing-andpuffing-for.html<br />
CORAL<br />
21
Cone shells of the family Conidae.<br />
Combating pain with cone-shell toxin<br />
Cone shells of the family Conidae are very inconspicuous hunters that lie in<br />
wait for their prey in the bottom sediments of the sea, with only their breathing<br />
siphons extended. When a fish approaches, the snail shoots a “harpoon”<br />
lightning-fast into its body, and as it passes through the snail’s mouth the<br />
projectile is loaded with venom. A peptide toxin in the venom known as<br />
<br />
impossible. The snail can then devour the fish at its leisure.<br />
If a human is stung and poisoned, the result is paralysis, which can affect<br />
the respiratory musculature and may even kill the victim. No antitoxin<br />
is known, so extreme care is advised when handling unknown marine snails<br />
on the beach, when diving, or in the aquarium.<br />
The paralysis results from the toxin blocking the transmission of signals<br />
between the individual nerve cells. Scientists led by Professor Diana Imhof of<br />
the Pharmaceutical Institute at the University of Bonn in Germany are now<br />
studying ways in which it may be possible to deliberately use tiny amounts<br />
of the toxin to reduce or switch off the transmission of pain impulses in the<br />
human nervous system. Working specifically with Conus purpurascens, they<br />
have found that the toxin neutralizes pain very well, and its advantages include<br />
the fact that it is non-addictive.<br />
However, it will be some time before a medication becomes available,<br />
because the work is still in the preliminary stages. For one thing, the amount<br />
of peptides that can be extracted from the snails is too small, so methods<br />
of artificial production will have to be devised. And the human body breaks<br />
down this substance very quickly, so that more stable forms will have to be<br />
developed. But this partial success in combating pain, an exceptionally important<br />
area of medicine, demonstrates the great potential of the countless<br />
biochemical substances derived from organisms from the coral reef.<br />
—Daniel Knop<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Imhof, D. and A.A. Tietze. 2012. Die einzig wahre Faltung Strukturell diverse Isomere<br />
des μ-Conotoxins PIIIA blockieren den Natriumkanal Nav1.4. Angewandte Chemie,<br />
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201107011.<br />
D. KNOP<br />
22 CORAL
CORAL<br />
23
are and exotic creatures by INKEN KRAUSE<br />
Touring local aquarium shops in search of rare and usual animals can be an adventure, especially if<br />
you have a companion to join the expedition. We found and photographed the rarities in this issue<br />
at four European stores, and we are grateful to these dealers for their cooperation. At the end of the<br />
photo session our photographer, Dietmar Schauer, bought this sensationally colored Banana Wrasse<br />
for his own aquarium.<br />
Banana Wrasse, female<br />
Banana Wrasse<br />
Thalassoma lutescens<br />
We found this exceptionally fine specimen of Thalassoma<br />
lutescens at Fressnapf, a shop in Aachen, Germany. It is<br />
exhibiting female coloration, but such a brilliant yellow<br />
is outstanding; the color is often washed-out and brownish.<br />
Males exhibit bright blue on a yellow background.<br />
This wrasse grows to up to 12 inches (30 cm) long, and<br />
because of its trophic preference for assorted invertebrates<br />
(shrimps, crabs, sea urchins, starfishes), it is suitable<br />
for keeping only in large reef or fish-only aquariums<br />
with robust tankmates.<br />
D. SCHAUER<br />
24 CORAL
CORAL<br />
25
combination with bright orange and green, is particularly<br />
rare. These animals develop their full splendor in<br />
weak current and under not-too-bright lighting with a<br />
blue component.<br />
Belted Cardinalfish<br />
Apogon townsendi<br />
Acropora “Red Dragon”, Acropora carduus<br />
Acropora “Red Dragon”<br />
Acropora carduus<br />
This cardinalfish, which Dietmar Schauer photographed<br />
at Reef-Corner in Belgium, is one of a number of rather<br />
similar Apogon species that are all sold as Flame Cardinalfishes.<br />
The classic Flame Cardinalfish is the larger<br />
and more commonly seen A. maculatus. But the striped<br />
pattern on the tail of our specimen clearly distinguishes<br />
This filigreed Acropora will quicken the pulse of any lover<br />
of rare stony corals. With its delicate, finely branched<br />
skeleton and pink-red coloration, this variant of Acropora<br />
carduus is unique within the entire genus. The specimen<br />
shown here was propagated artificially in Bali; it<br />
was on sale at Extreme Corals, Holzgerlingen, Germany.<br />
Belted Cardinalfish, Apogon townsendi<br />
Disc anemone “Indian Summer”<br />
Ricordea yuma<br />
Disc anemones aren’t really rarities, not even the relatively<br />
expensive Ricordea yuma. But this very unusual<br />
tricolor variant from Extreme Corals still deserves a<br />
mention here. The intense blue-violet base color, in<br />
Disc anemone “Indian<br />
Summer”, Ricordea yuma<br />
LEFT AND BOTTOM: I. KRAUSE; RIGHT: D. SCHAUER<br />
26 CORAL
Bluestriped Fangblenny,<br />
Plagiotremus rhinorhynchos.<br />
The photo inset shows the<br />
knife-sharp, file-like dentition<br />
of the fangblenny.<br />
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South <strong>Florida</strong> and Caribbean species A.<br />
townsendi in Paul Humann and Ned Deloach’s<br />
Reef Fish Identification, although<br />
the prominent red coloration differs from<br />
the images of this species in a number of<br />
references.<br />
Bluestriped Fangblenny<br />
Plagiotremus rhinorhynchos<br />
This fangblenny is extremely attractive,<br />
but not generally recommended for<br />
aquarium maintenance. It feeds on the<br />
skin of other fishes and imitates assorted<br />
peaceful species—juveniles, for example,<br />
mimic the Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse,<br />
Labroides dimidiatus—in order to approach<br />
its prey unhindered. The small photo<br />
shows the knife-sharp, file-like dentition<br />
of the fangblenny. These fishes are usually<br />
imported as by-catch with more popular<br />
species in the aquarium trade; we found<br />
this one at Kölle Zoo in Heidelberg. However,<br />
they are quite attractive and suitable<br />
for keeping in a species aquarium or<br />
for behavioral studies.<br />
D. KNOP<br />
28 CORAL
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CORAL talks with DR. RIO ABDON-NAGUIT<br />
Dr. Rio Abdon-<br />
Naguit (center,<br />
in straw hat)<br />
at a workshop<br />
in Indonesia,<br />
demonstrating<br />
the injection<br />
of serotonin<br />
to trigger the<br />
release of sex<br />
cells.<br />
Dr. Rio Abdon-Naguit is a marine biologist at the Jose Rizal<br />
Memorial State University (JRMSU) in the Philippines city of Dapitan. For 25<br />
years, she has been extensively involved with the breeding of giant clams. In<br />
the 1990s she was in charge of a breeding farm in Dumaguete City, where she<br />
took her Masters and Ph.D. degrees in marine biology. In 2010, she became<br />
director of the research division at the JRMSU. She has introduced a wide variety<br />
of groups in the Philippines and Indonesia to giant-clam breeding, including<br />
students at the Philippines Science High School in Iloilo City, members of<br />
a youth organization on Camiguin Island, and college students, teachers, and<br />
fishermen in Kupang, Indonesia, and in the Philippines.<br />
CORAL: Giant clams are particularly popular in the reef aquarium hobby<br />
and awaken strong emotions. In the past two decades, marine aquarists<br />
have seen a switch from wild-collected to farm-bred specimens. There is<br />
a great deal of interest in these creatures and their ecological situation.<br />
So we would like to talk to you about the past, present, and future of<br />
giant-clam breeding. I still remember working with you in 1994, preparing<br />
for an attempt at breeding Hippopus porcellanus, and the exciting<br />
transportation of 12 adult captive-bred specimens from Apo Island to<br />
Dumaguete. Has this species subsequently been bred successfully in the<br />
Philippines or elsewhere<br />
Rio Abdon-Naguit: Unfortunately, no—the only successful breeding of<br />
Hippopus porcellanus was in 1987. I have heard of no further success<br />
in the past 15 years. That is partly because of a lack of breeding stock.<br />
Since 1994 we have been unable to find H. porcellanus on any of the<br />
Philippine coral reefs we have visited; there just aren’t any sexually<br />
mature specimens available for breeding.<br />
CORAL: What is the status of this species in its natural habitat Are there still any wild specimens of<br />
Hippopus porcellanus anywhere in the Philippines<br />
Rio Abdon-Naguit: I have been unable to find a single specimen within the area covered by my<br />
scientific work, the Bohol Sea in the Philippines and East Nusa Tenggara in Indonesia. I have<br />
heard that this species is being bred in Bali for the aquarium hobby, but I don’t know how accurate<br />
this information is.<br />
CORAL: What is the status of Tridacna gigas and Tridacna derasa Some years ago I was able to find<br />
a number of specimens of both species in Palawan, but I was told that they had all been captive-<br />
30 CORAL
ed by the marine research institute at the University of the Philippines (UP MSI) and then reintroduced<br />
into the wild. In the case of Tridacna gigas, they mainly traced their ancestry to larvae<br />
from breeding farms in the South Pacific. Are wild specimens of these two species still known in<br />
the Philippines<br />
Rio Abdon-Naguit: All the specimens of T. gigas and T. derasa on the reefs I have visited personally<br />
were bred on farms. I haven’t been able to find a single wild specimen. And the parents of<br />
the farmed specimens were also captive-bred.<br />
CORAL: The UP MSI has worked hard for the conservation of natural giant-clam populations and<br />
introduced a large number of captive-bred giant clams into the wild. What is the outlook for the<br />
success of such projects in the long term Is there any information as to what percentage of such<br />
clams survive predation and remain in situ to eventually breed in a natural manner<br />
A Tridacna gigas<br />
is hauled into<br />
the boat in the<br />
Philippines<br />
province of<br />
Davao. It will be<br />
temporarily kept<br />
on a breeding<br />
farm and used as<br />
broodstock.<br />
Rio Abdon-Naguit: I have personally visited three of the areas where captive-bred giant clams<br />
have been introduced, and my impression was that around 60–70 percent of the clams introduced<br />
there have survived and are now producing offspring. A number of small Tridacna<br />
gigas—in each case, one young specimen per 500 m 2 (5,382 square feet)—have been found on<br />
the reefs around Camiguin Island, for example. And the T. gigas and T. derasa at Samal Island,<br />
Davao del Norte, are also developing very well.<br />
ALL: R. ABDON-NAGUIT<br />
CORAL: In the early phase of giant-clam breeding, the plan was to also supply them as food, in<br />
the hope that this might reduce collection from the wild for culinary purposes. Growing clams<br />
large enough for this purpose subsequently proved to be an extremely protracted process. And it<br />
was precisely here that a new market came to light, interested in small clams and one which few<br />
had thought of in the 1980s: the marine aquarium hobby. It seems that the giant-clam farms now<br />
CORAL<br />
31
Dr. Abdon-Naguit (above left) is working<br />
hard to spread information on how to<br />
breed giant clams. At right, sperm<br />
release by Hippopus hippopus during<br />
a workshop in Indonesia.<br />
produce mainly for the aquarium<br />
trade. Is that right Is there still any<br />
significant giant-clam production for<br />
the food trade nowadays<br />
Rio Abdon-Naguit: In Palau, definitely.<br />
In the Philippines, the farming<br />
of giant clams is particularly<br />
useful for ecotourism. Of course,<br />
the focus is on the large species, T.<br />
gigas and T. derasa. The majority of farms I have visited<br />
were breeding for marine protected areas (MPAs), where<br />
these bivalves are an additional attraction for divers and<br />
snorkelers. But they can also be purchased on the local<br />
aquarium-hobby market. A farm recently started operating<br />
in Cebu City for this purpose.<br />
CORAL: You have recently conducted a project involving<br />
giant clams in Indonesia. Can you tell us about that<br />
Rio Abdon-Naguit: It was a combined project by the<br />
Universitas Kristen Artha Wacana in Kupang, Indonesia,<br />
and my home university in the Philippines. The<br />
object was to investigate and document the ecological<br />
status of giant clams in the Savu Sea, produce stocks<br />
for introduction into the wild, and try to motivate the<br />
coastal people to protect marine habitats. In addition<br />
we also performed genetic structural analyses of the giant<br />
clam population in the field, in order to gain an<br />
insight into the genetic networking of the Tridacnidae<br />
populations and develop a management scheme for the<br />
Savu Sea. The overall project also included the briefing<br />
of students and fishermen from Kupang in the methods<br />
used to breed giant clams.<br />
CORAL: What is the state of the natural giant clam populations<br />
in Indonesia Is the situation as critical as it is in the<br />
Philippines<br />
32 CORAL
CORAL<br />
33
34 CORAL
CORAL<br />
35
What’s black<br />
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AND used all over<br />
Dr. Abdon-Naguit (sixth from left) after a<br />
workshop in Indonesia on breeding giant clams.<br />
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Rio Abdon-Naguit: The Philippines and Indonesia are comparable in terms<br />
of their giant clam species. Four species are encountered in both countries:<br />
Hippopus hippopus, Tridacna squamosa, T. maxima, and T. crocea. But the population<br />
densities vary considerably among individual habitats. In the Philippines<br />
the two smallest species (T. maxima and T. crocea) are the most common.<br />
Sadly, T. gigas is practically no longer to be found in Indonesia. In the<br />
Philippines, by contrast, the introduction of farmed T. gigas and T. derasa has<br />
led to success, at least in some areas.<br />
CORAL: How do you see the future outlook for these unique mollusks in Asia<br />
In the last three decades the human population of the Philippines has almost<br />
trebled, from around 35 million to the current 95 million, while during the same<br />
period the Indonesian population has grown from around 150 million to 254<br />
million and marine food resources have shrunk dramatically. Is it possible for<br />
populations of edible giant clams to survive in the wild at all in the long term, or<br />
is their extinction more or less inevitable In your opinion, what must happen<br />
to ensure that these fascinating mollusks have a future And can reef aquarists<br />
make a contribution<br />
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Rio Abdon-Naguit: The Marine Science Institute at the University of the Philippines<br />
(UPMSI) and the Marine Lab at Silliman University have produced<br />
mollusks for naturalization and, as I mentioned, introduced them at many<br />
places in their natural habitat. If we postulate that 50 percent of them will<br />
survive for the first five years, and further assume that these efforts will be at<br />
least doubled, or even tripled, then I can see a realistic chance that, at some<br />
point, these clams will be able to reproduce on their own on the coral reefs.<br />
Science’s answer to any threat to a species is invariably mariculture. If<br />
communally run giant-clam breeding projects can make fishermen aware of<br />
how important and valuable these mollusks are in the wild, they will begin<br />
to conserve these creatures. How can marine aquarists contribute to conserving<br />
giant clams in the wild I believe that by maintaining captive-bred<br />
specimens in reef aquariums and introducing as many people as possible to<br />
the beauty of the underwater world—coral reefs in general and giant clams<br />
in particular—aquarists can increase awareness of the importance of these<br />
mollusks for reef ecosystems.<br />
CORAL: Rio, thank you for this conversation!<br />
—Interview conducted by KORALLE Editor-in-Chief Daniel Knop<br />
36 CORAL
Poly-Filter® has rescued tens of thousands of freshwater, brackish, saltwater and reef aquaria during the past<br />
Thirty-Five years. During December 2011 alone we received ten emails, from experienced reef aquarists, all<br />
asking about the blue coloration adsorbed into Poly-Filter®. These long term, reef aquarists had not been<br />
previously using Poly-Filter®. Instead they had chosen: activated carbon, activated carbon and ion exchange<br />
resins, macro reticulated styrene adsorbents and other sorbent media. However, when problems with the<br />
corals developed each had decided these other filtration products didn’t work. Maybe a Poly-Filter® would<br />
solve the problem<br />
The unique, Patented color change in Poly-Filter® appeared to indicate<br />
copper being adsorbed. How could this happen Each of these<br />
aquarists had been treating tap water using low pressure reverse<br />
osmosis and mix bed deionization. We explained that if the<br />
mixed bed D. I. resins failed copper would certainly enter the<br />
aquaria. Could ten very experienced reef aquarists, all having<br />
mix bed resins fail It is certainly possible, low pressure reverse<br />
osmosis will bypass sufficient copper that it would negatively<br />
impact corals. However, we suspected additional copper and<br />
other heavy metals, so inquiry was made about amount, frequency<br />
and types of water treatments and/or coral “additives“ being<br />
used. Every reef aquarist had been dosing: calcium, magnesium,<br />
strontium, iodine /iodide, carbonates and trace elements. Would<br />
copper, iron, lead be trace contaminates found in these additives<br />
It is a scientific fact that lead is the major contaminate in all<br />
calcium compounds! Iron is another almost a universal contaminate.<br />
Copper may have entered aquaria as a trace contaminate found<br />
in the trace elements or other coral additives However when<br />
Poly-Filter® adsorbed the copper it would also adsorbed: iron,<br />
lead, excess heavy metals, dissolved organics, phosphates, volatile<br />
organic chemicals, pesticides and any biotoxins. Water quality was<br />
corrected, aquarists reduced the amount of additives and the clarity<br />
of their aquaria greatly increased. Coral health and growth problems<br />
solved! Poly-Filter® adsorbed 31.97% of 718.95 micrograms per liter<br />
ionic copper @ 14.307 liters per minute within seventeen seconds.<br />
Activated carbon/resins (283 grams) adsorbed only 20% of the 718.95<br />
micrograms per liter of copper but needed<br />
30 seconds. Zeolite resin adsorbed 14.5% of the 718.95 micrograms per liter of copper within<br />
17 seconds. Poly-Filter ® also adsorbed 61.8% of 211 micrograms per liter within 60 seconds at 14.307 liters<br />
per minute out of saltwater. Poly-Filter® adsorbed 46.4 % of 1570.2 micrograms per liter of chelated copper<br />
@ 14.307 liters per minute within 14 minutes. A strong chelating resin (1000 ml.) could only adsorb 13.03 % of<br />
1570 micrograms per liter @ 14.307 liters per minute within 14 minutes.<br />
CORAL<br />
37
T. LAGE/TROPICAL LIFE IMPORT<br />
CORAL<br />
39
MASASHI’S LEGACY<br />
My interest in the family Tridacnidae began in the fall<br />
of 1974, when I was a Harvard undergraduate spending<br />
a year abroad. I worked in the laboratory of Professor<br />
Masashi Yamaguchi at the University of Guam Marine<br />
Laboratory, sharing office space with graduate students<br />
Storm Rideout and Steve Jameson. Steve was nearing<br />
completion of his MS thesis on the early life histories<br />
of giant clams, having successfully reared T. maxima, T.<br />
crocea, and Hippopus hippopus through their larval stages<br />
at Guam and Palau (Jameson, 1976). Storm was working<br />
Tridacna maxima<br />
in a breeding farm<br />
in Tonga.<br />
on Linckia starfish (Rideout, 1978), and I was examining<br />
the toxic effects of marine anti-foulants on the embryos<br />
and larvae of coral reef sea urchins (Heslinga, 1976).<br />
Coming from chilly Massachusetts, I was thrilled to<br />
be embarking with Steve, Storm, and Masashi on field<br />
trips around tropical Guam, launching our Zodiac inflatable<br />
boat at various points around the island to snorkel<br />
the reef flats, scuba dive to new depths, and collect<br />
specimens of starfish, sea urchins, and brilliantly colored<br />
Tridacna maxima clams. These we brought back to the lab<br />
for our spawning and larval rearing studies. I was exceptionally<br />
lucky to have an entire academic<br />
year on Guam during which to<br />
learn from the faculty and students<br />
there, especially Masashi, one of the<br />
best marine invertebrate larval biologists<br />
in the world and the first to envision<br />
giant clam conservation through<br />
cultivation (Yamaguchi, 1977).<br />
As Steve Jameson was conducting<br />
his MS thesis research in Guam, a<br />
group of marine scientists led by Professor<br />
Stephen Wainwright of Duke<br />
University was publishing the results<br />
of a recent field trip to Fiji, where<br />
graduate student Mike LaBarbera had<br />
successfully raised the larvae of T.<br />
maxima and T. squamosa in laboratoryscale<br />
cultures (LaBarbera, 1975). I<br />
remember Steve, Storm, and I excitedly<br />
discussing the galley proofs of<br />
LaBarbera’s manuscript. Although at<br />
the time we did not consider research<br />
on tridacnids to be a competitive race,<br />
it would become one 10 years later as<br />
many nations, universities, scientists,<br />
and entrepreneurs jumped into giant<br />
clam culture with an enthusiasm seldom<br />
seen before in the region’s maricultural<br />
sector.<br />
In the summer of 1975, Masashi<br />
received a grant from the National<br />
Geographic Society to study the larval<br />
development of starfish in Palau,<br />
in the Western Caroline Islands. Palau<br />
had a well-deserved reputation as<br />
one of the earth’s wild places, at or<br />
near the top of every serious diver’s<br />
“bucket list” of places to visit. To my<br />
delight, Masashi invited Storm Rideout<br />
and me to accompany him as assistants.<br />
I was 21 years old, and little<br />
did I realize that as a result of that<br />
summer expedition, Palau, its people,<br />
and its marine organisms would become<br />
the focus of my professional life<br />
D. KNOP<br />
40 CORAL
Right: Dr. Bruce Carlson with an extraordinarily large Tridacna<br />
gigas on a reef off the Solomon Islands—an irrefutable<br />
argument for this species being unsuitable for maintenance in<br />
the home aquarium.<br />
Bottom: Setts Mongami censusing T. derasa specimens in Palau’s<br />
MMDC giant clam nursery at Malakal Harbor in 1993.<br />
for the next two decades, or that I would meet my future<br />
wife, Kyoko, there.<br />
Jim McVey, who would later enjoy a distinguished career<br />
with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric<br />
Administration (NOAA), was already in Palau working<br />
as the founding director of MMDC, the Micronesian<br />
Mariculture Demonstration Center, which became our<br />
base of operations. Our work in Palau would not have<br />
been possible if Jim and his Palauan colleagues had not<br />
established this unique laboratory on Malakal Harbor in<br />
the early 1970s.<br />
Upon our arrival in Palau, Masashi Yamaguchi’s instructions<br />
to Storm Rideout and me were simple: explore<br />
new habitats and find new species of starfish. That we<br />
did with gusto over the next six weeks, scraping our rubber<br />
Zodiac on Acropora thickets and Porites heads more<br />
than a few times as we threaded our way among the<br />
jagged reefs, learning to navigate by the ever-changing<br />
color of the water beneath our hull. Some of the people<br />
we met that summer became friends for life and would<br />
prove to be vitally important allies on my many future<br />
trips to Palau. How many trips Over a two-decade period<br />
I landed in Palau more than 70 times, spent 17 years<br />
on the ground there, made working visits to 18 countries<br />
in the Asia-Pacific region, and logged half a million miles<br />
in the air.<br />
It would therefore be a mistake to call the development<br />
of giant clam mariculture an overnight success,<br />
a chance discovery, or some kind of scientific flash in<br />
the pan. In fact, it cost millions of dollars, consumed<br />
entire careers (or large chunks of them), left a lasting<br />
mark on Pacific island landscapes, and wove its way into<br />
the families and bloodlines of people from all over the<br />
globe. Each time I look at our grandson, Kupa’a A Mauloa<br />
Brandt, now just a toddler, I see in his handsome<br />
face the blended features of people from Palau, Hawaii,<br />
Japan, Northern Europe, Samoa, and America. What a<br />
remarkable living testament he is to the attraction we all<br />
share to peoples of different nationalities and cultures.<br />
TOP: MARJ AWAI; BOTTOM: B. PERRYCLEAR<br />
HIGH RISK, HIGH REWARD<br />
After completing my undergraduate degree at Harvard in<br />
the spring of 1976 and spending that summer working at<br />
the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, more trips to<br />
Palau would follow as I pursued graduate studies in marine<br />
science at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Professor<br />
William Hamner and his family arrived in Palau<br />
in the summer of 1977, fresh from two years at the Aus-<br />
CORAL<br />
41
An unusually beautiful<br />
specimen of Tridacna maxima<br />
from a breeding farm.<br />
T. LAGE/TROPICAL LIFE IMPORT<br />
42 CORAL
G. HESLINGA<br />
Colorful yearling Tridacna derasa specimens (2-inch [5-cm] shell<br />
length) at Palau’s MMDC.<br />
tralian Institute of Marine Science and keen to undertake<br />
research on marine lakes and tridacnid reproduction<br />
at MMDC. Soon after Bill arrived we collected some<br />
T. gigas broodstock at Aulong Reef and induced spawning<br />
in captivity with this species for the first time in history<br />
(Heslinga, 1979). I set up a phytoplankton lab to culture<br />
larval foods. Peace Corps volunteers Nancy Beckvar<br />
and Anne Hillman joined the MMDC staff to work on<br />
clams and commercial Trochus niloticus snails that year,<br />
and succeeded in producing laboratory-scale batches of<br />
juveniles (Beckvar, 1981). Rick Braley joined us in Palau<br />
in the summer of 1979, when Trochus and clam culture<br />
at MMDC were beginning to bear exciting results. It was<br />
clear that MMDC was where the action was going to<br />
be in the coming years, but Nancy and Anne completed<br />
their Peace Corps terms in the summer of 1979, Rick left<br />
for graduate school in Australia, and Bill was winding up<br />
his work on the marine lakes. Who would carry on the<br />
MMDC mollusc project<br />
Marine Resources Division Chief Toshiro Paulis,<br />
who by that time had known me for five years, asked if<br />
I would consider seeking international funding to continue<br />
the work. My proposal was approved, and in 1981<br />
I signed a three-year contract with the Pacific Fisheries<br />
Development Foundation (an agency funded by NOAA)<br />
to be principal investigator on a study of the reproductive<br />
biology of commercially important reef molluscs in<br />
Palau. That three-year project would stretch into 15 years<br />
of applied research aimed largely at unveiling the secrets<br />
of the family Tridacnidae.<br />
In my pursuit to learn how to cultivate large numbers<br />
of baby clams on Palau’s lagoon floor, I spent over<br />
5,000 hours scuba diving on reefs of unparalleled biological<br />
diversity, amassing a trove of knowledge and a<br />
sea chest of stories. My handwritten journal expanded<br />
to fill nine volumes, chronicling an ongoing intercultural<br />
education, exotic adventures and near misses at<br />
sea, typhoons, political unrest, bouts with dengue fever,<br />
research contracts with a dozen international agencies,<br />
the attainment of noteworthy scientific goals, and, most<br />
important, my marriage to Kyoko and the raising of our<br />
daughters, Olivia and Lisa.<br />
While the technical aspects of the advancement of<br />
giant clam mariculture have been well described in the<br />
scientific and popular literature by our group and those<br />
who came later, little has been written about the personal<br />
and human aspects of the story. They are at least<br />
as compelling. Technology, the application of science,<br />
is a necessary but insufficient ingredient for progress.<br />
If there is one overarching lesson I learned during my<br />
20-year association with the Republic of Palau and the<br />
members of the Indo-Pacific family of clam workers, it<br />
is this: the technology is 10 percent, the human factor<br />
is 90 percent (Coereli, 1994). The legions of expatriate<br />
experts working in the developing nations of the world<br />
often seem to believe that the reverse is true. This inversion<br />
of priorities goes a long way toward explaining why<br />
many projects fall short of their objectives. Before you<br />
can make progress you must first make friends.<br />
Ultimately, our clam farming work in Micronesia<br />
succeeded in ways that we could scarcely have imagined<br />
at the outset. It did not happen in a vacuum. I am especially<br />
indebted to the open-minded and far-sighted<br />
Palauans with whom I was privileged to work, day after<br />
day, for many years. The closest among them became<br />
my mentors, language instructors, fishing buddies, and<br />
bodyguards on occasions too numerous to count. At<br />
times I literally owed my survival to them, appreciating<br />
from the outset that the opportunity to get that close,<br />
for that long, is not afforded to many outsiders. Their<br />
early skepticism of my clam farming mission was well<br />
justified. There was no instruction manual and certainly<br />
no guarantee of a positive outcome. In fact, one of my<br />
graduate thesis advisors in Hawaii, the late Professor<br />
John Bardach, had offered this dubious assessment of<br />
my plan to make an environmental impact half a world<br />
CORAL<br />
43
Nena Kilma, the Marshall Islands’ first<br />
giant-clam farmer, diving on the MMDC<br />
ocean nursery during his mariculture<br />
training course in April, 1985.<br />
Above: This 4-day old Tridacna derasa larva is in the process of<br />
establishing symbiosis with ingested zooxanthellae cells (arrow).<br />
The size of the larva is just 110 microns—about the width of a<br />
human hair.<br />
Left: Rick Braley, Australia’s first giant-clam breeder, tagging<br />
oysters at Palau’s MMDC in the summer of 1979.<br />
away: “You’ll fail, but try anyway.” It was not exactly a<br />
pep talk. I admired Dr. Bardach in spite of that predication—or<br />
perhaps because of it. He could not possibly<br />
have known the motivating impact his words would have<br />
on me each time failure seemed unavoidable.<br />
REACHING MILESTONES<br />
My Palauan friends had lived intimately with reef organisms<br />
of every description all their lives, yet they had<br />
never seen a baby giant clam the size of a garden pea. In<br />
nature, clams of that size are cryptic, widely scattered,<br />
G. HESLINGA<br />
44 CORAL
World’s first giant-clam hatchery: the Micronesian<br />
Mariculture Demonstration Center (MMDC) on Malakal<br />
Harbor, Republic of Palau, in 1994.<br />
TOP: B. PERRYCLEAR; BOTTOM: F. PERRON<br />
and virtually impossible to find. As the 1980s unfolded<br />
and our mariculture work at MMDC progressed, the<br />
Palauans would see an abundance of tiny clams—first a<br />
few, then thousands, then tens of thousands, and ultimately<br />
hundreds of thousands—of blue and green jewels<br />
carpeting the floors of our hatchery tanks.<br />
Based on those unprecedented results, and using<br />
revenues generated by sales of our sustainably produced<br />
mariculture products, I directed a tenfold expansion of<br />
the MMDC clam hatchery, from 6 to 64 large concrete<br />
raceway tanks. Simultaneously, our ocean nursery grew<br />
from an unproven concept to 2,000 modular steel-mesh<br />
cages, eventually yielding over 100 tons of cultured<br />
clams. It was the world’s first and largest giant clam<br />
gene bank. The durable concrete raceways we designed<br />
and built in Palau, and ones modeled after them in the<br />
Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia, are<br />
still in production today after more than 25 years. Our<br />
modular steel-mesh ocean nursery cage design (Heslinga<br />
et al., 1990) remains the industry standard for lagoonbased<br />
clam farming throughout the Indo-Pacific region.<br />
We reached the million-seed production milestone<br />
in 1987, generated cumulative sales of $850,000 U.S.<br />
by 1994, and donated another $200,000 U.S. worth of<br />
seedstock and mature broodstock to Palauan states and<br />
individuals, at one point donating one ton of clams per<br />
month over many months as we endeavored to include<br />
every Palauan state in clam conservation efforts. The<br />
money we raised through sales of sustainably cultured<br />
clam products created jobs for Palauan hatchery workers<br />
Gerald Heslinga with wild<br />
Tridacna gigas broodstock at<br />
Palau’s MMDC in 1982.<br />
and allowed us to upgrade our facilities. We renovated<br />
our visiting scientist dormitories, then built a state-ofthe-art<br />
hatchery building, wet lab, gift shop, screenprinting<br />
shop, shell-crafting shop, and administrative<br />
offices. By 1994, MMDC had become Palau’s top landbased<br />
tourist destination, hosting daily busloads of tourists<br />
(Heslinga, 1995). It was also a favorite stop for local<br />
school children, who were excited to see real reef tanks<br />
and baby giant clams for the first time in their lives.<br />
We received several years of support from the United<br />
CORAL<br />
45
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s South Pacific<br />
Aquaculture Development Program based in Suva,<br />
Fiji, which at that time was headed up by Hideyuki Tanaka.<br />
Tanaka-san was an ardent believer in our work, the<br />
more so when he saw us exporting sustainably maricultured<br />
giant-clam sashimi to Japan, something that had<br />
never been done before.<br />
On one visit Tanaka-san saw hundreds of thousands<br />
of cultured T. derasa in our tanks and said, “You have<br />
a problem.” We pressed for an explanation. “The problem,”<br />
he said, “is overproduction.” Little did Tanakasan<br />
know that those words were music to our ears: an<br />
acknowledgment by the top international development<br />
agency that my colleagues and I in Palau had taken the<br />
Tridacnidae, a family of threatened and endangered species<br />
already known to have gone extinct in many areas,<br />
and showed the world how to mass-produce their offspring<br />
in abundance. Achieving control over the vast<br />
reproductive powers of a photosynthetic animal and<br />
harnessing it for human food production was something<br />
that had not been accomplished in the 10,000-year history<br />
of agriculture. The United Nations took note.<br />
We demonstrated that adding dissolved inorganic nitrogen<br />
to the land-based clam tanks sped up the growth<br />
rate of young clams, shaving two months off the usual<br />
time required to produce “yearling” specimens (Hastie et<br />
al., 1992; Fitt et al, 1993). We perfected the judicious use<br />
of antibiotics to increase survival in clam larval cultures<br />
(Fitt et al., 1992), elucidated predator-prey relationships<br />
(Perron et al., 1985) and nutritional physiology<br />
(Maruyama and Heslinga, 1997), and pioneered the coculture<br />
of algal grazing Trochus snails with young clams<br />
to help control algal fouling (Heslinga and Hillmann,<br />
1981), publishing the results in a series of peer-reviewed<br />
articles in Aquaculture and other journals. It was an exciting,<br />
rapid-fire series of insights and advances, ably assisted<br />
by visiting collaborators like Bill Fitt, Bob Trench,<br />
Chuck Fisher, Lee Hastie, Tadashi Maruyama, and others.<br />
The discoveries came faster than we could publish<br />
them in journals, so we developed a quarterly newsletter<br />
called The MMDC Bulletin and distributed it (by<br />
snail mail, of course) to 300 international colleagues.<br />
We invited economics professors from the University<br />
of Hawaii to analyze the inputs, outputs, and sensitivities<br />
of MMDC’s production system. It was judged to be<br />
economically viable at current levels of production and<br />
management (Leung et al., 1993; Shang et al., 1993).<br />
We closed the life cycle of Tridacna derasa in 1984<br />
with second-generation offspring and produced thirdgeneration<br />
offspring in 1989, achieving true independence<br />
from wild populations with over 10,000 mature,<br />
cultured broodstock clams in our Malakal Harbor<br />
ocean nursery (Heslinga et al., 1990). This enormous<br />
giant-clam gene bank—the world’s first—gave our hatchery<br />
team in Palau the capacity to conduct year-round,<br />
weekly spawnings with 200 fresh brooders each week, returning<br />
them to the ocean nursery for a full year before<br />
using them again. This achievement, verified at the time<br />
by many visitors to the MMDC, supports our claim of<br />
being first to domesticate T. derasa. To my knowledge,<br />
nothing close to this number of fully mature giant clam<br />
breeding stock, or this level of independence from wild<br />
populations, has been produced since then with any tridacnid<br />
clam species. At about the same time (1990), I<br />
Gerald Heslinga (left) with Ned<br />
Howard of the Cook Islands, preparing<br />
to ship 1,000 yearling Tridacna derasa<br />
to Aitutaki in May of 1986. Ned is<br />
Polynesia’s first giant-clam farmer.<br />
T. WATSON<br />
46 CORAL
Governor Jackson Ngiraingas of Peliliu State in Palau<br />
taking 200 mature, captive-bred Tridacna derasa to<br />
plant on the reefs of Peliliu in June, 1989.<br />
Right: Tom Watson (left) and Asap<br />
Bukurrou assembling a 3-horsepower<br />
stainless steel submersible pump at Palau’s<br />
MMDC clam hatchery in 1989.<br />
G. HESLINGA<br />
was honored to receive an award from<br />
Rolex of Geneva for our regional Gene<br />
Banks for Giant Clams project, including<br />
the gift of a gold Rolex Oyster<br />
watch that I have now worn for<br />
21 years. That same year, our book on<br />
clam farming was published, our conservation<br />
work was featured in a commemorative<br />
postage stamp series, and<br />
Kyoko and I were married.<br />
In the late 1980s and early 1990s,<br />
our hatchery team trained over 100<br />
people from Palau and around the region. We started<br />
clam nurseries in 14 of Palau’s 16 states and made<br />
hundreds of international shipments of clam seed for<br />
conservation and cultivation in Micronesia, Polynesia,<br />
Melanesia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Guam, Japan, Hawaii,<br />
and elsewhere. We pioneered the sale of thousands<br />
of cultured T. derasa, T. gigas, T. crocea, and H. Hippopus<br />
to the U.S. aquarium trade through large Los Angeles<br />
wholesalers like All Seas and Quality Marine, as well as<br />
California’s local fish stores. We shipped live, cultured,<br />
two-year-old T. derasa clams for sale in restaurants in<br />
Saipan and Okinawa and prepared sashimi clams on the<br />
half-shell for many Government of Palau official functions.<br />
It had not been our intention to become accidental<br />
caterers, but it was an honor to oblige. MMDC’s trays<br />
of baby T. derasa clams, served with lemon, soy sauce,<br />
and Tabasco sauce, were an instant hit.<br />
This was a far cry from the early days, when our Palauan<br />
friends and colleagues at MMDC had watched our<br />
setbacks and miscalculations with amusement. I recall<br />
the sting of being teased each time our ocean nursery<br />
was invaded by an eagle ray or a giant puffer fish, resulting<br />
in many clam mortalities and forcing us to upgrade<br />
from plastic to steel mesh cages. That worked, and<br />
CORAL<br />
47
Employees of the Tom 2Y Mariculture<br />
company loading wire-mesh clam cages for<br />
ocean nursery deployment in Palau in 2011.<br />
Palau’s Tom Watson (left) with sons Tommy<br />
(center) and Billy (right) on their giant clam<br />
farm in Malakal Harbor.<br />
upon seeing the throngs of baby clams appearing in the<br />
tanks and in our ocean nursery, our Palauan co-workers<br />
pitched in with genuine enthusiasm. They adopted clam<br />
farming as their own in 1995, fully two decades after<br />
Masashi Yamaguchi and Steve Jameson took the first<br />
tentative steps toward clam breeding in Micronesia. In<br />
1995 MMDC became PMDC (Palau Mariculture Demonstration<br />
Center), emphasizing Palau’s pride in the<br />
place and its reputation as the “mecca” of giant clam<br />
culture, a nickname bestowed by Professor John Lucas of<br />
Australia during his 1984 visit to Palau. Today (2012),<br />
an all-Palauan hatchery staff continues to produce baby<br />
giant clams for distribution to local reef farmers, while<br />
PACA, the Palau Aquacultured Clam Association, provides<br />
extension services and marketing assistance.<br />
CONSERVATION THROUGH<br />
DOMESTICATION<br />
It is important to recognize that true<br />
domestication (and indeed, truly sustainable<br />
farming) requires verifiable<br />
genetic independence from wild populations<br />
and production of multiple<br />
generations of offspring on a reliable<br />
basis (Heslinga and Fitt, 1987). Domestication<br />
should be the objective of<br />
every giant clam–farming nation and<br />
sustainability its guiding philosophy.<br />
Anything short of this may correctly be<br />
called cultivation, mariculture, ranching,<br />
or husbandry, but it cannot be<br />
called true farming, and it still leaves<br />
wild populations at risk of overexploitation.<br />
Examples of wild breeding<br />
stock depletion are occurring in some<br />
giant clam producing areas of Micronesia<br />
and Polynesia today, especially<br />
with T. maxima.<br />
Domestication and conservation<br />
are fully compatible and mutually reinforcing,<br />
because forward-thinking<br />
farmers do not annihilate their own<br />
breeding stock. In effect, each farm<br />
becomes a gene bank—that is, a hedge<br />
against loss of the genetic resource<br />
elsewhere. Not all farmers are forward<br />
thinkers, however. Just as some<br />
promising cattle ranching projects in<br />
developing countries have ended with<br />
a barbecue, some unprotected giant clam broodstock<br />
specimens have wound up as sashimi. This is unfortunate,<br />
but localized poaching incidents are not likely to<br />
stop development of the giant clam mariculture industry<br />
on a region-wide basis.<br />
AGE AT MATURITY<br />
AND FARMER FRIENDLINESS<br />
In Palau, T. derasa specimens planted in our ocean nurseries<br />
required five years to reach full male/female sexual<br />
maturity. Evidence now accumulating from around the<br />
region indicates that T. gigas reaches male/female phase<br />
maturity in about a decade near the equator and closer<br />
to twice that long at the higher latitudes of Australia’s<br />
Great Barrier Reef (R. Braley, pers. comm.). This means<br />
TOP: B. WATSON; BOTTOM: G. HESLINGA<br />
48 CORAL
that Australian T. gigas, with a generation time of some<br />
two decades, is likely the slowest-maturing marine invertebrate<br />
ever cultivated, an attribute that will limit its<br />
appeal as a maricultural candidate going forward.<br />
As of this writing (2012), no second-generation T.<br />
gigas juveniles have been produced in Australia, meaning<br />
that the life cycle of this species has not been closed<br />
there. Add to that the difficulty and danger of handling<br />
the enormous broodstock specimens, and it is not hard<br />
to see why, despite an intensive campaign by James Cook<br />
University to cultivate T. gigas in Australia beginning in<br />
1984 and by ICLARM (International Centre for Living<br />
Aquatic Resources) in Solomon Islands beginning in<br />
1987, there is little or no maricultural activity with T.<br />
gigas in those locations today.<br />
T. gigas cultivation for local<br />
conservation has progressed in the<br />
Philippines (Gomez and Mingoa-<br />
Licuanan, 2006), and a new giantclam<br />
hatchery, the Cebu Mariculture<br />
Demonstration Center (CMDC), is<br />
under construction (J.C. Leroy, pers.<br />
comm.). Prospects for commercial<br />
farming of giant clams in the Philippines<br />
are presently constrained by an<br />
export ban on all tridacnid specimens,<br />
both wild and captive bred. Unfortunately,<br />
this reduces incentives for the<br />
establishment of additional farms<br />
because international markets for<br />
cultured clam products are not accessible.<br />
Will a nationwide ban on exporting<br />
maricultured tridacnids help<br />
to restore the depleted resource, or is<br />
the effect more likely to be negative<br />
because it limits farming opportunities<br />
This important question requires<br />
further study.<br />
My conclusion from the above<br />
observations is that T. gigas, while<br />
deserving of continued cultivation<br />
for conservation purposes and justifiable<br />
as a choice for display in public<br />
aquariums and on snorkeling trails,<br />
lacks the attributes necessary for economically<br />
sustainable ocean farming.<br />
It is simply too big, too slow to mature,<br />
too challenging to handle, and<br />
too hard to sell within a reasonable<br />
time frame when compared to other<br />
tridacnid species and to other mariculture<br />
opportunities, like seaweeds and corals.<br />
We now know that T. gigas prefers exposed, outerreef<br />
habitats over the calmer, safer lagoon areas in which<br />
mariculturists prefer to work. Moreover, because of its<br />
great weight and razor-sharp shell margins, T. gigas can<br />
be a risky animal with which to work, both on land and<br />
at sea, as those of us who have handled many T. gigas<br />
specimens can attest from painful personal experience.<br />
In short, T. gigas is an impractical farm animal because<br />
it lacks farmer friendliness. This concept helps explain<br />
why sheep, goats and cows, for example, have been very<br />
successfully domesticated by man but lions, tigers, and<br />
blue whales have not.<br />
I believe T. gigas is best left undisturbed on reefs unless<br />
long-term funding is available for dedicated stock<br />
G. HESLINGA<br />
Tom Watson stocking a pre-shipment<br />
quarantine tank at MMDC with 1,000<br />
yearling T. derasa in 1989.<br />
CORAL<br />
49
Gerald Heslinga diving on<br />
the MMDC ocean nursery<br />
in 1989 among 10,000<br />
mature first-, second-, and<br />
third-generation Tridacna<br />
derasa broodstock<br />
specimens. This nursery<br />
was the world’s first giantclam<br />
gene bank.<br />
enhancement and protection efforts with no expectation<br />
of economic return beyond potential environmental or<br />
tourism benefits. The challenge in the future will be to<br />
attract committed personnel and sustained funding for<br />
conservation efforts in areas where T. gigas is threatened,<br />
endangered, or already extinct. Unfortunately, this applies<br />
to most of its natural range, with Australia’s Great<br />
Barrier Reef being the notable exception.<br />
In the aquarium trade, T. maxima, T. crocea, and T.<br />
derasa will always have strong appeal due to their attractive<br />
mantle colors. There is an urgent need for hatcheries<br />
presently producing juveniles of these species from<br />
wild breeding stock to create protected pools of cultured<br />
broodstock, to raise multiple generations reliably in captivity,<br />
and to stop depending exclusively on wild<br />
specimens as a sources of gametes. Such dependence<br />
can easily endanger local populations if<br />
carried on for an extended period. While producing<br />
juveniles from wild broodstock may<br />
qualify loosely as mariculture, it does not qualify<br />
as conservation or sustainable farming, and<br />
may seriously deplete local clam populations if<br />
no effort is made to augment them.<br />
For all-around ease of spawning, food-free<br />
larval culture, ease of handling, hardiness in<br />
ocean nurseries, and salability in a wide variety<br />
of markets encompassing meat, shells, and<br />
aquarium display, T. derasa seems best suited<br />
for lagoon-based mariculture programs, a point<br />
recognized by Heslinga and Perron (1983)<br />
some 30 years ago. H. hippopus holds high value<br />
as a meat producer for local consumption due<br />
to its exceptional hardiness, ease of culture, and<br />
short generation time. Like T. derasa, it ranks<br />
high on the farmer-friendliness scale.<br />
THE FUTURE<br />
OF GIANT CLAM CULTURE<br />
As we look around the Indo-Pacific region today,<br />
do we see a booming giant-clam farming<br />
industry, employing thousands of people and<br />
generating hundreds of millions of dollars per<br />
annum in sales, as is the case with seaweed<br />
culture Not yet. The present state of tridacnid<br />
farming in the Indo-Pacific region is considerably<br />
more modest than that. Across the region<br />
where these clams occur naturally, there are<br />
likely hundreds of people now involved on a<br />
daily basis in their cultivation and husbandry,<br />
with annual revenues in the countries of origin<br />
in the low millions of U.S. dollars at farm<br />
gate. Some production is not for export at all,<br />
but for subsistence consumption at the family<br />
or village level. This artisanal production and<br />
consumption is, of course, significant to the<br />
people who grow and eat the clams, but will<br />
never show up as national trade statistics.<br />
It is unrealistic to think that every giant clam farm<br />
or sanctuary will be immune from interference, or that<br />
every new hatchery venture will proceed along a straight<br />
path toward economic viability. The achievement of these<br />
ends demands favorable government policies, international<br />
cooperation, and qualified, committed management.<br />
These requirements were met at Palau’s MMDC<br />
between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s, allowing us<br />
to make rapid progress and to demonstrate unequivocally,<br />
for the first time, that (a) giant clam seed of several<br />
species can be produced in great abundance with modest<br />
technical inputs; and (b) T. derasa, an exceptionally efficient,<br />
photosymbiotic producer of valuable meat, can<br />
B. PERRYCLEAR<br />
50 CORAL
G. HESLINGA<br />
be raised through multiple generations in an economically<br />
and environmentally sustainable manner to supply<br />
domestic and international markets.<br />
These achievements represent significant milestones<br />
in the history of agriculture. In an ideal world they would<br />
be widely embraced without delay, and, in fact, a recent review<br />
by Kinch and Teitlebaum (2010) noted the existence<br />
of some 10 private ventures and 15 government-linked<br />
ones culturing tridacnid clams in Micronesia, Melanesia,<br />
and Polynesia. Others exist in the Philippines,<br />
Indonesia, and Thailand, and a researchoriented<br />
giant clam culture program began in<br />
Brazil in 2011 (Miguel Mies, pers. comm.).<br />
While this expansion of tridacnid cultivation<br />
is encouraging, in today’s world we should<br />
not be surprised to see occasional episodes of<br />
political unrest, ethnic tension, or outright<br />
tribal conflict, nor should we be reluctant to<br />
acknowledge that progress in localized areas<br />
may be interrupted as a result. Government<br />
corruption is also a factor that cannot be ignored;<br />
it is real, it is ongoing, and its impact on<br />
industry development can be crippling. Despite<br />
these caveats we can accurately state that the<br />
technical feasibility of giant-clam culture has<br />
now been convincingly demonstrated in many<br />
locations, and the economic feasibility in several.<br />
Constraints to industry growth are likely<br />
to be political and regulatory in nature rather<br />
than technical or economic. The main regulatory<br />
barrier pertaining to international marketing<br />
of cultured clams is CITES (Convention<br />
on International Trade in Endangered Species),<br />
and that has recently been addressed by Kinch<br />
and Teitlebaum (2010). Ultimately, these issues<br />
will have to be resolved by policy makers in<br />
the sovereign nations of the region, but history<br />
teaches us that two things are beyond dispute:<br />
international cooperation accelerates progress<br />
in agriculture; isolationism retards it.<br />
As we mark the 30th birthday of the maricultured<br />
Palauan T. gigas so expertly cared for<br />
by Bruce Carlson, Charles Delbeek, Marjorie<br />
Awai, and their Waikiki Aquarium colleagues,<br />
it is appropriate to put events in the giant-clam<br />
world into broader perspective. Harvesting of<br />
wild specimens continues largely unabated<br />
across the natural range of the family Tridacnidae.<br />
We can thank burgeoning human<br />
populations for that. The aquarium industry<br />
plays an undeniable role in this, as thousands<br />
of large, wild T. crocea and T. maxima still enter<br />
the trade annually from Vietnam and Tahiti,<br />
respectively. This is regrettable, given the<br />
historical tendency of giant clams to be overharvested<br />
when commercially exploited. Now<br />
that there are reasonably priced captive-bred alternatives<br />
available, the continued harvest of wild tridacnids for<br />
the aquarium trade is difficult to justify.<br />
Responsible hobbyists need to understand that while<br />
we all may love the beautiful mantle colors of wildcaught<br />
T crocea and T. maxima, what we do not see is the<br />
thousands of gaping white holes chiseled into the coral<br />
heads from which those clams were collected or the loss<br />
of reproductive capacity in areas where large numbers<br />
Captive-bred two-year<br />
old Tridacna derasa<br />
specimens (4-inch<br />
[10-cm] shell length)<br />
in a land-based<br />
raceway at MMDC in<br />
1987, showing the<br />
green and yellow<br />
blue-rimmed color<br />
morphs typical of this<br />
species.<br />
CORAL<br />
51
of highly fecund adult clams have been permanently removed<br />
from breeding populations. Nor is there published<br />
evidence available indicating that current wild-capture<br />
operations are being conducted on a sustainable basis.<br />
We should not lose sight of the fact that as consumers in<br />
the aquatic pet industry, our purchasing decisions online<br />
and in local fish stores can exert a powerful influence on<br />
the health and wellness of the world’s coral reefs. One<br />
good way to exert this influence is by demanding captivebred<br />
tridacnid clams instead of wild ones.<br />
The rapid technical progress we’ve seen in giant clam<br />
mariculture has been achieved in a relatively short period<br />
of time, roughly 30 years, mainly in areas where<br />
subsistence-level, land-based agriculture and a huntergatherer<br />
mode of reef harvesting have been the rule for<br />
thousands of years. The past three decades are but an<br />
eyeblink when one considers that giant clams have been<br />
aggressively fished from coral reefs for an astonishing<br />
150,000 years (Roa-Quiaoit, 2005).<br />
What has changed since those prehistoric times, and<br />
indeed since the first commercial-scale production of T.<br />
gigas at Palau’s MMDC in 1982, is that today humans are<br />
not just taking wild giant clams from reefs. Instead, we<br />
are producing previously undreamed-of numbers of baby<br />
giants in hatcheries, culturing them in ocean gardens,<br />
offering them for sale in local and international markets,<br />
placing them on display in sophisticated aquariums<br />
around the world, learning more about them each year,<br />
and, for the first time in history, putting them back onto<br />
coral reefs. Why do we do this, often with no expectation<br />
of financial gain The answer is simple: giant clams are<br />
rare, tasty, valuable, fascinating to watch, and in many<br />
ways unique. Producing more of them is desirable; preventing<br />
their extinction is essential. Mariculture aimed<br />
at domestication is under way, and reefkeepers can play<br />
an important role in speeding its development.<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Beckvar, N. 1981. Cultivation, spawning and growth of the giant<br />
clams Tridacna gigas, Tridacna derasa and Tridacna squamosa in<br />
Palau, Caroline Islands. Aquaculture 24: 21–30.<br />
Coeroli, M. 1994. Oral presentation at Pearls 1994 Conference<br />
(Honolulu, Hawaii).<br />
Doty, M.S. 1982. The diversified farming of coral reefs.<br />
University of Hawaii Harold L. Lyon Arboretum Lecture, no. 11.<br />
University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 29 pp.<br />
Fitt, W.K., G.A. Heslinga, and T.C. Watson. 1992. The use of<br />
antibiotics in the mariculture of giant clams (f. Tridacnidae).<br />
Aquaculture 104: 1–10.<br />
———. 1993. Utilization of dissolved inorganic nutrients in the<br />
growth and mariculture of the tridacnid clam, Tridacna derasa.<br />
Aquaculture 109: 27–38.<br />
Gomez, E.D. and S.S. Mingoa-Licuanan. 2006. Achievements<br />
and lessons learned in restocking giant clams in the<br />
Philippines. Fisheries Research 80: 46–52.<br />
Hastie, L.C., T.C. Watson, and G.A. Heslinga. 1992. Effect of<br />
nutrient enrichment on Tridacna derasa: dissolved inorganic<br />
nitrogen improves growth rate. Aquaculture 106: 41–9.<br />
Heslinga, G.A. 1976. Effects of copper on the coral reef echinoid<br />
Echinometra mathaei (de Blainville). Mar Biol 35: 155–60.<br />
———. 1979. The giant clams of Palau. J Hawaiian Malacolog<br />
Soc 27 (10): 1, 6, 7.<br />
———. 1995. Clams to cash: how to make and sell giant clam<br />
shell products. Center for Tropical and Subtropical Aquaculture<br />
(Hawaii), pub. no. 125, 47 pp.<br />
Heslinga, G.A. and A. Hillman. 1981. Hatchery culture of the<br />
commercial top snail Trochus niloticus in Palau, Caroline Islands.<br />
Aquaculture 22: 35–43.<br />
Heslinga, G.A. and F.E. Perron. 1983. The status of giant clam<br />
mariculture technology in the Indo-Pacific. SPC Fisheries<br />
Newsletter no. 23, Jan–Mar 1983, 5 pp.<br />
Heslinga, G.A., F.E. Perron, and O. Orak. 1984. Mass culture of<br />
giant clams (f. Tridacnidae) in Palau. Aquaculture 39: 197–215.<br />
Heslinga, G.A. and W.K. Fitt. 1987. The domestication of reefdwelling<br />
clams. BioScience 37: 332–9.<br />
Heslinga, G.A., T.C. Watson, and T. Isamu. 1990. Giant Clam<br />
Farming. Pacific Fisheries Development Foundation (NMFS/<br />
NOAA), Honolulu, HI, 179 pp.<br />
Heslinga, G.A. and T.C. Watson. 2012. The MMDC/PMDC<br />
Archives online, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nOk6L<br />
C1W8nmrO9AK44piHh6o1TDovtUl3qVDf698RKA/editpli=1.<br />
Jameson, S.C. 1976. Early life history of the giant clams<br />
(Tridacna crocea, Tridacna maxima and Hippopus hippopus),<br />
Pacific Sci 30: 219–33.<br />
Kinch, J. and A. Teitlebaum. 2010. Proceedings of the regional<br />
workshop on the management of sustainable fisheries for giant<br />
clams (Tridacnidae) and CITES capacity building (4–7 August<br />
2009, Nadi, Fiji). Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Noumea,<br />
New Caledonia, 52 pp.<br />
LaBarbera, M. 1975. Larvae and larval development of the<br />
giant clams Tridacna maxima and Tridacna squamosa (Bivalvia:<br />
Tridacnidae). Malacologia 15: 69–79.<br />
Leung, P., Y. Shang, K. Wanitprapha, and X. Tian. 1993.<br />
Production Economics of Giant Clam (Tridacna species) Culture<br />
Systems in the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands. Center for Tropical<br />
and Subtropical Aquaculture, University of Hawaii, pub. no.<br />
114.<br />
Maruyama, T. and G.A. Heslinga. 1997. Fecal discharge of<br />
zooxanthellae in the giant clam Tridacna derasa, with reference<br />
to their in situ growth rate. Aquaculture 127: 473–7.<br />
Perron, F.E., G.A. Heslinga, and J. Fagolimul. 1985. The<br />
gastropod Cymatium muricinum, a predator on juvenile<br />
tridacnid clams. Aquaculture 48: 211–22.<br />
Rideout, R.S. 1978. Asexual reproduction as a means of<br />
population maintenance in the coral reef asteroid Linckia<br />
multifora on Guam. Mar Biol 47: 287–95.<br />
Roa-Quiaoit, Hilly Ann F. 2005. The ecology and culture<br />
of giant clams (Tridacnidae) in the Jordanian sector of<br />
the Gulf of Aquaba, Red Sea. Vorgelegt im Fachbereich 2<br />
(Biologie/Chemie) der Universitat Bremen als Dissertation<br />
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der<br />
naturwissenschafte (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Bremen,<br />
Germany), 100 pp.<br />
Shang, Y.C., P. Leung, K. Wanitprapha, and G.A. Heslinga.<br />
1993. Production cost comparisons of giant clam (Tridacna)<br />
production systems in the U.S.-affiliated Pacific Islands.<br />
Proceedings of the Third Asian Fisheries Forum.<br />
Yamaguchi, M. 1977. Conservation and cultivation of giant<br />
clams in the tropical Pacific. Biol Conserv 11: 13–20.<br />
52 CORAL
CORAL<br />
53
Waikiki Aquarium’s<br />
giant clams mark<br />
30-year anniversary<br />
T<br />
by Dr. Bruce Carlson<br />
The year 2012 marks the 30th anniversary of two landmark<br />
events in aquarium and aquaculture history. In<br />
March 1982, Gerald Heslinga and his colleagues succeeded<br />
with the first commercial production of Tridacna<br />
gigas at the former Micronesian Mariculture Demonstration<br />
Center (MMDC) in Palau. Three months later,<br />
in June 1982, some of those clams arrived at the University<br />
of Hawaii’s Waikiki Aquarium in Honolulu. One<br />
of those clams has now become the oldest aquacultured<br />
giant clam in the world, and another may be the largest<br />
in any aquarium. In the previous article, Heslinga relates<br />
his experiences rearing giant clams.<br />
This story focuses on the 30-year history of T. gigas at<br />
the Waikiki Aquarium. I will also address an important<br />
question about this species: is Tridacna gigas appropriate<br />
for aquariums and, if so, under what conditions<br />
Until recently, Dieter Brockmann held the longevity<br />
record for T. gigas in an aquarium. His clam died<br />
in 2009 after 30 years in his aquarium, and he told its<br />
life-story in his article “Requiem for a Giant Clam” in<br />
B. CARLSON<br />
54 CORAL
Left: Tridacna gigas at the Waikiki<br />
Aquarium, 2012. Gigas-77 is in the<br />
foreground, MMDC-82 is behind it.<br />
Above: Pat Colin (right) and the<br />
author hoist a large T. gigas into<br />
a shipping container at Enewetak<br />
Atoll. This was the first live T. gigas<br />
to be displayed in the United<br />
States.<br />
Right: The Enewetak T. gigas and<br />
other tridacnid clams on exhibit at<br />
the Waikiki Aquarium.<br />
TOP: M. DEGRUY; RIGHT: B. CARLSON<br />
CORAL (Brockmann, 2009).<br />
Brockmann got his clam from<br />
a pet store in Germany in<br />
1979, when it measured only<br />
4.25 inches (11 cm); when it<br />
died, it was 30.25 inches (77<br />
cm) long. Daniel Knop (2009)<br />
credited Brockmann with having<br />
the oldest giant clam in any<br />
aquarium, followed closely by<br />
the T. gigas at the Waikiki Aquarium.<br />
Our experiences with T. gigas at the Waikiki Aquarium<br />
also began in 1979, but prior to this I set up the<br />
Waikiki Aquarium’s first experimental live reef exhibit<br />
that included several T. crocea and one T. squamosa, collected<br />
in Palau in 1978. Very little was known about giant<br />
clam husbandry in 1978, and one notable Tridacna<br />
biologist who viewed the exhibit assured me that Tridacna<br />
would not survive in an aquarium; fortunately, he was<br />
wrong. We did know that Tridacna needed bright light,<br />
based on their relationship with zooxanthellae algae.<br />
In those years, all we had were incandescent spotlights,<br />
which barely sufficed. By 1979, the small clams and corals<br />
were moved from the 75-gallon (284-L) aquarium to<br />
a 350-gallon (1,325-L) exhibit exposed to natural sun-<br />
CORAL<br />
55
June, 1982: Gerald Heslinga poses with the<br />
world’s first commercial batch of T. gigas. One of<br />
these clams is still alive and resides at the Waikiki<br />
Aquarium.<br />
light (some of the corals from 1978 are still on exhibit<br />
at the Waikiki Aquarium). Our success with the small<br />
clams and corals motivated us to attempt bringing in a<br />
large T. gigas.<br />
Tridacna gigas remained an elusive goal until October<br />
1979, when I contacted Mike deGruy, the lab manager<br />
on Enewetak Atoll and a former Waikiki Aquarium biologist.<br />
He and I set about devising a plan to bring a living<br />
T. gigas to the Waikiki Aquarium. Dave Powell of the<br />
Steinhart Aquarium offered advice and plans to build a<br />
watertight container to transport such a creature. Based<br />
on his recommendations, we constructed a box made<br />
from .5-inch (1.3-cm) marine plywood and had it fiberglassed<br />
by a local boat building company. It measured 5<br />
feet long x 2 feet wide x 2 feet deep (152 x 61 x 61 cm)<br />
and was divided into two compartments. The main compartment,<br />
designed to hold the clam, was 3.5 x 2 feet<br />
(107 x 61 cm) and held about 100 gallons (378.5 L) of<br />
seawater. The adjacent, smaller 1.5 x 2 foot (46 x 61 cm)<br />
compartment was dry and held a 12-volt car battery and<br />
pumps. To ensure that the container was<br />
watertight, we also built a fiberglass lid with<br />
a neoprene seal that could be bolted to a 2<br />
x 2-inch (5.1 x 5.1-cm) frame around the<br />
inside rim of the tank.<br />
Dr. Pat Colin, who succeeded Mike as<br />
the Enewetak lab manager, worked with us<br />
to collect the clam. We raised it to the surface<br />
using a lift bag, hoisted it into the fiberglass<br />
box on the boat, and relocated it to<br />
the lagoon near the airstrip. On departure<br />
day, we repeated the lifting procedure, but<br />
this time the clam was sealed in the box and<br />
loaded on an Air Force jet bound for Honolulu<br />
(see sidebar story). The 12-volt car battery<br />
powered a bilge pump and an air pump<br />
to keep the water circulating and aerated<br />
during the five-hour flight.<br />
The T. gigas from Enewetak arrived at the<br />
Waikiki Aquarium in excellent condition,<br />
and, due to its large size, it went directly into<br />
the new exhibit rather than into a quarantine<br />
tank. This T. gigas was probably the first<br />
large giant clam ever displayed in an aquarium.<br />
For the next two years, it seemed to<br />
thrive, but by April 1982 its condition deteriorated<br />
and it suddenly died. We never determined<br />
a definitive cause for its demise, but<br />
we decided we would try again with another<br />
T. gigas. Meanwhile, the Enewetak clam was<br />
mounted and displayed in the Waikiki Aquarium galleries,<br />
where it can still be viewed today. It may also have<br />
some residual research value (see sidebar story).<br />
In June 1982 I made a trip to Palau and stayed at the<br />
MMDC, where Gerald Heslinga was conducting his trials<br />
with spawning and rearing T. gigas and other tridacnid<br />
species (for details read Heslinga, et al., 1984). He<br />
offered to give us 24 young T. gigas from his first successful<br />
commercial production, which he had accomplished<br />
three months earlier. He also gave us one wild-caught T.<br />
gigas that he estimated had settled on the reef in 1977,<br />
making it about five years old in 1982. Based on published<br />
growth data (Munro, 1992), at five years it was<br />
about 11.8 inches (30 cm) long, which matches my recollection<br />
that it was about the size of a football. Henceforth,<br />
I will refer to this older clam as Gigas-77 and the<br />
other clams as MMDC-82. Thirty years later, Gigas-77<br />
and one of the original MMDC-82 clams are both alive<br />
and growing at the Waikiki Aquarium.<br />
For 20 years, these clams were exhibited in a relatively<br />
B. CARLSON<br />
56 CORAL
simple, 350-gallon (1,325-L) aquarium. The Waikiki<br />
Aquarium exhibits are primarily open-system—they receive<br />
a constant supply of new seawater drawn not from<br />
the ocean but from an 80-foot (24.4-m) deep well on<br />
the Aquarium’s property. Seawater from this well is characterized<br />
by elevated levels of inorganic nutrients, relatively<br />
low organic nutrients, and a depressed pH due to a<br />
high concentration of carbon dioxide. The water is heavily<br />
aerated to drive out excess carbon dioxide, and this<br />
raises the pH to about 8.0 before it enters the exhibit.<br />
(For a detailed analysis of this well water and its effects<br />
on growing corals and clams, see Atkinson et al, 1995.)<br />
Over the decades, we have often been asked what we<br />
feed the clams, and the answer is: “nothing!” The well<br />
water contains no plankton. If the clams filter any phytoplankton<br />
from the water, it has to come from whatever<br />
grows naturally in the aquarium system. There are also<br />
fish in the exhibit, and it is possible that the clams ingest<br />
feces or excess food that the fish miss. Otherwise, symbiotic<br />
zooxanthellae (single-cell algae) provide the bulk<br />
of the nutrition for these giant clams. The zooxanthellae,<br />
in turn, require bright light. In the early years, the giant<br />
clam and coral exhibits were illuminated by the direct<br />
natural light of the sun, which shines almost every day<br />
in Waikiki, and several incandescent spotlights (mostly<br />
for evening viewing). By the early 1990s, we had installed<br />
400-watt metal halide fixtures over the exhibit to<br />
provide supplemental illumination during the day and<br />
evening hours.<br />
One unfortunate discovery that we made in the early<br />
1980s was the presence of small parasitic snails infesting<br />
the clams. I noticed these snails one evening when they<br />
appeared by the hundreds along the edges of the clams’<br />
mantles. Closer inspection revealed that they were feeding<br />
on the mantle tissue. The next morning the snails<br />
appeared to be gone, but they had simply retreated into<br />
the crevices in the clams’ valves. I sent samples of the<br />
snails to the late Dr. Alison Kay at the University of Hawaii,<br />
who specialized in micro-mollusks; she concluded<br />
that they were pyramidellid snails and, ominously, they<br />
were direct developers: they did not have a planktonic<br />
larval stage. We found their egg masses everywhere on<br />
the valves just beneath the mantle tissue. Once the<br />
clams were infected, the snails proliferated rapidly. To<br />
Atomic age T. gigas<br />
The United States detonated 23 nuclear bombs at Bikini Atoll from 1946 to 1958, including<br />
the largest of all hydrogen bombs, dubbed “Castle Bravo,” which was detonated on March 1, 1954. Despite the<br />
destruction and radiation, ocean life, including Tridacna gigas, persisted there. Kelshaw Bonham published an<br />
article in the journal Science (Bonham, 1965) in which he reported the estimated age of a 20.5-inch (52-cm)<br />
T. gigas. By slicing the shell into sections and exposing them on x-ray film over a period of three months, he<br />
observed bands representing radioactive material (strontium-90). By correlating these bands to the 1956 and<br />
1958 tests, he was able to measure the growth rate of the clam and then, by counting the bands in the shell, he<br />
estimated its age. His data are included in the accompanying chart and his results are comparable to the actual<br />
age-size measurements of the clams at the Waikiki Aquarium, as well as Dieter Brockmann’s clam.<br />
Interestingly, the first T. gigas collected at Enewetak in 1979 and displayed at the Waikiki Aquarium may<br />
also have survived nuclear testing. Pat Colin related the following story to me:<br />
I remember going after the clam well. It came from one of the channels between the island in the northeastern<br />
part of (Enewetak) atoll and we lifted it up with a lift bag and towed it back to the boat. That<br />
would have been a little over 20 years after the last nuclear test at Enewetak. Could the clam have grown<br />
enough in 22–24 years to reach the size it was, or would it have been alive during the testing<br />
From what we know now, the answer to the latter part of Pat’s question is definitely “yes.” The T. gigas<br />
collected in 1979 and now displayed as a museum exhibit at the Waikiki Aquarium measures 31.5 inches (80<br />
cm). This means it would have been 30–35 years old in 1979, and would have survived all, or nearly all, of the<br />
43 nuclear tests conducted at Enewetak from 1948 through 1958. Presumably, it also has strontium-90 bands<br />
in its shell that faithfully recorded some or all of the blasts from the era of atmospheric nuclear testing in the<br />
Pacific. But even more remarkable is that it survived any nuclear explosion in such close proximity!<br />
There is one final anecdote that Pat Colin related about this giant clam from Enewetak (note: the GS ranking<br />
is the pay scale for government employees):<br />
When the clam was shipped out of Enewetak on the flight you and I were on, Mike deGruy had the clam<br />
listed on the manifest as “Clam, Killer, GS-15,” much to the chagrin of the lesser-ranking GS feds who<br />
were on the flight, as the highest GS rankings came first on the list!<br />
CORAL<br />
57
Size (cm)<br />
120<br />
100<br />
80<br />
60<br />
40<br />
20<br />
0<br />
TRIDACNA GIGAS GROWTH RATES<br />
Bikini<br />
Age (years)<br />
Palau<br />
Waikiki<br />
Brockmann<br />
Australia<br />
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40<br />
control the snails, I went into the aquarium at night and<br />
removed the snails using a small brush and a siphon—a<br />
laborious procedure, but effective for short-term control.<br />
At that time we were not aware of any reports of<br />
these snails parasitizing giant clams. I contacted Gerry<br />
Heslinga about my observations, and he went out into<br />
the field to observe the wild clams. He found snails on<br />
the giant clams on the reef, but more important, he also<br />
observed a wrasse, Halichoeres chloropterus, that fed upon<br />
the snails. We obtained some of these Pastel-Green<br />
Wrasses and they became part of our snail population–<br />
control procedure. Since that time, using wrasses for<br />
snail control has become standard procedure for aquarists<br />
and is included in almost every book and paper on<br />
giant clam husbandry. (For more information on these<br />
snails, see Cumming, 1988).<br />
Every few years, one of our clams died. Usually we<br />
could not determine any cause of death. Giant bristle<br />
worms apparently killed a few of them by entering the<br />
byssal opening at the bottom of the clam and feeding<br />
on the clams’ internal organs. Occasionally we noticed<br />
gas bubbles developing in the mantle tissue (“gas bubble<br />
disease”). This condition usually appeared in the spring,<br />
when the clams received more direct sunlight. We speculated<br />
that increased solar radiation may have contributed<br />
to this condition, either directly, or perhaps indirectly<br />
via warmer water temperature, but we never reached a<br />
definitive conclusion. This condition always resolved itself<br />
and never resulted in mortality.<br />
Whenever a clam died, we recorded its age and the<br />
maximum length of the shell. These measurements are<br />
reported in the accompanying chart. Ideally, we should<br />
have measured each of the clams on a regular schedule<br />
to have complete growth records for each individual, because<br />
each clam grew at a different<br />
rate. Instead, the Waikiki<br />
Aquarium data are a composite<br />
of all of the clams, representing<br />
their size and age when<br />
each clam died. Fortunately,<br />
we do have recent measurements<br />
for the two oldest living<br />
clams (Gigas-77 and MMDC-<br />
82). All of these data points<br />
are on the chart, as well as the<br />
growth data reported by Dieter<br />
Brockmann in his article. How<br />
do these growth rates compare<br />
with growth rates reported elsewhere<br />
John Munro (1993) published<br />
a table including data<br />
from a variety of sources on the<br />
growth rates of six species of<br />
giant clams, including T. gigas.<br />
For each data set, he estimated<br />
future growth based on Von Bertalanffy growth equations.<br />
In the accompanying chart, I selected the fastest<br />
and slowest estimated growth rates from Munro’s table<br />
and equations, and then plotted the data from the<br />
Waikiki Aquarium and from Dieter Brockmann’s clams.<br />
(Also included are data from one T. gigas from Bikini<br />
Atoll; refer to the sidebar story about this clam). Both<br />
data sets nearly coincide with the slower growth rate estimated<br />
for wild clams on Michaelmas Reef, Australia<br />
(the faster projected growth rates were estimated from<br />
aquacultured clams in Palau). These data are the best<br />
evidence that the aquarium growth rates are probably<br />
not aberrant. Note that the single data point at 35 years<br />
is the estimated age of the Waikiki Aquarium’s oldest<br />
clam: Gigas-77. It now measures just shy of 3 feet (90.49<br />
cm), making it very likely the largest giant clam in any<br />
aquarium in the world.<br />
Weight measurements of Gigas-77 were recorded on<br />
three occasions over a span of 20 years. These are “wet<br />
weights” of the whole animal. To take these measurements,<br />
we tied a harness around the clam and hoisted it<br />
in the air, with the harness attached to a scale. A video<br />
highlighting these weighings can be viewed on YouTube<br />
at .<br />
These data are recorded in Table 1.<br />
Table 1.<br />
Wet weight of Gigas-77 at the Waikiki Aquarium<br />
DATE AGE WEIGHT WEIGHT<br />
years kilograms pounds<br />
8/24/90 13 43.1 95<br />
2/25/93 16 54.4 120<br />
5/21/02 25 75.7 167<br />
58 CORAL
In 2002, the Waikiki Aquarium completed work<br />
on a new, larger coral reef exhibit. This 5,500-gallon<br />
(20,820-L) exhibit is 5 feet (1.5 m) deep and has a<br />
maximum front-to-back width of 9 feet (2.7 m). The<br />
viewing window is 14.3 x 4 feet (3 x 1.2 m). The exhibit<br />
was created to be a spectacular display of Pacific reef life,<br />
but also to accommodate the growing size of the giant<br />
clams and the burgeoning collection of living corals. Illumination<br />
continues to come primarily from sunlight,<br />
augmented with three 1,000-watt/6,500K and four<br />
400-watt/20,000K metal halide lamps. One significant<br />
change was made to the life support system: the exhibit<br />
is no longer maintained as an open system. Instead, it<br />
now operates as a typical, albeit very large, closed system,<br />
complete with a calcium reactor and foam fractionator.<br />
Two 250-gallon (946-L) auto-surge tanks are located on<br />
the roof above the exhibit, fed by a 2 HP pump, and they<br />
generate periodic, but significant turbulent circulation.<br />
A second 2 HP recirculation pump provides additional<br />
water motion within the tank via returns in the corners<br />
and throughout the rockwork. A<br />
third 2 HP pump supplies water<br />
to a 10 HP chiller, and this water<br />
is returned via surface outlets<br />
located along the top of the<br />
viewing window.<br />
Tridacna gigas spawning at<br />
Right: Waikiki Aquarium biologist<br />
Rick Klobuchar measures the length<br />
of Gigas-77.<br />
the Waikiki Aquarium has been erratic—and sometimes<br />
a cause for alarm. The first spawning event that we observed<br />
took place on June 18, 1994, when Gigas-77 was<br />
16 years old. The younger MMDC-82 clam spawned a<br />
year later on July 6, 1995, at the age of 13. Spawning has<br />
continued over the years, but has not been predictable.<br />
And, oddly, the clams have only produced sperm; by now<br />
they should be producing eggs. On one evening in May<br />
2008, one or more of the clams spawned in the new exhibit.<br />
Charles Delbeek was alerted to the situation and<br />
took the accompanying photograph on the next page.<br />
Visibility in the exhibit was reduced to zero and the foam<br />
fractionator was overflowing. At the Waikiki Aquarium<br />
it is relatively easy to manage a situation like this by<br />
opening a seawater valve and flushing the exhibit. This<br />
would not be possible in most closed-system aquariums<br />
operated by home aquarists, unless they maintain ample<br />
backup supplies of seawater.<br />
Is T. gigas a desirable choice for hobbyists In my<br />
opinion, the answer is no. Tridacna gigas in the wild are<br />
rapidly disappearing due to overfishing,<br />
despite protection in many<br />
island nations. Wild-caught tridacnid<br />
clams should never be offered<br />
for sale to hobbyists, as they are<br />
protected by the Convention on<br />
International Trade in Endangered<br />
Species (CITES). It is possible to<br />
legally purchase aquacultured T. gigas,<br />
but unless you have an aquarium<br />
capable of eventually managing<br />
a clam that could reach at least 3<br />
These clams are all part of the 1982<br />
cohort of T. gigas from Palau. Age and<br />
size data for these clams are recorded<br />
on the accompanying chart.<br />
TOP: D. TANGONAN; BOTTOM: B. CARLSON<br />
CORAL<br />
59
“White out!” This is what happens when a large T. gigas<br />
spawns in an aquarium. Charles Delbeek photographed<br />
this scene at the Waikiki Aquarium in 2008.<br />
feet (1 m), don’t buy one. And if you aren’t prepared<br />
to keep your aquarium and clam for many (many!) decades,<br />
then resist the temptation to buy one of these giants.<br />
I have seen T. gigas in quite a few home aquariums,<br />
and I know that in a few short years the owners will<br />
face the prospect of greatly expanding the size of their<br />
aquariums or disposing of the clams. Public aquariums<br />
are already adding T. gigas to the list of unwanted pets<br />
that owners deliver to their doors (think “pacu”). If you<br />
want to keep Tridacna in your home aquarium, stick with<br />
the smaller species, such as T. derasa, T. crocea, and T.<br />
maxima, which also tend to be much more colorful. If<br />
you really want to see T. gigas, plan a diving trip to the<br />
South Pacific or make a visit to the Waikiki Aquarium on<br />
your next trip to Hawaii.<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Atkinson, M., B. Carlson, and<br />
G.L. Crow. 1995. Coral growth in<br />
high-nutrient, low-pH seawater:<br />
a case study of corals cultured at<br />
the Waikiki Aquarium, Honolulu,<br />
Hawaii. Coral Reefs 14: 215–23.<br />
Bonham, K. 1965. Growth rate<br />
of giant clam Tridacna gigas<br />
at Bikini Atoll revealed by<br />
radioautography. Science 149:<br />
300–302.<br />
Brockmann, Dieter. April, 2010.<br />
Requiem for a giant clam.<br />
CORAL online, http://www.<br />
reef2rainforest.com/2012/10/06/<br />
requiem-for-a-giant-clam/.<br />
Cumming, R.L. 1998. Pyramidellid<br />
parasites in giant clam mariculture<br />
systems. In: J.D. Copland and J.S.<br />
Lucas, eds, Giant Clams in Asia<br />
and the Pacific, pp. 231–6 (ACIAR<br />
Monograph No. 9, Canberra, Australian Centre for International<br />
Agricultural Research).<br />
Heslinga, G.A., F.E. Perron, and O. Orak. 1984. Mass culture of<br />
giant clams (f. Tridacnidae) in Palau. Aquaculture 39: 197–215.<br />
Fetherree, J. 2006. Giant Clams in the Sea and the Aquarium.<br />
Liquid Medium, Tampa, FL.<br />
Knop, D. 2009. Riesenmuscheln—Arten und Pflege im Aquarium.<br />
Dähne Verlag, Ettlingen, Germany.<br />
Munro, J.L. 1992. Giant Clams. Forum Fisheries Agency Report<br />
92/75.<br />
Many thanks to Gerald Heslinga, who has been an inspiration to<br />
all of us through his pioneering work with giant clam aquaculture<br />
and his efforts to help us procure T. gigas. Heslinga and Charles<br />
Delbeek reviewed this article and provided additional details. I<br />
also must thank Waikiki Aquarium biologist Rick Klobuchar,<br />
who recorded the most recent measurements of Gigas-77 and<br />
MMDC-82. Rick is the fourth aquarist responsible for the care<br />
of these clams at the Waikiki Aquarium (Bruce Carlson 1982–<br />
1985, Marj Awai 1985–1995, Charles Delbeek 1995–2008).<br />
The entire Waikiki Aquarium husbandry and life-support teams<br />
also deserve credit for maintaining the exhibits for all these decades.<br />
I thank the Aquarium’s current director, Dr. Andrew Rossiter,<br />
who allowed me to photograph the clams and to work with<br />
Klobuchar and Gerald Crow to obtain additional information. I<br />
also extend thanks to Dr. Pat Colin for his recollections and participation<br />
in our 1979 T. gigas expedition; and to Mike deGruy,<br />
who was instrumental in arranging logistics for that effort and<br />
so many other Waikiki Aquarium expeditions and documentaries.<br />
Tragically, Mike died in a plane crash on February 4, 2012, while<br />
on a filming expedition in Australia.<br />
Three-year old Ashlynn M.<br />
poses next to the T. gigas<br />
collected at Enewetak<br />
Atoll in 1979.<br />
B. CARLSON<br />
60 CORAL
CORAL<br />
61
Endangered giants<br />
The evolution of the giant clams is a dynamic process, just like<br />
changes in their distribution. Change is the only constant—along<br />
with the threat posed by illegal fishing.<br />
by Daniel Knop<br />
D. KNOP<br />
62 CORAL
Opposite page: Tridacna<br />
gigas fossils to be sold<br />
as collectible objects in<br />
Europe.<br />
This page, clockwise<br />
from top left: Tridacna<br />
costata; Tridacna<br />
mbalavuana, formerly<br />
described as Tridacna<br />
tevoroa; T. elongatissima<br />
(T. squamosa).<br />
M. KOCHZIUSL E. THALER; D. KNOP<br />
For decades it was considered a fact that there were only<br />
two giant clam species of the family Tridacnidae in the<br />
Red Sea: Tridacna maxima and T. squamosa. But the first<br />
description of an additional species by the Philippine marine<br />
biologist Dr. Hilly Ann Roa-Quiaoit in 2008 showed<br />
that even today, it is still possible to overlook unusual<br />
giant clams, even though we live in an age when scientists<br />
and divers have visited almost every coral reef in the<br />
world, photographed<br />
the animals that live<br />
there, and made this<br />
pictorial material accessible<br />
worldwide.<br />
This original description<br />
of a Tridacnidae<br />
species will<br />
undoubtedly not be<br />
the last. In 2006, scientists<br />
working with<br />
Naglaa M. Mohamed<br />
conducted comparative<br />
studies of T. maxima<br />
and T. squamosa<br />
specimens in the Red<br />
Sea and came to the<br />
conclusion that there weren’t just two species there,<br />
as assumed at the time, but a total of five (Mohamed<br />
2006). Two of the then-unknown species are, according<br />
to the author, more closely related to T. maxima, and one<br />
more closely to T. squamosa. It is conceivable that the<br />
last of these is the new species T. costata, described in<br />
2008, but the others are still unknown. All these species<br />
are related to one another and descended from common<br />
CORAL<br />
63
Left, both: A quarry in Kenya—this is where<br />
Tridacna gigas fossils are “mined.”<br />
Opposite page: The shells are accumulated in<br />
front of the simple houses of the workers until<br />
they are taken away for further processing.<br />
ancestors; their existence can be explained as the result<br />
of adaptation to specific habitats.<br />
In addition, individual species often cannot be unequivocally<br />
separated from one another, as it is humans,<br />
not nature, that dictate the relevant criteria. This applies,<br />
for example, to the unusual giant clam from the<br />
Red Sea that Bianconi described as Tridacna elongatissima<br />
in 1856. It combines characters of T. squamosa and T.<br />
maxima, but is noticeably longer and has up to seven<br />
vertical folds in its shell, which is very similar to that of<br />
T. maxima, but the mantle lobe is typical of T. squamosa<br />
in its color pattern. It is, in fact, the latter species: Bianconi’s<br />
original description was declared invalid after<br />
scientific checking. If this T. squamosa morph turns up in<br />
the aquarium trade, it is usually called T. maxima on the<br />
basis of its appearance. But the matter remains of considerable<br />
interest, as the latest genetic research methods<br />
make more precise analysis of phylogeny possible. In the<br />
final analysis, is T. elongatissima one of the three undescribed<br />
species mentioned by Mohamed<br />
When, in 1984, the Russian marine biologist Dr. Boris<br />
Sirenko was working on the Mascarene<br />
Plateau in the Indian Ocean, collecting<br />
specimens for the Zoological Institute<br />
in St. Petersburg, and picked up Tridacna<br />
shells from the bottom in a sea-grass<br />
meadow, he was unaware that what he<br />
held in his hand might be an undescribed<br />
giant clam species. As he revealed to me<br />
a few years ago, that became clear only a<br />
few days later, when he was collecting on<br />
a reef some distance away and found both<br />
T. maxima and T. squamosa there. During<br />
one dive it suddenly occurred to him that<br />
the specimens he had found days before<br />
exhibited completely different characters.<br />
Together with Professor Orest Alexandrovitch<br />
Scarlato, he subsequently described<br />
them as Tridacna rosewateri. But<br />
there was a problem: Immediately after<br />
collection, Dr. Sirenko had removed all<br />
the soft parts of the specimens, which are<br />
indispensable for the scientific description<br />
of a mollusk species. Sirenko was the only<br />
one who had seen the 10 Tridacna rosewateri<br />
specimens alive, but he had paid<br />
little attention to their mantle lobes while<br />
diving. He told me that today, around 25<br />
years later, he can no longer remember<br />
the appearance of the living clams in detail.<br />
Without these soft parts, the genetic proximity to T.<br />
squamosa and T. maxima cannot be precisely ascertained,<br />
so it has been impossible to confirm the scientific validity<br />
of the species. It appears that T. rosewateri evolved from<br />
T. squamosa, and genetic exchange with T. maxima is also<br />
conceivable. It remains to be seen whether the features<br />
distinguishing T. rosewateri from T. maxima and T. squamosa<br />
go far enough for it to be regarded as a distinct species,<br />
but it appears certain that these three species in the<br />
Indian Ocean represent a syngameon, a group in which<br />
genetic exchange takes place.<br />
In addition, matters can remain in flux even after the<br />
scientific description of a new species, as was the case,<br />
for example, following the original description of the<br />
Devil Clam (Tridacna tevoroa), a species that is regarded<br />
by some scientists as an intermediate form between Hippopus<br />
and Tridacna.<br />
A few years after the original description by Lucas<br />
et al. (1990), it turned out that the species had been<br />
described under the name Tridacna mbalavuana by Ladd<br />
back in 1939, from a 2-inch (53-mm) fossil. Hence it is<br />
C. DIEHL & V. BRENNER<br />
64 CORAL
TOP: C. DIEHL & V. BRENNER; BOTTOM: P. KIJASHKO<br />
now called T. mbalavuana, as the first name given always<br />
remains valid. Dr. Hilly Ann Roa-Quiaoit may experience<br />
something similar: other scientists are convinced<br />
they have demonstrated that her Tridacna costata is, in<br />
fact, Tridacna squamosina, originally described by Sturany<br />
in 1899 (Huber et al. 2011).<br />
DISTRIBUTIONS CHANGE<br />
The giant clams also demonstrate that extreme changes<br />
can occur in the distribution regions of species on our<br />
planet. Can you imagine that giant clams formerly also<br />
occurred in Europe This may sound absurd to anyone<br />
familiar with the fauna, geography, and climate of tropical<br />
coral reefs, but don’t forget that Europe once lay on<br />
the Equator! Until around 150 million years ago there<br />
was only a single continent on Earth, termed Pangea by<br />
polar researcher Alfred Wegener. So the land mass of<br />
central Europe contains the calcareous remains of marine<br />
mollusks, such as ammonites and trilobites, and giant<br />
clams of the genus Tridacna can also be found there.<br />
The holotype of Tridacna rosewateri.<br />
For example, in 1837 Georg Gottlieb Pusch described the<br />
species Tridacna media from fossils originating from the<br />
Tertiary (65–2.5 million years ago) in areas of what is<br />
now Poland.<br />
Tridacna gigas, whose distribution is today restricted<br />
to the western Pacific, was formerly also distributed on<br />
the East African coast, and recent fossil finds offer impressive<br />
evidence of a high population density of these<br />
in earlier times. But contrary to what one might assume,<br />
they aren’t found in coastal areas of the sea but on land.<br />
This is because sea level was higher in earlier geological<br />
epochs, and when it fell marine habitats gradually dried<br />
up and became land. In the course of subsequent millennia,<br />
layer upon layer of sediment covered these fossil<br />
coral reefs so that the Tridacna gigas shells migrated ever<br />
deeper into the ground. Geologists have ventured to date<br />
them based on the depth of the finds; they derive from<br />
the geological era known as the Pleistocene, which began<br />
2.5 million years ago and ended around 10,000 years<br />
before our reckoning of time, around 12,000 years ago<br />
from our current viewpoint. The age of these giant clam<br />
fossils thus lies somewhere between 12,000 and 2.5 million<br />
years. The oldest finds from the Pleistocene can be<br />
dated to the time of the rise of humanity (Homo erectus),<br />
1.9 million years ago.<br />
These shells are now being exposed by quarrying.<br />
African workers are removing the fossils from the solidified<br />
sediment surrounding them, initially by rough<br />
excavation. Next the clam shells are gradually freed from<br />
the layers of rock by hand—a time-consuming job. The<br />
weight of these massive shells is sometimes more than<br />
900 lbs (200 kg)—so the work is very taxing, but provides<br />
a lot of people with economic security. The downside is<br />
that these unique witnesses to past epochs are either<br />
ground to fine powdered lime in Africa and used to make<br />
cement, or sawn into small pieces that are ground into<br />
rounded shapes and sold to the jewelry industry as “Tridacna<br />
Pearls.” This is a deplorable practice.<br />
Christian Diehl and Vera Brenner of Waldkappel,<br />
Germany, are going down a different path. In 2011<br />
CORAL<br />
65
Tridacna gigas<br />
fossils prior<br />
to export to<br />
Germany.<br />
they imported a large number of these huge fossils from<br />
Kenya, which they plan to sell to museums, scientific<br />
institutions, and other interested parties, including the<br />
aquarium trade, sport-diving businesses, and even private<br />
marine aquarists and divers. Anyone who owns such<br />
an impressive fossil will look after it carefully, and thus<br />
it will survive for posterity. The few fossil Tridacna gigas<br />
shells that reached Europe in earlier days, for example<br />
with homecoming seafarers, are now highly prized objects<br />
that are passed down from generation to generation.<br />
These fossils originate from an area where these animals<br />
haven’t existed for thousands of years—an example<br />
that demonstrates how the species composition in natural<br />
habitats is subject to constant change. We are hardly<br />
aware of such natural changes, as they don’t take place<br />
within our limited human lifespan. On the contrary, the<br />
Arrival in Germany. These<br />
witnesses to past epochs have<br />
escaped the cement industry.<br />
TOP: DIEHL & V. BRENNER BOTTOM: D. KNOP<br />
66 CORAL
Above: A Tridacna gigas being killed off the coast of Palau.<br />
Left: Tridacna gigas with a shell length of 40 inches (100 cm) are<br />
highly prized collectibles that retain their value.<br />
TOP: ARCHIVBILDER G. HESLINGA; BOTTOM: B. KNOP<br />
disappearances of species from their natural habitats that<br />
we see are not natural shifts in populations, but the extinction<br />
of species caused by man. Giant clams are a very<br />
vivid example of this: within recent decades, their natural<br />
occurrence in many places has dropped to a thousandth<br />
of their original population density (Knop 2009).<br />
THE PERSECUTION CONTINUES<br />
Despite all this, the hunting of live giant clams continues.<br />
In Palau, for example, at the beginning of April<br />
2012 the coast guard authorities of that South Pacific<br />
island state captured a Chinese fishing boat whose crew<br />
were killing specimens of Tridacna gigas in a protected<br />
area and removing the flesh of the closure musculature.<br />
In the confrontation, one of the occupants of the boat<br />
was shot and killed.<br />
A Cessna carrying American pilot Frank Ohlinger<br />
and two policemen from Palau were pursuing a larger<br />
Chinese ship that was likewise hunting giant clams in<br />
the vicinity. After the authorities had stopped the fishing<br />
boat, the fishermen set it on fire and made their escape<br />
in a small speedboat. The plane then went missing; the<br />
last radio transmission from the pilot said that his fuel<br />
was going to run out in a few minutes.<br />
By chance, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen was<br />
nearby on his large yacht. The crew of Allen’s yacht<br />
heard radio messages from the Cessna pilot and alerted<br />
the coast guard. To help in the search for survivors from<br />
the missing plane, Allen put the two helicopters based<br />
on his yacht at their disposal, but the Cessna and its occupants<br />
were never found. The spokesman for the Palau<br />
coastguard service, Richard Russell, subsequently let it be<br />
known that according to his last radio message, the tourist<br />
pilot had apparently lost his way due to a defect in the<br />
GPS navigation equipment.<br />
This drama involving the flesh of Tridacna gigas cost<br />
four human lives. Around 25 Chinese fishermen subsequently<br />
faced charges in Palau for illegal fishing and<br />
other infractions.<br />
ON THE INTERNET<br />
www.riesenmuschel.eu (Information on Tridacna fossils from<br />
Kenya)<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Huber, M. and A. Eschner. 2011. Tridacna (Chametrachea)<br />
costata Roa-Quiaoit, Kochzius, Jantzen, Al-Zibdah &<br />
Richter from the Red Sea, a junior synonym of Tridacna<br />
squamosina Sturany, 1899 (Bivalvia, Tridacnidae). Annalen des<br />
Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, ser. B, 112: 153–62.<br />
Gomez, E.D. and S.S. Mingoa-Licuanan. 2006. Achievements<br />
and lessons learned in restocking giant clams in the<br />
Philippines. Fisheries Research 80 (1): 46–52.<br />
Knop, D. 2009. Riesenmuscheln—Arten und Pflege im Aquarium,<br />
2nd edition. Dähne Verlag, Ettlingen, Germany.<br />
Mohamed, N.M., et al. 2006. Molecular Genetic Analysis of<br />
Giant Clam (Tridacna sp.) Populations in the Northern Red Sea.<br />
Asian J Biochem 1 (4): 338–42.<br />
Richter, C., H.A. Roa-Quiaoit, C. Jantzen, M. Al-Zibdah, and M.<br />
Kochzius. 2008. Collapse of a new living species of giant clam in<br />
the Red Sea. Curr Biol 18 (17): 1348–54.<br />
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67
Keeping giant clams<br />
in the aquarium<br />
by Daniel Knop<br />
Just as the natural habitats of individual giant-clam species differ, the aquarium husbandry requirements of<br />
different species also vary—here we provide some tips on the subject. Hippopus porcellanus, Tridacna mbalavuana,<br />
and T. rosewateri are not mentioned, as they aren’t available for aquarium maintenance.<br />
When purchasing a giant clam, make sure that it is opening well in the dealer’s tank, that the mantle<br />
lobe is extended fully, that it shows a rapid sight reaction (reaction to movement or a shadow response), and<br />
that there are no bleached-out areas on the mantle lobe. The intake siphon should be slit-like and ringed<br />
with tentacles (if they are present in the species in question). A permanently extended siphon suggests serious<br />
weakening of the animal.<br />
Tridacna gigas<br />
Hippopus hippopus<br />
Description: Length up to 16 inches (40 cm), significantly more<br />
only in exceptional cases. Coloration dark brown to olive green;<br />
pattern of thin, light lines running longitudinally (parallel to the<br />
edge of the shell).<br />
Diagnostic characters: Thick, heavy, scale-free shell, noticeably<br />
shorter than Tridacna shells; numerous, variably wide vertical folds<br />
with serrated upper edges. Mantle lobe not overhanging outer<br />
edge of shell, serrated byssal opening, red spotting on entire outer<br />
side of shell, intake opening tentacle-free.<br />
Aquarium maintenance: H. hippopus is very robust and less dependent<br />
on the photosynthetic products of its symbiotic algae<br />
than the Tridacna species. Just like T. gigas, it often lives in muddy<br />
habitats, from which it can be concluded that it is not only resistant<br />
to floating matter but also filters phytoplankton as food. The<br />
lighting should be moderate and can have higher Kelvin values.<br />
Adaptation to very bright lighting should take place slowly and<br />
carefully.<br />
Tridacna gigas<br />
Description: Length up to 48 inches (120 cm), brown or olive<br />
green predominating in the coloration, individual green/blue iridescent<br />
rings, in rare cases a dense covering of the latter.<br />
Diagnostic characters: Scale-free shell with four clearly prominent<br />
vertical folds, no thicker shell closure on the upper edge,<br />
azooxanthellate, white longitudinal stripes on the central third of<br />
the mantle lobe, intake opening tentacle-free.<br />
Aquarium maintenance: T. gigas is one of the most sensitive giant<br />
clam species and requires very stable environmental conditions.<br />
Because of its adaptation to deeper and significantly more stable<br />
habitats, this species is not as tolerant of shallow-water fluctuations<br />
as T. maxima or T. crocea. However, it will tolerate relatively<br />
heavy accumulations of sediment in the water and probably also<br />
filters more phytoplankton from the water as food than do the majority<br />
of other Tridacnidae species. Exercise care when using very<br />
strong lighting; this species will tolerate strong whole-spectrum<br />
daylight, but needs to be slowly adjusted to it. Moderate illumination<br />
with higher Kelvin values (e.g., 14,000 K) is better.<br />
Hippopus hippopus<br />
TK<br />
68 CORAL
Tridacna squamosa<br />
Tridacna costata<br />
Tridacna squamosa<br />
Description: Length up to 16 inches (40 cm), coloration variable,<br />
brown shades usually predominating, rarely blue and green, usually<br />
a “circular” pattern whose elements run parallel to the edge of<br />
the mantle.<br />
Diagnostic characters: Shell has rows of scales at greater intervals<br />
than in T. maxima, lower part of shell almost always scaled, tentacles<br />
present on inlet siphon.<br />
Aquarium maintenance: Like T. maxima, T. squamosa<br />
is a particularly robust giant clam and is eminently<br />
suitable for aquarium maintenance. In the wild they<br />
live at depths of 33–66 feet (10–20 m). This species has<br />
a lower light requirement than the smaller species T.<br />
crocea and T. maxima. They often live in depressions in<br />
the reef wall or in the coral sand at its foot. Many specimens<br />
that are placed in the aquarium when small will<br />
attain maximum size even under T8 fluorescent lighting<br />
(1 inch / 26 mm).<br />
Tridacna costata<br />
Description: Length up to 14 inches (35 cm), patterned inconspicuously<br />
brown.<br />
Diagnostic characters: Five to six noticeably prominent vertical<br />
folds in shell, long zig-zag processes on upper margin, shell has<br />
long, close-packed scales, mantle lobe has wart-like prominences.<br />
Aquarium maintenance: T. costata was first discovered only a few<br />
years ago and is the third Red Sea giant clam. So far, no informa-<br />
Tridacna maxima<br />
T. COSTATA: M. KOCHZIUS; ALL OTHERS: D. KNOP<br />
Tridacna maxima<br />
Description: Length up to 16 inches (40 cm), but usually<br />
attains only around 12 inches (30 cm). Coloration<br />
variable, multicolor patterning, usually “radial” (from<br />
the center to the periphery of the mantle).<br />
Diagnostic characters: Row of dark hyaline organs<br />
close to edge of mantle lobe, tentacles present on intake<br />
siphon; shell has scales in horizontal rows, more<br />
close-packed than in T. squamosa; lower part of shell<br />
usually scale-free, as it is partially embedded in a solid<br />
substrate.<br />
Aquarium maintenance: T. maxima is one of the<br />
most robust giant clams and hence one of those<br />
most suitable for the aquarium. In the wild it lives significantly<br />
deeper than T. crocea and tolerates lighting<br />
with Kelvin values well above daylight values (around<br />
6,000 K) that simulate the natural light at around<br />
50–66 feet (15–20 m). The lighting should also be less<br />
powerful than for T. crocea.<br />
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69
tion is available on its maintenance in the aquarium. But because<br />
this clam inhabits the habitat occupied by T. maxima, and by T.<br />
crocea in the West Pacific, it should be assumed that the maintenance<br />
suggestions given for those species are also valid here. The<br />
lighting shouldn’t deviate too much from daylight values (6,000 K);<br />
very high Kelvin values do not correspond to the natural habitat.<br />
Tridacna crocea<br />
Tridacna<br />
derasa<br />
Tridacna crocea<br />
Description: Length 6 inches (15 cm), coloration variable, multicolored<br />
patterning.<br />
Diagnostic characters: Thick, heavy, scale-free shell with fine fluting,<br />
very large byssal opening, tentacles present on intake siphon.<br />
Aquarium maintenance: T. crocea is often offered in the aquarium<br />
trade. Nevertheless it is not the easiest giant clam species to<br />
keep. This may be due in part to the fact that it is almost always<br />
kept in the aquarium without the “limestone mantle” that it possesses<br />
in the wild; this species almost always lives embedded in<br />
rock or a coral skeleton. This may be one of the reasons<br />
why a kind of “flight behavior” can be observed<br />
in T. crocea in the aquarium more often than in all<br />
the other species: The clam releases its byssal attachment<br />
from the substrate and tries to leave the spot,<br />
repeatedly opening and closing its shell and levering<br />
itself with its foot, which it extends through the byssal<br />
opening. This can only be taken as a sign of a lack<br />
of well-being.<br />
Because it is adapted to the shallow-water areas<br />
of the coastal zone, this species is relatively tolerant<br />
of fluctuations in density and temperature, and it is<br />
the least dependent on planktonic food. It requires<br />
strong lighting with the full daylight spectrum<br />
(around 6,000 K).<br />
Tridacna derasa<br />
Description: Length up to 26 inches (65 cm), coloration variable,<br />
gold-yellow striping (parallel to the shell margin, “circular”) on a<br />
brown background, often with a thin blue margin to the mantle<br />
lobe.<br />
Diagnostic characters: Scale-free shell with five or six moderately<br />
prominent vertical folds, thick shell closure at upper edge, some<br />
local variants azooxanthellate (farms in the South Pacific), round,<br />
whitish spots on outer third of mantle lobe, tentacles present on<br />
intake siphon.<br />
Aquarium maintenance: T. derasa is considered one of the more<br />
sensitive giant clams. Its gill anatomy doesn’t permit it to develop<br />
in sediment-rich zones; the gills can become badly clogged when<br />
dirt is stirred up, and the animal can suffocate. For this reason these<br />
clams should be temporarily removed from the aquarium during<br />
cleaning or any work that disrupts the sediment, and replaced only<br />
when the water is clear again. The species is relatively adaptable in<br />
terms of lighting; moderate to high light strength, daylight color<br />
(6,000 K) to moderate blue illumination (e.g., 14,000 K).<br />
Cultured Derasa beauties<br />
Once regarded as drab and<br />
the least desirable of Giant<br />
Clams, Tridacna derasa<br />
has come a long way in<br />
the hands of breeders in<br />
mariculture facilities. These<br />
beauties from Oceans Reefs<br />
& Aquariums in Ft. Pierce,<br />
<strong>Florida</strong>, are bred and raised<br />
on the ORA farm in the<br />
Marshall Islands.<br />
MATTHEW L. WITTENRICH / HTTP://WWW.AQUATICPIXELS.NET/<br />
70 CORAL
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CORAL<br />
71
The exciting challenge of breeding “native” marine fishes<br />
article and images by Matt Pedersen<br />
72 CORAL
Orangeback Bass,<br />
Serranus annularis, is<br />
a prized deepwater<br />
species that the author<br />
is working to breed.<br />
In 2011 I got the itch to reexamine the Caribbean<br />
reef fishes that started the entire<br />
marine aquarium hobby here in the U.S.<br />
Any number of things might have triggered<br />
my interest in the fishes of <strong>Florida</strong> and the<br />
waters beyond.<br />
Perhaps it was my reacquaintance with the<br />
writings of Robert Straughan, whose book The<br />
Salt-Water Aquarium in the Home I first read when<br />
I was about nine years old. Oddly, I have a certain<br />
feeling of nostalgia for a time I never even<br />
lived through, a time when “Boston Beans” and<br />
“Jewelfish” may have lived in a stainless steel–<br />
framed aquarium with a slate bottom. Through<br />
Straughan’s rarer books, such as The Marine Collector’s<br />
Guide and Adventures in Marine Collecting,<br />
I later came to have a deeper appreciation of<br />
the history of collecting marine fish and how the<br />
saltwater aquarium hobby started.<br />
My recent interest might have been sparked<br />
when I collected my own fishes while diving with<br />
Tom Scaturro last year. It might have been all the<br />
political controversy about Hawaii and my personal<br />
concerns that <strong>Florida</strong> could be the next<br />
flashpoint for anti-aquarium activists. It may<br />
have even been that empty reef tank in the corner<br />
and my desire to create a “biotope” aquarium<br />
and avoid the SPS-filled reefs that have become<br />
commonplace—diving on the reefs of the <strong>Florida</strong><br />
Keys, often dominated by gorgonians, gave<br />
me a different vision to work toward. Maybe it<br />
was Todd Gardner’s stories of wayward tropicals<br />
being carried up the coast by the Gulf Stream,<br />
filling my head with visions of fish in desperate<br />
need of salvation from certain doom, that had<br />
me thinking about our forgotten natives.<br />
Or it could have been my lifelong love affair<br />
with the Foureye Butterflyfish, Chaetodon capistratus,<br />
which I first kept when I was only 10 or 11<br />
years old and which didn’t live for more than a<br />
few weeks in my 10-gallon marine tank with its<br />
air-driven undergravel filter.<br />
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73
The Spotted Drum, Equetus<br />
punctatus, is exoticlooking<br />
as a juvenile and<br />
might make for an offbeat<br />
breeding experiment.<br />
Maybe it was Dr. Wittenrich pointing out the actively<br />
courting pair of Sharpnose Pufferfish in a “Space Coast”<br />
lagoon in 2010 that got me thinking about breeding<br />
some Floridians. Or it could have been the random discovery<br />
that some of the rarer fish that I had presumed to<br />
be Indo-Pacific were, in fact, found in Caribbean waters.<br />
As I discovered random overlooked species, either on my<br />
own or through the guidance of fellow aquarists, my appetite<br />
for information grew. Before long, I was plowing<br />
through Paul Humann’s book Reef Fish Identification,<br />
Volume 1: <strong>Florida</strong>, Caribbean, Bahamas<br />
and realizing that the aquarium<br />
community has all but ignored a true<br />
treasure trove of species that can be<br />
found right here in our “backyard”!<br />
A few species from these waters<br />
(Liopropoma rubre and L. carmabi)<br />
have recently been bred for the first<br />
time, both by Todd Gardner at Long<br />
Island Aquarium. Let’s take a quick<br />
look at some truly special <strong>Florida</strong><br />
species that I’ve tried to tackle as a<br />
breeder, including one that may be<br />
almost entirely new to everyone reading<br />
this.<br />
marine aquarium<br />
hobby. The Foureye’s<br />
unpopularity<br />
may have been<br />
well deserved, due<br />
to relatively humble<br />
coloration and a deplorable<br />
track record<br />
in captivity. Some<br />
experts may disagree,<br />
but the overall consensus<br />
is that the<br />
Foureye Butterflyfish<br />
is anything but easy.<br />
Still, this is one<br />
of those fish that<br />
has held my heart<br />
from day one. Never<br />
mind Straughan’s<br />
stories of individuals<br />
that required<br />
feedings of live Rose<br />
Corals (Manicina<br />
areolata)—by the<br />
time I was breeding Harlequin Filefish and trying to rear<br />
Dragonets, I felt I had gained enough skill to revisit this<br />
boyhood fantasy. I have learned a lot about keeping the<br />
Foureye along the way.<br />
First, start small. With today’s modern transportation,<br />
the old advice to start with larger fish (who have<br />
larger “reserves”) is outweighed by the overall resiliency<br />
and adaptability of smaller specimens. Still, it has been<br />
my experience that even with quick handling, Foureyes<br />
are not the best shippers, so they should be put straight<br />
The Foureye Butterflyfish<br />
is an endearing species<br />
from native waters and a<br />
voracious Aiptasia hunter.<br />
The author is currently<br />
working with this species<br />
in hopes of finding success<br />
with captive breeding.<br />
THE FORSAKEN FOUREYE<br />
BUTTERFLYFISH,<br />
CHAETODON CAPISTRATUS<br />
Butterflyfish took a huge hit in popularity<br />
when reef tanks and nano<br />
aquariums started to dominate the<br />
74 CORAL
Widely thought difficult to<br />
acclimate, the Foureye Butterflyfish,<br />
Chaetodon capistratus, readily<br />
eats live blackworms and can be<br />
transitioned to more convenient<br />
prepared foods.<br />
into individual quarantine to give them the best chance<br />
of recovery following transit.<br />
Although these fish are difficult to get to feed at<br />
times, I have never had a healthy wild-caught Foureye<br />
refuse live blackworms, so they are highly recommended<br />
as a first food. From there, you can wean a Foureye<br />
onto prepared foods by starting with freeze-dried Tubifex<br />
worms soaked in Selcon or other liquid HUFA enhancers.<br />
Once they are consuming this food with gusto, branch<br />
out into other foods soaked in the same preparations;<br />
frozen brine shrimp and Mysis will likely be accepted.<br />
Eventually, but not always, you may even get your Foureyes<br />
eating pellet foods; mine showed particularly good<br />
response to APBreed’s TDO, as well as Spectrum Thera A<br />
in the smaller 0.5-mm pellet size.<br />
The Foureye offers another bonus: it is a phenomenal<br />
controller of Aiptasia. I first became aware of this<br />
through Mike Meadows, who used to keep the related<br />
Banded Butterflyfish, Chaetodon striatus, in a large SPS<br />
reef tank for Aiptasia control. Of course, like many fish<br />
that excel at feeding on this pest anemone, Foureyes are<br />
not 100 percent reef safe. I’ve seen them pick at zoanthids<br />
and consume the tentacles, although they seldom<br />
eat the animals outright. Compatability with gorgonians<br />
is a mixed bag; early on I had a specimen that completely<br />
ignored them, but when I placed some larger broodstock<br />
in my gorgonian reef they eventually turned on the gorgonians,<br />
causing them to remain closed during daylight<br />
hours. Overall, I can say Foureyes are generally safe with<br />
SPS corals. While I’ve certainly seen the occasional nip,<br />
there have been no closed polyps, a sign that these fish<br />
are “reef compatible with caution.”<br />
There is perhaps no better butterflyfish for the home<br />
breeder to attempt. Foureyes are one of the smallest butterflyfish<br />
species at maturity; a specimen over 4 inches<br />
(10 cm) is probably very rare. I found some documentation<br />
in the scientific literature that suggests this species<br />
may be sexually mature at a size of no more than 2 inches<br />
(5 cm). Butterflyfish are pelagic spawners, and as far as<br />
I know no one has yet successfully reared a butterflyfish<br />
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75
species in captivity, but these days, such statements only<br />
encourage breeders to attempt the “impossible.”<br />
There is a downside: most butterflyfish are pairforming<br />
fish, and the Foureye is no exception. Leave it<br />
to Jeremy Maneyapanda to remind me, some years ago,<br />
that many butterflyfish, while often considered “peaceful”<br />
with other tank inhabitants, can be quite violent<br />
with each other. We’ve found that pair-forming marine<br />
fish are often hermaphrodites, but to date most literature<br />
suggests that butterflyfish buck that trend and are<br />
fixed-sex, or gonochoristic.<br />
Interestingly, I have found a single paper that researched<br />
another small butterflyfish species, the Hawaiian<br />
endemic Pebbled Butterflyfish, Chaetodon multicinctu,<br />
and suggested a striking possibility: butterflyfish may<br />
be hermaphrodites, but they sexually differentiate into<br />
male or female early in their lives and are then unable<br />
to switch again. If this is true for Chaetodon capistratus,<br />
the absolute best broodstock would be the stray tropicals<br />
collected on the northeastern U.S. shores, as these<br />
fish are often quite small. In fact, they are much smaller<br />
than the legally permissible minimum size that can be<br />
collected in <strong>Florida</strong> (1 inch/2.5 cm), and the specimens<br />
Todd Gardner sent me in 2011 arrived ready and willing<br />
to eat larval pellet diets like TDO.<br />
Needless to say, the biggest breeding hurdle is getting<br />
a pair. If you’re lucky, two tiny juveniles placed together<br />
could form a pair (a 50 percent chance, but that could be<br />
much higher if the Foureye “fixes” sex at some point as<br />
the fish grow up together). I’ve found that large groups<br />
quickly whittle themselves down to three individuals.<br />
This arrangement may last for weeks, months, or, in one<br />
recent case, a year. But at some point, a pair will form<br />
out of the three remaining fish and they will turn on<br />
the outcast. Foureyes can be extremely aggressive with<br />
each other; on more than on occasion I have placed two<br />
fish together, only to have one kill the other the first<br />
night. So plan ahead if you attempt to tackle pairing this<br />
fish—multiple tanks will be required. Thankfully, your<br />
fellow reefkeepers may be highly interested in your extra<br />
Aiptasia-eating machines.<br />
I have been working seriously on this project for<br />
about two years now, and I encourage anyone to join my<br />
race! Or, for that matter, try the Banded Butterflyfish…its<br />
bold black and white markings have truly grown on me.<br />
BYGONE BASSLETS<br />
The genus Serranus is awesome. With one or two exceptions,<br />
these mini-groupers would be called “dwarfs” because<br />
most are less than 4 inches (10 cm) long. Perhaps<br />
the most commonly seen is the Chalk Bass, Serranus<br />
tortugarum, which is surprisingly small, only 2–3 inches<br />
(5–8 cm) long, and it’s gregarious to boot. There is a curious<br />
sexual twist—it’s thought that all the Serranus species<br />
are simultaneous hermaphrodites. If that’s true, any<br />
two specimens will make a viable male and female pair.<br />
While the Chalk Bass is interesting, the real allure<br />
of the Serranus genus lies in the species that look like<br />
perfect miniatures of the large, aggressive predators<br />
they’re related to. Sure, these are still predators in their<br />
own right, but to be honest, I repeatedly tried and failed<br />
to feed 1-inch (2.5-cm) culled Percula Clownfish to full<br />
adult, 4-inch (10-cm) Harlequin<br />
Basslets (Serranus tigrinus).<br />
Still, there is a risk of these<br />
basslets consuming small fish<br />
and crustaceans.<br />
The risks aside, I love the Serranus<br />
basslets now that I’ve kept<br />
a couple of species. Serranus tigrinus<br />
was one of the two fish I<br />
caught by hand while diving in<br />
the Keys last year (the other was<br />
a Trumpetfish, which I quickly<br />
released). I quickly realized there<br />
is a downside to keeping pelagic<br />
spawners; once they were conditioned,<br />
they tended to jump<br />
out of open-topped quarantine<br />
tanks. Only later did I realize<br />
that they were jumping because<br />
Harlequin Bass heavy with eggs in a<br />
tank aquascaped with Purple Plume<br />
Gorgonians, Muriceopsis flavida,<br />
from <strong>Florida</strong>.<br />
76 CORAL
A pair of Cherubfish or<br />
Atlantic Pygmy Angelfish,<br />
Centropyge argi, spawns<br />
nightly in the author’s<br />
24-gallon (90-L) nano reef<br />
aquarium.<br />
they were spawning.<br />
I finally documented the spawning of Serranus tigrinus<br />
in my 92-gallon (348-L) corner reef, and I don’t believe<br />
this tank is big enough. Though they coexisted, the<br />
pair at times seemed unhappy to be sharing this space.<br />
There was no outright damage, but as the pair grew, I<br />
often found one specimen hiding in the upper back corner,<br />
chased there by the other. That said, they spawned<br />
frequently at night, and it did appear that both fish acted<br />
as both male and female, though I can’t be sure. It appeared<br />
that one fish would soar over the reef, dorsal fin<br />
held erect, fins on the ventral surface clamped, with the<br />
back arched upward to display the distended, gravid belly.<br />
About an hour after the first spawn, I saw the other<br />
specimen perform this same courtship display on multiple<br />
occasions. The eggs were buoyant and small, and<br />
it’s safe to assume they would quickly hatch as prolarvae.<br />
Ironically, for years I kept a pair of a much rarer species<br />
of Serranus (the Orangeback Basslet, Serranus annularis)<br />
in a 24-gallon (90-L) cube with no major aggression.<br />
The species literature suggests this is generally<br />
a deep water species and, while it is seen in <strong>Florida</strong> from<br />
time to time, I believe it enters the trade through other<br />
areas of the Caribbean where collecting deeper is probably<br />
cheaper. My pair did initially exhibit some aggression<br />
toward each other, but so long as they were kept fat<br />
and happy, they got along quite well.<br />
I was able to document the spawning of this species<br />
just once, and then only by recording video in the evening<br />
and watching it later. That said, I am convinced<br />
they were spawning far more frequently. I have a hunch<br />
that in this species may not function as a simultaneous<br />
hermaphrodite. I had one fish that was routinely stocky<br />
and robust, as if always ready to spawn, while the other<br />
fish remained much more svelte in appearance. Could<br />
it be that these fish were protogynous, with the larger,<br />
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Juvenile Rock Beauty, Holacanthus tricolor, a<br />
species that has thrived on “spongivore” rations<br />
and formed pairs in the author’s aquariums.<br />
dominant one functioning as the female in the pair<br />
I will never know, as their tank recently overheated to<br />
91ºF, which killed them quite rapidly (their tankmates<br />
made it through no worse for the wear). The lesson here<br />
was that being deeper water fish, they probably should be<br />
kept slightly cooler.<br />
Another lesson: We routinely culture groupers as<br />
food fish. Serranus spp. are, in many ways, nothing more<br />
than scaled-down versions of groupers, so what works<br />
for groupers may work quite well for Serranus. For all we<br />
A small, wrasse-like <strong>Florida</strong> species,<br />
the Greenblotch Parrotfish,<br />
Sparisoma atomarium, is a dedicated<br />
herbivore and will spawn in<br />
captivity. Adult phase male, left, and<br />
intermediate phase female, right.<br />
78 CORAL
know, someone has already reared a Serranus somewhere, but maybe you’ll<br />
be the first to do it and write about it here in CORAL!<br />
ABANDONED ANGELFISHES<br />
It’s amazing to think that the first captive-bred angelfishes were none other<br />
than the often-ignored Pomacanthus paru (French) and P. arcuatus (Gray),<br />
and they were bred decades ago by Martin Moe. He also tried to rear the<br />
Rock Beauty, Holacanthus tricolor.<br />
The Rock Beauty’s reputation for being doomed is so firmly entrenched<br />
in hobby literature that few keep it these days, and I guarantee that no one<br />
has been trying to pair them up. It seems that much of the hobbyist literature<br />
will have to be rewritten, because while they certainly are a more sensitive<br />
angelfish and can be picky when first starting to eat, I had 100 percent<br />
success rates getting appropriately sized fish to feed. Were it not for two<br />
outbreaks of Cryptocaryon and a jumper, all the fish I’ve had would still be<br />
alive today. I still have a strong juvenile who’s been on hand for over a year<br />
now and shows no signs of failing me anytime soon.<br />
Any dietary concerns can be addressed by offering the frozen foods that<br />
contain sponge, and Brightwell Aquatics is now offering a “spongivores”<br />
food soak that is said to provide the exact amino acids found in sponges,<br />
which, in theory, could provide a nutrient that might be missing from a captive<br />
diet. Although veteran aquarists such as Sanjay Joshi have told me stories<br />
of adult Rock Beauties dying for no reason, even in recent times, I think we<br />
are far better prepared to attempt this species now than we were in the past.<br />
I’ve now formed three pairings of juvenile Rock Beauties, and in all<br />
cases, having a reasonable size difference of 1 inch (2.5 cm) resulted in<br />
compatible pairings. Could it really be that easy Well, considering I’ve also<br />
had to pair up my Queen Angelfish (Holacanthus ciliarus) twice, and both<br />
times it worked so long as there was a size difference, I think we’re heading<br />
down the right path. Of course, the pairing of large angelfish while still<br />
juveniles is only a first step; all of these pairings could end in tragedy when<br />
sexual maturity hits. Or they could require massively larger aquariums than<br />
most can offer. I stand ready with a 300-gallon (1,136-L) Rubbermaid pond<br />
in my basement—it’s a start! The Rock Beauty is technically the second<br />
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79
smallest of <strong>Florida</strong>’s angelfishes; if there is any hope for<br />
the captive breeding of a Holacanthus in our future (I’m<br />
aware of no home spawnings at this time), the Rock<br />
Beauty probably offers the best chance.<br />
Breeding big angelfishes is probably more appropriate<br />
for commercial scale operations, but <strong>Florida</strong> offers<br />
the home aquarist arguably the perfect angelfish species<br />
with the Cherubfish or Pygmy Angelfish, Centropyge argi.<br />
I have kept a colony going for years now in a 24-gallon<br />
(91-L) nano cube, and the original colony members<br />
were spawning within two weeks of introduction.<br />
The number of fish has varied at times from two to<br />
four, due to two murders and one jump (finding a fiveyear-old<br />
fish dried out on top of the screen installed to<br />
prevent this sort of thing is highly frustrating); it seems<br />
that three is the magic, stable number. Get one large and<br />
two small specimens, quarantine them separately for a<br />
couple of weeks to get them into condition, and then<br />
introduce them to their final home at the same time.<br />
Given their protandrous, haremic social structure, you<br />
should have few issues establishing a breeding trio in<br />
short order. They’ll spawn nightly, and they’ll do it for<br />
years. Angelfish breeding expert Frank Baensch finally<br />
got around to “claiming the first” breeding of this species<br />
in 2011, so you’re looking at a species that we know<br />
can be done because it has been done! With Parvocalanus<br />
copepod cultures now commercially available, the breeding<br />
of an angelfish at home is finally within the reach of<br />
the home hobbyist. The information and<br />
materials are readily available—what are<br />
you waiting for<br />
FLORIDA’S ALGAE-EATING<br />
FAIRY WRASSE—OK, IT’S A<br />
PARROTFISH<br />
Tony Vargus and Julian Sprung deserve<br />
credit for turning me on to one of the<br />
coolest overlooked marine fish of all<br />
time—the Greenblotch Parrotfish, Sparisoma<br />
automarium. I jokingly call it an<br />
“algae-eating fairy wrasse” because the<br />
juveniles are largely red, like many juvenile<br />
fairy wrasses. They swim a lot like<br />
wrasses, too. But unlike most other parrotfish<br />
species, the Greenblotch tops out<br />
at roughly 4.5 inches (11 cm) in length;<br />
most are even smaller.<br />
I cannot sing the praises of this fish<br />
enough. It appears to be pretty hardy, settles<br />
in well, is reef safe (I never saw one<br />
nipping on SPS frags), eats algae, and is<br />
fundamentally very different from most<br />
other commonly kept reef fishes. Knowing<br />
that herbivores play a vital role in reef<br />
health, I worried about popularizing a<br />
species like this. Initially, when I inquired<br />
about this species I was told that collectors<br />
hadn’t seen it, but when I got in the water<br />
with Tom Scaturro last year, they were everywhere.<br />
It turns out that this is a common,<br />
small red parrotfish that simply gets<br />
overlooked. That’s probably a good thing,<br />
because on multiple occasions I’ve received<br />
the Redband Parrotfish, Sparisoma<br />
aurofrenatus, instead. The Redband isn’t<br />
a popular aquarium fish, with very good<br />
reason. When settled in, the difference is<br />
generally obvious; juveniles of both species<br />
are bright red, but the Redband has<br />
two horiziontal white stripes and a black<br />
80 CORAL
spot above the pectoral fin. However, this coloration can<br />
change on a dime. The unfortunate consequence is that<br />
you could wind up with a parrotfish species that grows to<br />
11 inches (28 cm), not 4.5 inches (11 cm)!<br />
The collectors I’ve purchased this species from see<br />
no risk in the sustainable harvesting of the Greenblotch<br />
Parrotfish, but even early on, I encouraged them to put<br />
a premium price on the species to reduce demand. Some<br />
divers were collecting this fish and selling it as an “assorted”<br />
parrotfish for practically nothing, but now that<br />
we know it’s desirable, I am concerned about rapid overharvest<br />
if the price is too low. In addition to overcollection,<br />
the greater risk in hobbyists pursuing this species<br />
is that we could end up with a bunch of unwanted,<br />
oversized Redband Parrotfish (I have one<br />
right now…any takers). If we see more<br />
of this fish for sale, it must be collected<br />
in a responsible manner and properly<br />
identified.<br />
While the Greenblotch Parrotfish is<br />
truly fascinating, it is far from perfect.<br />
Don’t buy one to fix your hair algae<br />
problem; mine never touched the stuff!<br />
They do graze all day long, so they may<br />
keep algal growth from getting a foothold.<br />
Greenblotches are aggressive with<br />
each other, particularly two males. I<br />
maintained a small colony for a while in<br />
my 92-gallon (348-L) tank, and I have<br />
to say they were awesome in a group of<br />
four or five juveniles and a single male.<br />
Since they are protandrous, I found that<br />
in a group of red-colored juveniles, the<br />
dominant fish turns male in a matter<br />
of weeks. The biggest problem I had was<br />
jumping; they are true escape artists. But<br />
if they’re jumping, it means you’re treating<br />
them right and they’re happy. They’re<br />
jumping because they’re spawning.<br />
Yes, I spawned this species earlier<br />
this year and even managed to hatch<br />
some out, but this represents another<br />
species—in fact, another family—that<br />
no one has successfully spawned and<br />
reared. Greenblotch Parrotfish are pelagic<br />
spawners, but it seems they like to<br />
spawn in the morning, which is highly<br />
atypical for most pelagic spawners. They<br />
spawn very frequently, perhaps even<br />
daily. Courtship consists of rapid parallel<br />
swimming around the tank, and the<br />
spawning rises that I’ve seen are rapidly<br />
spiraling corkscrew ascents to the surface<br />
at lightning speed. How did I know<br />
my fish were spawning I’d hear them<br />
hitting the cover glass during the day.<br />
THE HONORABLE MENTIONING<br />
OF UNSUNG HEROES<br />
The very first marine fish spawned and reared successfully<br />
may have been the Neon Goby, Elactinus multifasciatus,<br />
and not the Ocellaris Clownfish that we all might<br />
assume was first. Of course, the cleaner gobies of the<br />
genus Elactinus offer several exciting offbeat choices<br />
besides the common Neon Goby, and these fish are all<br />
within the grasp of even first-time breeders.<br />
Someone with a lot of space and a penchant for the<br />
unusual might try something like the Spotted Drum,<br />
Equetus punctatus. I had one for a while; the downside is<br />
that they’re sensitive shippers and very rarely available in<br />
the aquarium trade. Both the High Hat (Pareques acumi-<br />
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81
natus) and the Jackknife Fish (Equetus lanceolatus) were<br />
spawned and reared successfully decades ago; the smaller<br />
and more easily obtainable High Hat would make a great<br />
subject for an offbeat breeding project. Given their dietary<br />
preferences, a reef tank with a sand bottom could<br />
house a pair of these striking black and white fish.<br />
Perhaps the most interesting species in this list is a<br />
little gem called Monacanthus tuckeri, the Slender Filefish.<br />
My time spent breeding the Harlequin Filefish (Oxymonacanthus<br />
longirostris) gave me a deeper appreciation for<br />
all things “filefish,” and Monacanthus tuckeri is one of<br />
those really unique species that you just never see in the<br />
trade. I’ve had the good fortune to have three of them,<br />
all hand-collected for me at great lengths and all found<br />
singly; this fish is not common in <strong>Florida</strong>’s waters. Of<br />
course I wanted to try to breed the species, but for the<br />
hobbyist who’s doing something with gorgonians, these<br />
are just fantastic fish in their own right. In nature, it<br />
is common for them to reside within the branches of<br />
the gorgonians, well camouflaged. They might even be<br />
sexable through the presence or lack of bristles on the<br />
caudal peduncle. I even kept these in reef tanks and they<br />
were quite benign, never causing any damage to anything.<br />
But as luck would have it, M. tuckeri are Olympic<br />
high-jumpers. The collectors who found these fish for<br />
me never had any problems, but my first disappeared<br />
from an open-top reef tank and was found only when<br />
we moved the tank. The second jumped within 48 hours<br />
of arrival. I watched the third specimen<br />
jump three times while I was looking at it<br />
with a fellow aquarist. So before you seek<br />
out this beautifully cryptic filefish species,<br />
get yourself an airtight lid for your<br />
aquarium!<br />
EVEN MORE AWAITS YOU<br />
The roll call of awesome “native” marine<br />
fish that deserve our attention is<br />
long. Someone out there should breed<br />
Blue Reef Chromis (Chromis cyanea) and<br />
Sailfin Blennies (Emblemaria pandionis).<br />
I drool over the slightly more southern<br />
Blackringed Gobies (Gobiosoma zebrella)<br />
and Spotcheek Blennies (Labrisomus nigricinctus),<br />
not to mention the Tesselated<br />
Blenny (Hypsoblennius invemar) that occurs<br />
in the Gulf’s waters. Who doesn’t<br />
like the notion of kinky sex going on in<br />
his or her aquariums—how about some of<br />
the other simultaneous hermaphrodites<br />
found in our waters, the various hamlets,<br />
genus Hyploplectrus Why not one of the<br />
jawfishes (Opistognathus spp.) They’re<br />
just another example of native fishes that<br />
have already been bred, but deserve more<br />
of our attention.<br />
There is no shortage of stunning,<br />
droolworthy, under-appreciated beauties<br />
to be found in the waters that border our<br />
eastern and southern shores. If you want<br />
to learn more about them, grab yourself<br />
a copy of Humann’s Reef Fish Identification,<br />
Volume 1, and start dreaming. With<br />
a recent revival of interest in Caribbean<br />
cnidarians, be it Flower Anemones or the<br />
highly agreeable photosynthetic gorgonians,<br />
and no shortage of highly interesting<br />
invertebrate life, perhaps the next<br />
tank you set up should be a Caribbeanbiotope/propagation<br />
tank.<br />
82 CORAL
STEP UP<br />
Reef Chemistry Trusted by Professionals, Now In Hobbyist Sizes<br />
Ask Your Local Specialty Retailer, or<br />
Buy Direct Online: www.fritzpet.com/reef-chemicals<br />
CORAL<br />
83
Keeping Z E B R A MA N T I S<br />
<strong>Shrimp</strong><br />
article and images by Roy L. Caldwell, Ph.D.<br />
PART I<br />
Stomatopod crustaceans, or mantis shrimp, as they are commonly known, are becoming<br />
increasingly popular with aquarists. These colorful marine predators are active,<br />
inquisitive animals around which a considerable mythology has developed. No, their<br />
strike does not have the same power as a .22 caliber bullet capable of taking out the<br />
side of your new 100-gallon glass aquarium. (The largest stomatopods have a strike<br />
more equivalent to a pellet gun, although the measured striking force of a 6-inch<br />
[15-cm] Peacock <strong>Mantis</strong> <strong>Shrimp</strong>—1,400 Newtons—is impressive and more than 2,500<br />
times the animal’s weight.) And no, they will not consume every fish, snail, and crab<br />
in your aquarium for the pure sport of it, although they are predators and, given the<br />
opportunity, they will feed on available prey.<br />
Figure 6: Adult male <strong>Zebra</strong> <strong>Mantis</strong> <strong>Shrimp</strong>,<br />
Lysiosquillina lisa, a magnificent “spearer”<br />
stomatopod.<br />
84 CORAL
What makes stomatopods unique is a pair of highly<br />
specialized appendages that they use to capture and<br />
process prey and that serve as lethal weapons in fights<br />
with competitors. Early in the evolution of stomatopods,<br />
over 350 million years ago, one of the pairs of mouth<br />
Figure 1: An undescribed species of<br />
the stomatopod Gonodactylus from<br />
southeast Queensland, Australia.<br />
appendages, the second maxillipeds, became greatly enlarged<br />
and were used to rapidly reach out and seize prey.<br />
With these first “raptorial appendages,” each armed with<br />
a single terminal spike (dactyl), the stomatopod could<br />
grasp or stab soft-bodied prey (Figure 2). However, over<br />
time, the form and function of the raptorial appendages<br />
became specialized in different lineages. In many<br />
groups, the dactyls bear from 3 to over 20 barbed<br />
spines that are used to impale soft-bodied animals<br />
such as shrimp and fish. Functionally, I have classified<br />
such stomatopods as “spearers” (Figure 3).<br />
Other groups of stomatopods have evolved raptorial<br />
appendages with enlarged and heavily calcified dactyl<br />
heels. These appendages are more powerful and are<br />
used to smash armored prey such as crabs, snails, and<br />
hermits. I call these stomatopods “smashers” (Figure<br />
4). The type of raptorial appendage that a stomatopod<br />
possesses determines not only the prey it consumes,<br />
but just about every aspect of its biology, from the<br />
home it occupies and the habitat in which it lives to its<br />
aggressive and mating behaviors. Spearers tend to live<br />
in muddy or sandy habitats, where they excavate burrows<br />
in which they lie in ambush for passing prey, typically<br />
only leaving the safety of their burrows to hunt<br />
at night. Smashers are more likely to inhabit hard substrates,<br />
such as the rocky intertidal or coral reefs where<br />
they seek out and defend cavities. They are also more<br />
likely to hunt away from their cavities during daylight<br />
hours. Due to the lethal nature of their weapons and<br />
CORAL<br />
85
the danger of interacting with other individuals, smashers<br />
have evolved much more sophisticated sensory systems,<br />
more elaborate communication, and more complex aggressive<br />
behavior than spearers. One manifestation of this<br />
is their use of dramatic coloration for signaling.<br />
All of these factors—frequent forays away from home<br />
during the day, dramatic attacks on prey, bright coloration,<br />
and a bold, inquisitive nature—have made smashers<br />
the aquarium stomatopods of choice. At the top of<br />
the list is the Peacock <strong>Mantis</strong> <strong>Shrimp</strong>, Odontodactylus<br />
scyllarus. Also known as the Clown or Harlequin <strong>Mantis</strong>,<br />
it is one of the largest and most brightly colored of all<br />
stomatopods (Figure 5). Found from East Africa to Japan<br />
and New Caledonia, this species is widely available<br />
through commercial sources, and many aquarists who<br />
first encounter one cannot resist the dramatic colors and<br />
interactive nature of the beast. However, Peacock <strong>Mantis</strong><br />
<strong>Shrimp</strong> have their drawbacks. They are large and active,<br />
requiring a relatively large species aquarium—at least 35<br />
gallons (132.5 L) for a mature 5-inch adult. They are<br />
also prone to digging and rearranging the local landscape,<br />
which can cause havoc for sessile invertebrates.<br />
As generalist predators, they will attack everything<br />
from fish and crabs to clams and urchins. They are<br />
highly aggressive by nature and you cannot keep more<br />
than one in a tank. And then there are health problems.<br />
Molting problems can lead to raptorial appendage loss<br />
or death, and the dreaded “shell rot” is an often fatal<br />
disease that attacks the cuticle of older animals. These<br />
issues reduce longevity in the home aquarium to usually<br />
less than two or three years. And finally, as the popularity<br />
of O. scyllarus has grown, availability is declining and<br />
prices are escalating.<br />
A NEW GROUP OF STOMATOPODS<br />
ON THE SCENE<br />
Recently, representatives of another group of stomatopods<br />
are being offered for sale. Known in the aquarium<br />
trade as <strong>Zebra</strong>, Striped, or Bumble Bee <strong>Mantis</strong> <strong>Shrimp</strong>,<br />
these stomatopods are armed with vicious-looking, multibarbed<br />
raptorial appendages and are dramatically colored<br />
with yellow and brown or black transverse stripes (Figure<br />
6). They can also reach a prodigious size—over a foot in<br />
length (30 cm). These spearers belong to the family Lysiosquillidae.<br />
While their biology is quite different from<br />
that of the popular Peacock <strong>Mantis</strong>, for some aquarists<br />
they offer an interesting and desirable alternative.<br />
First, a bit of taxonomy. There are 3 genera and 17<br />
species in the family Lysiosquillidae. All are found in<br />
tropical waters. Ninety-five percent of the animals I’ve<br />
seen for sale are Lysiosquillina maculata from the Indo-<br />
Pacific, but occasionally one can find Lysiosquillina sulcata<br />
from the Central and West Pacific, Lysiosquillina<br />
lisa from Indonesia (Figure 7), Lysiosquillina glabriuscula<br />
from the Caribbean (Figure 8), Lysiosquilla tredecimden-<br />
Figure 4: Odontodactylus<br />
scyllarus smashing a snail.<br />
86 CORAL
Figure 2, left: A 100-million-year-old<br />
fossil stomatopod, Pseudosculda<br />
laevis, from Lebanon. Note the<br />
simple spikes that tip the<br />
raptorial appendages.<br />
Figure 3:<br />
Lysiosquillina<br />
sulcata spearing<br />
a damselfish.<br />
tata from the Indo-Pacific, and Lysiosquilla scabricauda<br />
from the Caribbean. All of these species form pairs as<br />
adults and reach a maximum size of at least 7.8 inches<br />
(20 cm). The largest is L. maculata, which can reach a<br />
total length of 15.3 inches (39 cm). They vary somewhat<br />
with respect to substrate and depth preference, but in<br />
general they all live in sandy substrates and dig U-shaped<br />
burrows lined with a mixture of sand and mucus. Some<br />
species, such L. maculata, are sexually dimorphic, with<br />
males doing most of the hunting. Others, for example L.<br />
glabriuscula, are not, and both males and females hunt<br />
simultaneously from the burrow entrances. For more information<br />
on some lysiosquillids, see http://www.ucmp.<br />
berkeley.edu/arthropoda/crustacea/malacostraca/eumalacostraca/royslist/index.html.<br />
I’ll restrict the rest of<br />
my comments to L. maculata, the species that we know<br />
the most about and that is most likely to be encountered<br />
in the aquarium trade (Figure 9).<br />
L. maculata are very long-lived. I have followed burrows<br />
in Hawaii for over 20 years and I have adult pairs<br />
in my laboratory that have not substantially grown, but<br />
that I captured as adults nine years ago. Given that postlarvae<br />
settle out at about .79 inch (20 mm) and grow<br />
fairly slowly (one juvenile in my lab is only 4.7 inches<br />
[12 cm] at nine years old), I estimate that L. maculata<br />
can live at least 20 years and probably longer. Postlarvae,<br />
juveniles, and sexually immature adults dig simple vertical<br />
burrows 6 to 8 times the animal’s total length. At<br />
about 40 percent of maximum adult size (5.57 inches<br />
[14–18 cm]), they become sexually mature and form<br />
pairs, although we don’t know how males and females<br />
find one another. The pair apparently expands one of<br />
their burrows, digging a second entrance to form a U-<br />
shaped home. The burrows of adult pairs are typically<br />
2.75–4.7 inches (7-12 cm) in diameter and 11.8–19.7<br />
inches (30–50 cm) deep, and may extend horizontally<br />
6.5–16.4 feet (2–5 m). Reproductively mature L. maculata<br />
are sexually dimorphic. Females have smaller raptorial<br />
appendages and eyes better suited for a life within<br />
the burrow, digging and caring for eggs; the males have<br />
larger raptorial appendages for hunting (Figure 10).<br />
L. maculata are classic “sit and wait” ambush predators.<br />
In the field they almost never leave their burrows.<br />
In my laboratory, one pair has been kept in a “natural”<br />
CORAL<br />
87
Figure 7, top left: Closeup of the raptorial appendages of<br />
Lysiosquillina lisa.<br />
Figure 8, bottom left: Lysiosquillina glabriuscula threatening.<br />
burrow for eight years and we have never found the male<br />
or female out of the burrow. In the field, the only time<br />
we see an individual leave its burrow is if a male loses<br />
a mate. Within a day of the loss he abandons the burrow<br />
to search for another female. These searches usually<br />
take place at night, and lone males may occasionally<br />
be attracted to night lights. If a female’s mate dies, she<br />
does not abandon the burrow, but advertises for a nearby<br />
male to pair with him. This can be an immature, unpaired<br />
male (Figure 11) or, more typically, a male already<br />
paired with a smaller female. These males will “trade up”<br />
to get a larger female who will lay more eggs. On rare<br />
occasions, environmental disasters like substrate erosion<br />
or freshwater or anoxic conditions will force animals<br />
from their burrows, but these events are usually fatal.<br />
There is some evidence that pairs in the field molt<br />
synchronously, sealing their burrow with a sand-mucus<br />
cap 5.9-inches (15 cm) thick while they molt. They<br />
can remain sealed in the burrow for more than two<br />
weeks. I don’t see this behavior as frequently in the<br />
laboratory, although when the male molts the female<br />
remains in the entrance and reduces the size of<br />
her burrow opening. You can usually tell when a pair<br />
has molted, because when they reopen the burrow<br />
they discard their raptorial dactyls and mandibles on<br />
the surface near the entrance. The rest of the molt<br />
skin is stored in the burrow and eventually eaten<br />
(Figure 12).<br />
In the field, males hunt during the day from a<br />
mostly sealed burrow with a small opening in the<br />
center, through which the sand-colored eyes and<br />
antennules protrude (Figure 13). The “cap” on the<br />
burrow is formed by mixing sand and mucus into<br />
a paste and forming it into a flat disk. The animal<br />
shapes the cap by pressing it between the first, third,<br />
fourth, and fifth maxillipeds, rotating as it adds to<br />
the membrane. When the cap is finished, the male<br />
uses his antennules to sweep away any telltale marks<br />
on the outside of the cap. When a fish ventures within<br />
striking distance of the entrance, about a third of<br />
the stomatopod’s length, the male strikes through<br />
the cap, impaling the prey on the dactyl spines. At<br />
the same time the dactyl closes against the propodus,<br />
which is armed with long, movable spines that become<br />
erect during the strike, effectively pinning the<br />
fish between the dactyl and propodus (Figure 14). In<br />
one quick movement, the stomatopod withdraws tail<br />
first into the burrow, dragging the fish down with it.<br />
Using cut-away burrows in the laboratory, we have<br />
been able to see what happens next. Once down the<br />
burrow, the male makes a jackknife turn to face his<br />
mate and presents the prey to her. He then returns<br />
to the entrance to repair any damage to the cap and, if<br />
hungry, resumes fishing. Surplus fish are cached in the<br />
burrow for a day or two and eaten later. When a fish ap-<br />
88 CORAL
Figure 5: Adult male Peacock <strong>Mantis</strong> <strong>Shrimp</strong>,<br />
Odontodactylus scyllarus.<br />
proaches the burrow, I have watched males<br />
wiggle their antennule flagella in a wormlike<br />
manner, apparently attempting to lure<br />
prey to within striking distance. Sometimes<br />
males do not close their burrows, but partly<br />
conceal the entrance, using their sand-colored<br />
antennule scales to fill the entrance<br />
(Figure 15). After dark, particularly on<br />
moonlit nights, males also hunt from a burrow<br />
entrance without forming a cap.<br />
Most of what we know about reproduction<br />
in Lysiosquillina comes from the spawning<br />
of pairs in the laboratory. After a molt,<br />
the female’s ovaries develop. They are clearly<br />
visible as a broad pink or orange stripe down<br />
her back, extending from the carapace to the<br />
telson (Figure 16). In fact, females caught in<br />
Figure 9, right: Large male<br />
Lysiosquillina maculata.<br />
Figure 10, above right:<br />
Sexual dimorphism<br />
in adult Lysiosquillina<br />
maculata. The female<br />
(top) has smaller eyes and<br />
raptorial appendages. Both<br />
members of this pair were<br />
12 inches (31 cm) long.<br />
Figure 11, left: A small<br />
male Lysiosquillina<br />
maculata (bottom) caught<br />
paired with a larger female.<br />
The 6.3-inch (16-cm) male<br />
is just becoming sexually<br />
mature.<br />
CORAL<br />
89
Figure 12, above: A molt skin of a Lysiosquillina maculata visible<br />
in a cutaway burrow.<br />
Figure 14, below: A male Lysiosquillina sulcata capturing a fish.<br />
Note the erect propodal spines that pin the fish between the<br />
dactyl and the propodus.<br />
the field usually have some ovarian development. Mating<br />
occurs in the burrow shortly before the female lays her<br />
eggs. The male mounts the female from the rear, grasping<br />
her carapace with his maxillipeds and turning her on<br />
her back so that their ventral thoraxes are opposed. He<br />
then inserts his pair of gonopods, or penises (Figure 17),<br />
into her genital openings and deposits his sperm into her<br />
sperm storage organ. The female can store sperm for a few<br />
months as long as she doesn’t molt. If she does, the sperm<br />
are lost and she must mate again to fertilize her eggs.<br />
As the female nears egg-laying, three pairs of cement<br />
glands on her ventral thorax become engorged and white<br />
(Figure 18). These glands provide the matrix material<br />
that the female will use to form her eggs into a mass<br />
that she will keep in the burrow with her. The individual<br />
eggs are pink to orange and are about 0.35<br />
mm in diameter. They are extruded through<br />
the female’s two gonopores as she lies in the<br />
burrow on her side. As the eggs emerge, she<br />
mixes them with secretions from the cement<br />
glands and kneads the mass into a large disk<br />
using her first, third, fourth, and fifth pairs<br />
of maxillipeds. The matrix material sets in a<br />
few hours, and she then picks up the flexible<br />
egg disk in her maxillipeds and wads it into<br />
a ball, working it frequently for aeration and<br />
cleaning (Figure 19).<br />
A large, 11.8-inch (30 cm) L. maculata<br />
will produce over 100,000 eggs each time she<br />
Figure 13, below, left: A male Lysiosquillina sulcata<br />
hunting from a capped burrow.<br />
Figure 15, below: A male Lysiosquillina maculata<br />
hunting from an uncapped burrow. The large<br />
antennal scales help camouflage the entrance.<br />
90 CORAL
Figure 16, above left: The pink ovaries of the female (top) of this<br />
pair of Lysiosquillina maculata are packed with eggs.<br />
Figure 17, above: The penises of a male Lysiosquillina lisa are<br />
tubes extending from the base of the third pair of walking legs.<br />
Figure 19, above, right: A female Lysiosquillina maculata holding<br />
her egg mass shortly after laying.<br />
Figure 18, right: The cement glands of a female Lysiosquillina<br />
maculata provide the matrix material that hold the eggs in a<br />
mass. Just before egg-laying, the glands are white and greatly<br />
enlarged.<br />
spawns; in the laboratory this has occurred about twice<br />
a year. At 77°F (25°C), the eggs take a little over three<br />
weeks to develop and hatch. At two weeks, eyes are visible<br />
in the developing larvae and they turn dark gray as<br />
their yolks are depleted. The eggs hatch at night and the<br />
larvae remain in the burrow until sunrise. The first instar<br />
larvae are attracted to light, and at dawn they swarm out<br />
of the burrow and enter the plankton. The male remains<br />
in the burrow entrance at this time and may “assist” the<br />
larvae’s exodus by vigorously fanning water from the burrow.<br />
Other than ventilating the burrow and occasionally<br />
retrieving the egg mass, this is the only direct care the<br />
male provides for his offspring (Figure 20). When most<br />
of the larvae have hatched and left the burrow, one of<br />
the parents—we don’t know which—picks up the matrix<br />
material that had encased the eggs and throws it out of<br />
the burrow entrance.<br />
CORAL<br />
91
Figure 20: A male Lysiosquillina maculata<br />
sitting in his burrow entrance as newly<br />
hatched larvae leave the burrow.<br />
After the larvae enter the plankton, their behavior is<br />
largely unknown. Over the next several months they will<br />
molt seven times and grow to over .94 inch (24 mm)<br />
in length. Lysiosquillid larvae are armed with formidable<br />
spines on their bodies that deter fish predation. When it<br />
is time for the larvae to settle from the plankton, they appear<br />
near shore and, beginning four or five days after the<br />
full moon, they move onto sand flats and reefs in the early<br />
evening. At this time larvae are easily collected because<br />
they are attracted to light. (We can catch<br />
dozens in an evening, standing in waistdeep<br />
water, pointing a dive light out to<br />
sea, and scooping up larvae with a net<br />
as they swim into the light beam.) Once<br />
the larvae have encountered a suitable<br />
sandy patch, they settle to the bottom<br />
and molt their spiny armor, revealing<br />
.79-inch (20-mm) postlarvae that resemble<br />
clear miniature adults. By dawn,<br />
the postlarvae will have excavated a burrow<br />
and begun feeding (Figure 21).<br />
Burrows are critical for the survival<br />
of lysiosquillids, and their excavation<br />
and maintenance takes up much of the<br />
animal’s time. The process starts with<br />
the mantis shrimp vigorously fanning<br />
its pleopods (gills) to create a trench by<br />
pushing out loose sand behind it. Once the stomatopod<br />
has dug a trench about as long and deep as its body, it<br />
uses its maxillipeds to bulldoze more sand, forming a<br />
vertical front wall to the trench. The animal then scoops<br />
up sand in its mouth parts and jackknifes, depositing the<br />
sand from the bottom front of the trench into the rear of<br />
the trench. After several such maneuvers, the trench is<br />
filled with sand from the base of the front wall and there<br />
is the beginning of a burrow. At this point, the stomato-<br />
Figure 21: A newly settled Lysiosquillina maculata hunting from<br />
its burrow. It has just speared a larval Pullosquilla lateralis, a<br />
small stomatopod common on the same sand flats.<br />
92 CORAL
Lysiosquillina sulcata lunges forward to try and capture a<br />
fish. I have only once managed to take a photo like this,<br />
showing the lunging movement.<br />
pod uses its maxillipeds to mix mucus, which it secretes,<br />
with the sand and uses this mixture to form the burrow<br />
walls. As the burrow deepens, the animal dives down<br />
head first, grabs sand from the bottom in its maxillipeds,<br />
jackknifes, bringing the sand to the surface, and throws<br />
it away from the entrance. The burrow entrance remains<br />
flush with the substrate, with no mound to reveal its<br />
presence. As needed, more sand is mixed with mucus to<br />
shore up the walls of the burrow. The burrow is only<br />
about 1¼ times the diameter of the stomatopod, which<br />
possesses a highly articulated body that allows it to turn<br />
in such tight quarters. Postlarvae and juveniles can excavate<br />
a burrow in a few hours and produce sufficient<br />
mucus to shore up the walls. However, adults require a<br />
much larger burrow and they don’t have enough mucus<br />
to build even the beginning of a burrow that will conceal<br />
them. I’ve followed large L. maculata that I have released<br />
on an open sand flat, and even after several hours attempting<br />
to dig a burrow, they manage to achieve no<br />
more than a shallow pit that leaves them totally exposed<br />
to predators. This inability of larger animals to construct<br />
a new burrow from scratch may explain why lysiosquillids<br />
typically occupy the same burrow for life. They constantly<br />
modify and expand it, recycling the stabilized<br />
sand/mucus mixture. It may also explain the evolution<br />
of monogamy in this group. If males went searching for<br />
mates, there is a good chance that they would lose their<br />
burrows, and without the ability to quickly dig a new<br />
one, would be subject to predation. It is a better option<br />
for the male to remain with his mate in the safety of<br />
the existing burrow and defend and provision her as she<br />
produces a steady supply of his offspring.<br />
Part II of this article will appear in the January/February 2013<br />
issue of CORAL. The complete article is now available online at:<br />
http://www.reef2rainforest.com.<br />
Professor Roy Caldwell lectures at the University of California,<br />
Berkeley, USA. He is director of the University of California<br />
Museum of Paleontology and head of the Caldwell Laboratory.<br />
His main interests are the ecology and behavior of invertebrates,<br />
and he is regarded as one of the leading experts on mantis shrimps<br />
worldwide. He has been studying these creatures both in the wild<br />
state and in the laboratory for decades, and observing them in<br />
laboratory aquaria.<br />
For more information<br />
on Lysiosquillidae:<br />
www.ucmp.<br />
berkeley.edu/<br />
arthropoda/crustacea/malacostraca/<br />
eumalacostraca/<br />
royslist/index.html.<br />
CORAL<br />
93
94 CORAL
Kreisels are not new, but commercial units are expensive and not yet readily<br />
available to aquarium hobbyists. As small-scale marine breeding grows in<br />
popularity, many questions arise: “What are the benefits of a kreisel” “How<br />
does it work” “How can I build one myself”<br />
K<br />
reisel, in German, means rotating or moving in<br />
a circular pattern, and a kreisel or kreisel tank is<br />
an important tool for rearing delicate marine<br />
larvae, including fishes, crabs, and shrimps.<br />
Baby seashorses, for example, do much better<br />
in a kreisel than in a boxy tank. A kreisel<br />
is especially worthwhile for anyone who<br />
has difficulty with the rearing of a particular species, and<br />
wants to improve his or her results with tiny larvae or<br />
newly hatched fishes. This technique came to my notice<br />
through discussions with successful breeders, and the<br />
benefits very quickly became clear to me. I have already<br />
been able to help several people via Internet forums or<br />
on the phone with information on the advantages of<br />
kreisel tanks in rearing marine larvae and tips for constructing<br />
and running them. I use three of them to rear<br />
Thor amboinensis and Lysmata seticaudata. I would now<br />
like to share the experience I have gained with CORAL<br />
readers. My interest is mainly invertebrates, but the basic<br />
kreisel design works extremely well for fishes, too.<br />
PRINCIPLES OF THE KREISEL TANK<br />
A kreisel is a horizontal cylinder in which a gentle,<br />
regular circular current is created. This current can be<br />
produced either by the injection of bubbles from an air<br />
pump or with a small water pump. The airline is secured<br />
A kreisel for rearing<br />
marine larvae<br />
by Christian Martin<br />
Thor amboinensis. The larvae of this “Sexy <strong>Shrimp</strong>”<br />
are particularly easy to rear in a kreisel .<br />
in the middle of the kreisel (see diagram) so that the air<br />
bubbles rise up the wall of the cylinder in a quarter circle,<br />
taking the water with them and creating the circular current.<br />
However, it is important to ensure the movement<br />
is gentle so that the larvae aren’t constantly exposed to a<br />
strong current. This is particularly important with delicate<br />
larvae such as those of Lysmata shrimps. The larvae<br />
should be kept permanently in motion so that they don’t<br />
settle on the bottom.<br />
SEXY SHRIMP: I. KRAUSE; ALL OTHERS: C. MARTIN<br />
Left: A homemade<br />
rearing kreisel<br />
(around 1.6<br />
gallons/6 L in<br />
volume) in use.<br />
Right: Schematic<br />
representation<br />
of the kreisel<br />
principle, using air<br />
bubbles to set up<br />
a rotating water<br />
motion.<br />
CORAL<br />
95
Pre-bending the acrylic sheet.<br />
Fitting the acrylic-glass kreisel into the glass<br />
tank; the clamps secure the construction until<br />
the silicone has set.<br />
WHY USE A KREISEL<br />
Kreisel tanks have been used for a long time for<br />
rearing seahorses and marine crustaceans. When<br />
my first attempt at rearing Lysmata shrimps failed,<br />
I was advised to try using one of these—and it<br />
worked!<br />
THE ADVANTAGES OF A KREISEL TANK:<br />
ly<br />
suspended.<br />
<br />
current (as in a rectangular tank).<br />
<br />
walls of the tank, where there can be numerous<br />
(potentially harmful) microorganisms.<br />
<br />
to the lowest point of the kreisel and can easily be siphoned<br />
off.<br />
DIFFERENT TYPES OF KREISEL<br />
I will discuss three types of kreisel tank, each with its own<br />
advantages and disadvantages. There are other designs be-<br />
Two finished kreisel tanks, each with a volume<br />
of around 4.2 gallons (16 L).<br />
96 CORAL
CORAL<br />
97
yond what I present here. The choice of construction ultimately<br />
depends on the breeding project in question, and<br />
in this respect everyone must weigh the advantages and<br />
disadvantages.<br />
Standalone air-driven kreisel. This variant is a selfcontained<br />
kreisel that is operated with an air pump and<br />
not connected to a larger aquarium system. The air supply<br />
can be regulated using an airline clamp or valve. Because<br />
the water volume in this type is relatively small,<br />
partial water changes should be performed frequently.<br />
Kreisel permanently installed in a larger tank. The<br />
permanently installed kreisel is built into a larger tank<br />
and has a fine mesh panel of fiberglass window screen<br />
material on one side to permit water exchange. The tank<br />
can also be linked to a centralized aquarium system or a<br />
sump, which makes it significantly easier to keep the nutrient<br />
concentration in the rearing kreisel at a low level.<br />
With this type of kreisel, a water current pump or small<br />
powerhead can be used instead of an air pump, guaranteeing<br />
good water exchange. Its inlet must be outside<br />
the kreisel, or larvae will end up in it. Very small pumps<br />
that can be throttled back if necessary are suitable for<br />
the purpose. The mesh screen tends to get clogged very<br />
quickly, so it must be cleaned frequently. For this reason<br />
it is practical to construct the unit so that the mesh can<br />
be removed quickly and cleaned outside of the aquarium.<br />
Transportable kreisel tank. This type of kreisel can<br />
be suspended in a functioning aquarium or sump. It<br />
is a matter of choice whether it is operated<br />
as a self-contained unit or linked to<br />
the aquarium in which it is suspended. I<br />
would advise a self-contained system, as<br />
the suspended material that occurs in a<br />
typical reef aquarium or equipment tank<br />
will clog the gauze of an open system<br />
very rapidly. The biggest advantages of a<br />
kreisel suspended in a normally operated<br />
aquarium are that no separate heating is<br />
required, and the rearing tank occupies<br />
no additional space in the living room. A<br />
transportable kreisel tank should be made<br />
entirely of plastic so that it is lightweight<br />
and therefore easy to handle.<br />
BUILDING A KREISEL TANK<br />
Essentially there are two options when<br />
constructing a kreisel. You can get a large<br />
acrylic or PVC tube with a diameter of<br />
at least 8 inches (20 cm), saw off a suitable<br />
length, and make an opening in the<br />
top. Or you can form the kreisel yourself<br />
from a thin plexiglas (acrylic) sheet. Using<br />
a large tube is easier, but costs more.<br />
The kreisel can be closed off with glass or<br />
plexiglas at the front and back. It is essential<br />
to use a suitable adhesive, such<br />
as Acrifix® for acrylic or Tangit for PVC.<br />
Silicone will work, but the gluing of glass<br />
and acrylic with silicone requires the<br />
prior use of a primer on the acrylic, as<br />
silicone doesn’t stick well to acrylic. If<br />
you don’t use a primer, you should compensate<br />
by being very generous with the<br />
silicone in order to increase the area of<br />
contact, create mechanical solidity, and<br />
avoid leaking, even if it doesn’t look very<br />
neat. Never cobble together an outer tank<br />
in this way; this measure should only be<br />
used to fix a plastic kreisel in an otherwise<br />
watertight glass or acrylic tank.<br />
98 CORAL
CORAL<br />
99
HOW I BUILD MY KREISEL TANKS<br />
I prefer to use a simple kreisel operated by air and not<br />
linked to an aquarium system. I built my first kreisel into<br />
a 3-gallon (12-L) standard aquarium that measured 12 x<br />
8 x 8 inches (30 x 20 x 20 cm) (l x w x h). The kreisel itself<br />
had a volume of around 1.5 gallons (6 L). Because of<br />
this rather small tank volume, it wasn’t possible to rear<br />
a large number of larvae in it, and very frequent, regular<br />
partial water changes had to be performed. I fitted my<br />
next two kreisels into glass tanks of about 5 gallons (20 L)<br />
and hence suitable for a far higher number of larvae.<br />
In order to create the “roll” that will ultimately form<br />
the kreisel, I use a 2-mm acrylic sheet. I cut this to the<br />
precise size I need, using a saw with a fine-toothed metal<br />
blade. I establish the required length beforehand using<br />
a tape measure directly inside the glass tank, and the<br />
width corresponds to the internal width of the glass tank<br />
less a millimeter, to allow room to maneuver and space<br />
for a thin layer of silicone in between.<br />
However, acrylic sheets are far too stiff to be bent to<br />
such a tight radius and glued into the tank immediately.<br />
For this reason I start by bending it into a horseshoe<br />
shape and securing it with a strong cord. I then heat it<br />
in the oven for about 10 minutes at around 140–158°F<br />
(60–70°C), though I start at a somewhat lower temperature<br />
setting and slowly increase it; at too high a temperature<br />
the material will become very soft and distort.<br />
After heating in the oven the sheet should be carefully<br />
removed and allowed to cool. As soon as the cord is removed,<br />
the kreisel will open up a little, but will largely<br />
retain its shape and be sufficiently pre-formed to be<br />
persuaded into the eventual shape required in the outer<br />
tank. This is achieved by using clamps to hold it in the<br />
desired shape and securing it at the top with thick blobs<br />
of silicone. The whole thing should then be allowed to<br />
set for two days before removing the clamps and attaching<br />
the kreisel to the tank all the way around with silicone.<br />
Apply as much as possible to make sure that the<br />
construction is really watertight. After two days more<br />
it should be tested for leaks and improved if necessary.<br />
Finally, the heater and airline can be fitted (a suction cup<br />
can be used to secure the airline). Before using, be sure<br />
to “season” the kreisel in full-strength saltwater for at<br />
least a day and then rinse thoroughly.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
I hope that this article has provided you with some useful<br />
information on the subject of kreisel tanks and motivated<br />
you to construct a simple one of your own. In my<br />
opinion, this type of rearing tank is now an important<br />
tool in the hobby-scale rearing of marine creatures, especially<br />
the larvae of shrimps and crabs. If you are having<br />
difficulty rearing a particular species, try using a kreisel—<br />
I wish you every success!<br />
What is Power<br />
The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to<br />
grasp the world, but to change it. - Colin Wilson<br />
Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that<br />
we are powerful beyond measure. - Nelson Mandela<br />
The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in<br />
their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a<br />
brave, determined spirit. - Mark Twain<br />
Knowledge is power. - Francis Bacon<br />
This is Goniopower ® .<br />
Justin Credabel<br />
www.twolittlefishies.com<br />
100 CORAL
CORAL 101
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102 CORAL
aquarium portrait | BY KEVIN BITTROFF<br />
A mud filter and lots of<br />
patience—one path to success<br />
My career as an aquarist began with a jar of<br />
sticklebacks and followed the typical path,<br />
inevitably culminating in the acquisition of<br />
a marine aquarium. On the way I experienced<br />
the highs and lows that many of you<br />
know very well.<br />
I have been involved in the aquarium<br />
hobby since I was 11 years old. Like so many aquarists, I<br />
have been fascinated by creatures that live in the water<br />
since I was a child. My first aquarium wasn’t a proper<br />
tank at all—it consisted of a large glass jar in which I put<br />
wild fishes I had caught in a stream. I kept them as long<br />
I could, but naturally they didn’t survive very long under<br />
such conditions. My parents eventually bought me my<br />
first real aquarium. It was a simple freshwater tank, but<br />
it sparked an interest that I have never lost.<br />
ALL: K. BITTROFF<br />
FALSE START<br />
After 10 successful years with freshwater aquariums, I<br />
wanted to try my hand at the marine side of things. So I<br />
converted my 63-gallon (240-L) freshwater aquarium to<br />
a marine tank, which I planned to run using the EcoSystem<br />
Miracle Mud® filter method. But because of several<br />
career-based moves, I soon had to give this aquarium up.<br />
I didn’t want to be left with no aquarium, so I set up a<br />
16.5-gallon (63-L) nano reef tank. But I was impatient,<br />
and it wasn’t long before I decided to upgrade. This hasty<br />
decision was one of the biggest mistakes of my aquarium<br />
career. Perhaps I simply didn’t allow myself enough time,<br />
and as a result I twice had to contend with fish deaths<br />
that remain unexplained to this day.<br />
A NEW BEGINNING<br />
That was a hard lesson, but it opened my eyes to the fact<br />
that good planning and, above all, patience are the most<br />
important factors in the successful and responsible running<br />
of a marine aquarium. Armed with this knowledge,<br />
I ventured a new beginning and was determined to do<br />
everything properly this time. My desire was to create a<br />
splendid reef tank that could be run with a minimum of<br />
equipment and effort. During the planning stage, I recalled<br />
my first mud-filter aquarium, at the time my only<br />
marine aquarium, which had actually worked without<br />
any major problems. So I decided to set up my new, appreciably<br />
larger reef tank using mud in a refugium.<br />
EQUIPMENT<br />
Since we were already moving, I naturally wanted to<br />
find the optimal solution for the new 240-gallon (900-<br />
L) aquarium and include it in our plans right from the<br />
start. It was to be integrated into our living room, but because<br />
the house itself would use up most of our budget,<br />
CORAL<br />
103
Thriving specimens of various Acropora species, above left, and<br />
healthy, fast-growing, colorful Montipora stony corals, right.<br />
the amount available to realize my aquarium dream was<br />
very small. I tried to design the most energy- and costefficient<br />
setup possible.<br />
I built the stand for the aquarium myself out of autoclaved<br />
aerated concrete (AAC) blocks. The deck was<br />
of 1.5-inch (40-mm) beech plywood. In order to get by<br />
without an external sump, I had Aquarien Geis construct<br />
a custom tank with three filter chambers in a compartment<br />
at the rear. In this way I saved the cost of plumbing<br />
as well as a sump, but this design also saved electricity,<br />
as I was able to choose a comparatively small return<br />
The view through the end glass.
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CORAL<br />
105
LED lighting is economical, and<br />
the corals like it too.<br />
pump that didn’t need to contend with any difference<br />
in height. The protein skimmer was installed in the first<br />
chamber.<br />
Because the chamber was small at 8 x 8 inches (20 x<br />
20 cm), the skimmer also had to be very compact; I chose<br />
a Cyclon AS 1500 from Zinn. The second chamber, with<br />
a bottom area of 36 x 8 inches (90 x 20 cm), was filled<br />
with around with 40 lbs (18 kg) of Miracle Mud. This<br />
chamber also contains the macroalgae, which are illuminated<br />
by two 13-watt T5 lamps. A Royal-Exclusiv Red<br />
AQUARIUM Details<br />
SIZE, VOLUME, TIME IN OPERATION: 49 x 39 x 27.5<br />
inches (125 x 100 x 70 cm) (visible area) + filter<br />
area (additional 8 inches / 20 cm); around 240 gallons<br />
(900 L); approximately 1.5 years.<br />
ZOANTHARIA (STONY CORALS, ETC): Acropora (various<br />
species), Alveopora tizardi, Blastomussa wellsi,<br />
Caulastrea (various species), Echinopora lamellosa,<br />
Euphyllia (various species), Favia (various species),<br />
Galaxea fascicularis, Goniopora (various species),<br />
Hydnophora rigida, Lobophyllia, Montipora (various<br />
species), Pavona cactus, Plerogyra sinuosa, Turbinaria<br />
reniformis.<br />
FISHES: Acanthurus leucosternon, Amblygobius<br />
phalaena, Chromis viridis, Chrysiptera hemicyanea,<br />
Centropyge acanthops, Macropharyngodon bipartitus,<br />
Paracheilinus filamentosus, Pictichromis paccagnellae,<br />
Synchiropus splendidus, <strong>Zebra</strong>soma flavescens, <strong>Zebra</strong>soma<br />
veliferum.<br />
DECOR: Background of reef ceramic, 33 lbs (15 kg)<br />
living rock, three Atoll Riff Deko reef pillars, 40 lbs<br />
(18 kg) live sand.<br />
LIGHTING: DIY LED lighting (components from<br />
www.meerwassertechnik.com); six 50-watt<br />
(16,000K), six 50-watt (blue light), eight 10-watt<br />
(12,000K), total 680 watts. Controlled by GHL<br />
computer.<br />
WATER MOVEMENT: Red Dragon 8000 as return pump,<br />
two Tunze Nanostream 6105s.<br />
WATER MANAGEMENT: Zinn Cyclon AS 1500 protein<br />
skimmer, Miracle Mud in a filter chamber measuring<br />
36 x 8 x 27.5 in. (90 x 20 x 70 cm) at the back<br />
of the aquarium.<br />
WATER PARAMETERS: Magnesium 1,300 mg/L, calcium<br />
410 mg/L, carbonate hardness 7°dKH, nitrate<br />
5–10 mg/L, phosphate 0.015 mg/L, salinity 35 ppt,<br />
temperature 79°F (26°C).<br />
MINERALS AND MAINTENANCE: Weekly 21-gallon (80-<br />
L) partial water changes using Tropic Marin Pro<br />
Reef; daily addition of minerals using the “Balling<br />
Plus with trace elements” method from Fauna<br />
Marin (around 23.7 oz. [700 ml] per solution),<br />
magnesium as required; daily in alternation: Pohl’s<br />
Coral Vitalizer and Amino Acid (Korallen-Zucht), 8<br />
drops of each.<br />
OWNER: Kevin Bittroff, Leimbach, Germany.<br />
106 CORAL
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CORAL 107
Dragon 8000 is installed in the third chamber and provides<br />
current in the aquarium. This is supplemented by<br />
two Tunze Nanostream 6105s with Wavecontrollers in<br />
the main aquarium, which create chaotic currents. I run<br />
them at just 50 percent of their output in the “pulse”<br />
mode, which avoids sediment deposits on the corals.<br />
DECOR<br />
In order to cloak the filter chamber and prevent the observer’s<br />
view being spoiled by unattractive equipment, I<br />
decided to use a background made of reef ceramic tiles<br />
from Korallenwelt. To this I added three reef pillars from<br />
Atoll Riff Deko and 33 lbs (15 kg) of live rock. I introduced<br />
just 40 lbs (18 kg) of live sand as substrate, which<br />
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I spread in just one corner of the aquarium so that my<br />
wrasses, for example, would have a place to rest at night.<br />
A major part of the bottom was left free of sand so that I<br />
could place more LPS corals there.<br />
UP AND RUNNING!<br />
The breaking-in phase passed quickly and was fairly<br />
problem-free, which is not the case with many aquariums<br />
that contain a comparatively large amount of dead<br />
rock. After three months I was able to add the first robust<br />
corals and other easy-to-keep animals. At that point I<br />
augmented the rather weak illumination used during the<br />
break-in phase with a dozen 54-watt T5s. After another<br />
two months I introduced a lot of SPS corals, all of which<br />
have grown and thrived. Within six<br />
months, an Acropora tumida grew from<br />
a branch measuring a mere 2 inches (5<br />
cm) to a stand measuring 10 x 10 inches<br />
(25 x 25 cm). Ninety percent of the current<br />
population consists of coral cuttings<br />
that have grown very well during their<br />
first year in the tank. I hope that they will<br />
all develop into large, beautiful stands.<br />
Since I started the aquarium, I have<br />
completely converted to LED lighting<br />
(see AQUARIUM Details) controlled by<br />
a GHL computer, so that I can simulate<br />
twilight and even clouds. Just six weeks<br />
after installation I thought I could detect<br />
increased growth in my corals, which<br />
all looked in even better condition than<br />
they had before. And there is no doubt<br />
that I am saving electricity by discontinuing<br />
the T5 lighting and that there is less<br />
evaporation as well.<br />
The water parameters are kept stable<br />
using the Balling method and a weekly<br />
partial water change of 21 gallons (80 L).<br />
I have had very good results with additional<br />
dosing with Pohl’s Coral Vitalizer<br />
and Amino Acid from Korallen-Zucht.<br />
I have observed that demanding corals,<br />
such as Goniopora or Catalaphyllia jardinei,<br />
look better and grow faster following<br />
this dosing.<br />
LIVESTOCK<br />
My aim is to keep lots of different creatures,<br />
but mainly corals. The fish population<br />
must be suitable for the tank size,<br />
and here I must be self-critical and admit<br />
I haven’t been successful with some of<br />
my fishes—for example, the Acanthurus<br />
leucosternon and the <strong>Zebra</strong>soma veliferum.<br />
I placed the latter in my aquarium at a<br />
size of 2 inches (5 cm), and after only<br />
108 CORAL
The reef aquarium is good for<br />
rearing coral cuttings, and also<br />
beneficial for human offspring,<br />
as long as they stay on the<br />
outside.<br />
10 months it is now 6 inches<br />
(15 cm) long. Because I can’t<br />
provide this fish with what<br />
it requires in my aquarium,<br />
namely plenty of swimming<br />
space, I have already arranged<br />
a new home for it. It<br />
will shortly be transferred to<br />
a 2,640-gallon (10,000-L)<br />
fish-only aquarium. It will<br />
be replaced by a new pair of<br />
smaller fishes, probably cardinalfishes<br />
or Pseudochromis<br />
fridmani.<br />
SUMMARY<br />
Despite all the strengths mentioned above, I have to admit<br />
that this aquarium still isn’t quite perfect in my eyes.<br />
I was a bit too sparing in the planning of the equipment<br />
compartment, and as a result there is no room in it for<br />
additional equipment. But the undoubted advantage is<br />
that this tank requires very little effort and only about<br />
$90 U.S. a month to run.<br />
I would like to thank the members of www.meerwasserforum.<br />
com, from whom I have always received support, good advice, and<br />
assistance.<br />
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CORAL 109
species spotlight | DANIEL KNOP<br />
Randall’s Watchman Goby<br />
Amblyeleotris randalli<br />
Phylum: Chordata (vertebrates)<br />
Class: Osteichthyes (bony fishes)<br />
Order: Perciformes (perch-like fishes)<br />
Family: Gobiidae<br />
Subfamily: Gobiidae<br />
Genus/species: Amblyeleotris randalli<br />
The partner goby Amblyeleotris randalli hovers<br />
near its burrow in constant touch with its<br />
crustacean mate.<br />
OVERVIEW<br />
The keeping of watchman gobies and their<br />
partner snapping or pistol shrimps provides<br />
a fascinating study of commensalism, as the<br />
close interaction between these very different<br />
creatures is constantly on display. Amblyeleotris<br />
randalli is one of the easy-to-keep watchman<br />
goby species. It doesn’t require a very large<br />
aquarium, as it is very sedentary. However, it<br />
shouldn’t be kept with very large or boisterous fishes. It<br />
will do better in a small tank with quiet tankmates than<br />
in the turmoil of a lively community aquarium—that level<br />
of activity doesn’t occur in its natural surroundings.<br />
DISTRIBUTION<br />
Randall’s Watchman Goby lives on sandy areas near<br />
reefs in the Western and South Pacific, usually in clear<br />
water on the outer reef.<br />
Amblyeleotris randalli<br />
displaying the ocellus, or<br />
false eye, on its first<br />
dorsal fin.<br />
ALL: D. KNOP<br />
CORAL<br />
111
Right: Disturbed by the flash of my camera, this Amblyeleotris<br />
randalli has automatically moved to a protective position<br />
above its digging pistol shrimp and erected its fins in order to<br />
display its false eye. Below: Outside the cave, the shrimp always<br />
maintains body contact with its Randall’s Watchman Goby<br />
as closely as possible (left), and the fish stays in contact via<br />
antennae when further away (right).<br />
SIZE<br />
Up to 3.5 inches (8.9 cm).<br />
DESCRIPTION<br />
Amblyeleotris randalli exhibits a characteristic<br />
brownish-orange crossbanding<br />
on a light background, and the large black dummy<br />
eye with a white ring, visible when the first dorsal fin is<br />
erected, makes the species easily recognizable. The whiteedged<br />
fin is gray with white dots. Both the black eye and<br />
the ocellus on the dorsal fin are integrated into one of<br />
the crossbands (bands 1 and 3).<br />
BEHAVIOR<br />
In the wild, the partner shrimp is often the Red Banded<br />
Snapping <strong>Shrimp</strong>, Alpheus randalli, which has similar<br />
crossbanding on a light background and is likewise<br />
named after the ichthyologist Dr. Jack Randall. But this<br />
watchman goby species also readily partners with other<br />
pistol shrimps, for example A. bellulus, and is equally<br />
likely to be found with them in its natural habitat.<br />
The main benefit of the symbiosis for the fish is that<br />
the shrimp protects it from invading, prey-hunting mantis<br />
shrimps in the interior of the cave (E. Thaler, pers.<br />
comm.). The digging activity of the shrimp isn’t the primary<br />
benefit for the fish; gobies are capable of digging for<br />
themselves. And the shrimp doesn’t dig primarily to construct<br />
the cave, but to search for food in the substrate.<br />
Contrary to what is popularly stated in the literature, it is<br />
also not blind or almost blind, but apparently sees rather<br />
well. But the watchfulness of the fish enables the shrimp<br />
to spend more time searching for food. The goby continually<br />
watches the surrounding area very attentively and<br />
snaps up passing planktonic organisms. When danger<br />
threatens it warns the shrimp by movements of its body,<br />
which are detected via direct or indirect (antenna) body<br />
contact. If the shrimp is some distance from the fish,<br />
it endeavors to maintain constant contact with the fish<br />
with at least one of its antennae. The goby remains in<br />
the immediate vicinity of the cave entrance, and hardly<br />
ever severs the antenna contact, even when snapping up<br />
plankton floating somewhat further away.<br />
AQUARIUM MAINTENANCE<br />
Like all watchman gobies, Amblyeleotris randalli should<br />
be purchased with partner shrimps, ideally in pairs.<br />
The substrate should be sufficiently thick (at least 1.5<br />
inches/40 mm) and have a varied grain size, with some<br />
larger rubble pieces that they can use to create a stable<br />
cave entrance. A large, flat piece of rock should also be<br />
available; they will usually choose to dug underneath it<br />
to create the retreat. A varied meaty diet should be fed<br />
several times per day, and frozen Mysis and CYCLOP-<br />
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112 CORAL
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114 CORAL
for novices in the marine aquarium hobby—DANIEL KNOP<br />
Phosphate binders<br />
How to use them correctly<br />
D. KNOP<br />
In the past 10 years, phosphate adsorbers<br />
have increasingly become the basis of successful<br />
marine fishkeeping. We discussed<br />
the fundamentals of phosphate and its<br />
measurement in the aquarium in the previous<br />
issue, and this time we will look at the<br />
two different types of phosphate binder that<br />
can be recommended to the beginner.<br />
First of all a question: why adsorber rather<br />
than absorber Quite simply, because there is<br />
a considerable difference between the two processes:<br />
absorb means to take in, while to adsorb<br />
is to store, or to bind. The green leaf of a plant<br />
takes in (absorbs) light energy, but activated<br />
charcoal or phosphate binder in the aquarium<br />
stores foreign material only on its structures<br />
(adsorption).<br />
Essentially, three substances are known to<br />
be suitable for binding phosphate in the reef<br />
aquarium hobby. One of them, lanthanum<br />
chloride, is recommended mainly for very large<br />
aquariums. Its use requires special equipment and a lot<br />
of experience. Iron oxide–based, iron hydroxide–based,<br />
or aluminum oxide–based phosphate binders should be<br />
used in reef aquariums of standard size.<br />
IRON OXIDE–BASED AND IRON<br />
HYDROXIDE–BASED PHOSPHATE BINDERS<br />
Iron-based phosphate binders are red-brown to blackish<br />
granulates that are porous and have a large internal<br />
surface area. Phosphate is bound all over this surface,<br />
although this adsorption behavior isn’t specific—it binds<br />
numerous other substances, including copper, nickel,<br />
cobalt, zinc, and manganese, as well. Even a certain<br />
amount of calcium-carbonate precipitation takes place<br />
on the surface of the adsorber, and observations suggest<br />
this is increased in reef tanks in which iron-based phosphate<br />
binders are used intensively. This would not only<br />
result in the loss of calcium ions, but also reduce the carbonate<br />
hardness. This material, which is also frequently<br />
Iron-based phosphate binder<br />
used in drinking-water treatment, is the phosphate adsorber<br />
most widely used in the marine aquarium hobby.<br />
Iron-based phosphate binders possess little inherent<br />
solidity, and may, if the grains rub together, crumble to<br />
a fine sediment. This colors the water reddish and, if not<br />
removed from the water by the filter or protein skimmer,<br />
settles out in areas of weak current in the aquarium,<br />
where mulm and detritus also accumulate. Here it binds<br />
phosphate, thus creating a deposit of iron oxide and<br />
phosphate. This doesn’t go into solution under aquarium<br />
conditions, but some algae are able to produce acid<br />
secretions on their root rhizoids, and this can cause not<br />
only phosphate deposits but possibly also iron to go into<br />
solution. For this reason, the creation of such deposits<br />
should always be avoided.<br />
Because of its lack of solidity and its tendency to erosion,<br />
this type of phosphate binder is not optimal for<br />
a fluidized bed filter. It is better to put it in a fixed bed<br />
filter, where the grains will remain immobile even as the<br />
CORAL 115
Principle of function of a solidbed<br />
filter (left) and a fluidized<br />
bed filter (right).<br />
Iron-based phosphate binders<br />
are more suitable for use<br />
in solid-bed filters, while<br />
aluminum-based phosphate<br />
binders work best in a<br />
fluidized bed filter.<br />
water is continually sucked or pushed through. However,<br />
the material must be very well rinsed beforehand—otherwise,<br />
any existing loose particles may form the fine sediment<br />
described above.<br />
ALUMINUM OXIDE–BASED PHOSPHATE<br />
BINDERS<br />
Aluminum oxide–based phosphate binders are whitish<br />
granulates that again bind (adsorb) dissolved phosphate<br />
from the water. The binding of the negatively charged<br />
phosphate ions to the positively charged aluminum oxide<br />
is stable, so the phosphate isn’t released again under<br />
aquarium conditions.<br />
The problem with this adsorption material in seawater<br />
is mainly that small amounts may go into solution<br />
at very high pH values, so that aluminum ions accumulate<br />
in the aquarium water, but can’t be measured using<br />
methods available in the aquarium hobby. To avoid<br />
this risk, supply the granulate with the water output by<br />
Aluminum-based phosphate binder<br />
a CO 2 -fed kalk reactor, as its pH value will be lower than<br />
that of the aquarium water.<br />
In principle, this material is very suitable for a fluidized<br />
bed filter, as it produces no eroded particles even<br />
under these conditions. But you shouldn’t use too much<br />
at once; around 1 pint (500 ml) per 1,000 L of tank volume<br />
will suffice, and to be safe you should always start<br />
with a smaller dose.<br />
CHECKING EFFECTIVENESS<br />
The effectiveness of the phosphate filtration should always<br />
be checked. This is not just important at the beginning,<br />
when it is first set up and you want to make sure<br />
that phosphate is actually being bound. It should also<br />
be checked regularly later on to ensure that the material<br />
isn’t yet exhausted. If you become aware of this because<br />
of increasing algae growth, you will already have the<br />
very problem that you wanted to avoid. Checking functionality<br />
is very simple in principle: all you have to do is<br />
compare the phosphate content of the filter outflow<br />
with that of the aquarium. But in practice this can<br />
be very difficult if the difference is slight, so that the<br />
precision of the color-comparison chart isn’t sufficient<br />
to establish the difference. Hence you should<br />
record the measurement with the date so that you<br />
will notice any further increase. You can also record<br />
the date of the addition of fresh phosphate-binder<br />
material. In this way you will not only document<br />
the measurements but also get an indication of the<br />
average “life” of the filter material and be able to<br />
estimate when it is time for a change. Alternatively,<br />
you can make each change at fixed times of the year.<br />
In the next issue, you will learn everything<br />
you need to know about phosphate deposits in the<br />
aquarium.<br />
D. KNOP<br />
116 CORAL
Sterling Silver<br />
Fits every Wallets’ Fold<br />
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CORAL 117
eginner’s fishes—INKEN KRAUSE<br />
Two Spot Blenny<br />
(Ecsenius bimaculatus)<br />
DISTRIBUTION: Western Pacific: Philippines and<br />
Malaysia.<br />
DESCRIPTION: With a maximum size of 2<br />
inches (5 cm), the blenny Ecsenius bimaculatus is<br />
one of the dwarfs of the blenny family. It can easily<br />
be distinguished from the other, often very similar<br />
species that occur in the Indo-Pacific by the two<br />
black dots on the lower flank.<br />
ECOLOGY: In the wild, the Two Spot Blenny lives<br />
in the shallow water of coral reefs, where it grazes<br />
fine algal growth from the rock, always on the alert<br />
for predators so it can disappear like lightning into<br />
rock crevices or small holes if attacked.<br />
AQUARIUM MAINTENANCE: Because of its<br />
small size and peaceful behavior, Ecsenius bimaculatus<br />
can be kept in nano reef aquariums with a volume<br />
of 8 gallons (30 L) and up, as long as sufficient<br />
hiding places are available. It can also be kept in<br />
pairs in somewhat larger aquariums, provided two<br />
obviously compatible individuals can be purchased.<br />
But two individuals should never be put together at<br />
random, as these blennies can be very aggressive in<br />
their behavior toward unwelcome conspecifics.<br />
FEEDING: As a rule, frozen or even dry food is<br />
accepted in the aquarium, but these blennies should<br />
always be given vegetable food as well for their longterm<br />
well-being. If there is no fine lawn of algae<br />
growing on the rocks, to be grazed in the same way<br />
as in the natural habitat, then dried Nori algae, for<br />
example, are an acceptable substitute.<br />
I. KRAUSE<br />
118 CORAL
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Destinations<br />
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Advertise and<br />
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Contact:<br />
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Publisher<br />
802.985.9977 Ext. 7<br />
james.lawrence@reef2rainforest.com<br />
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120 CORAL
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CORAL 121
Sources<br />
Look for CORAL Magazine in these outstanding local aquarium shops.<br />
UNITED STATES<br />
Alabama<br />
Aquarium Fantasies<br />
340 Eastdale Cir<br />
Montgomery, AL<br />
334-396-5020<br />
The Aquarium Shop<br />
2013 Cox Ave<br />
Huntsville, AL<br />
256-536-4367<br />
Arkansas<br />
Northside Aquatics<br />
7610 Counts Massie Rd Ste A<br />
Maumelle, AR<br />
501-803-3434<br />
Worlds Under Water<br />
2105 Creekview Ste B<br />
Fayetteville, AR<br />
479-521-7258<br />
Arizona<br />
Aqua Touch<br />
12040 North 32nd St<br />
Phoenix, AZ<br />
602-765-9058<br />
California<br />
All Seas Marine, Inc<br />
(distribution only)<br />
1205 Knox St<br />
Torrance, CA<br />
310-532-7769<br />
Amazing Aquariums<br />
& Reefs<br />
1842 N Tustin St<br />
Orange, CA<br />
714-928-5299<br />
Aqua Exotic<br />
240 Harbor Blvd Ste E<br />
Belmont, CA<br />
650-516-7333<br />
Aquarium Concepts<br />
6920 Amador Plaza Rd<br />
Dublin, CA<br />
925-829-0583<br />
Aquatic Central<br />
1963 Ocean Ave<br />
San Francisco, CA<br />
415-584-1888<br />
Coral Island<br />
1711 W Chapman Ave<br />
Orange, CA<br />
714-939-8797<br />
Natural Life Aquarium<br />
131 Southwood Ctr<br />
South San Francisco, CA<br />
415-760-9395<br />
Seven Seas<br />
647 Shaw Ave<br />
Clovis, CA<br />
559-298-4091<br />
Sierra Saltwater Systems<br />
125 Lassen Rd<br />
Tahoe City, CA<br />
530-386-1768<br />
Tong’s Tropical Fish<br />
8976 Warner Ave<br />
Fountain Valley, CA<br />
714-842-2733<br />
Trop-Aquarium<br />
1947 Main St<br />
Watsonville, CA<br />
831-761-3901<br />
White’s Pets<br />
5212 North Blackstone<br />
Fresno, CA<br />
559-438-4343<br />
Colorado<br />
Animal Attraction<br />
2518 11th Ave<br />
Greeley, CO<br />
970-353-3400<br />
Fanta-Sea<br />
16522 Keystone Blvd, Unit K<br />
Parker, CO<br />
720-484-5343<br />
Neptune’s Tropical Fish<br />
1970 E County Line Rd Unit A<br />
Highlands Ranch, CO<br />
303-798-1776<br />
Connecticut<br />
Aquatic Wildlife Co<br />
179D Deming St<br />
Manchester, CT<br />
860-648-1166<br />
House of Fins<br />
99 Bruce Park Ave<br />
Greenwich, CT<br />
203-661-8131<br />
<strong>Florida</strong><br />
Barrier Reef<br />
1921 NW Boca Raton Blvd<br />
Boca Raton, FL<br />
561-368-1970<br />
Bio Reef LLC<br />
3653 Regent Blvd #101<br />
Jacksonville, FL<br />
904-674-0031<br />
Boardroom Aquatics<br />
12795 Kenwood Lane<br />
Fort Myers, FL<br />
239-275-8891<br />
Coral Corral<br />
13510 Prestige Pl<br />
Tampa, FL<br />
813-855-3888<br />
Creatures Featured<br />
314 SW Pinckney St<br />
Madison, FL<br />
850-973-3488<br />
Eco Reef Corals<br />
2137 S. Tamiami Trail<br />
Venice, FL<br />
941-375-1397<br />
Father Fish Aquarium<br />
536 E Venice Ave<br />
Venice, FL<br />
941-266-9998<br />
Fishy Business<br />
140 S Ronald Reagan Blvd<br />
Longwood, FL<br />
407-331-4882<br />
Ocean Lifers<br />
36037 US Hwy 19 N<br />
Palm Harbor, FL<br />
727-787-4242<br />
Orange Park Aquatics<br />
793 Blanding Blvd Ste A<br />
Orange Park, FL<br />
904-375-9462<br />
Sea Life Aquarium<br />
& Service<br />
174 Semoran Commerce Pl<br />
Apopka, FL<br />
407-889-9887<br />
Ultra Corals Inc<br />
1063 Ingleside Ave<br />
Jacksonville, FL<br />
904-412-8652<br />
Georgia<br />
Aquarium Outfitters<br />
175 Old Epps Bridge Rd<br />
Athens, GA<br />
706-546-1337<br />
Creation Pet LLC<br />
8265 Hwy 92<br />
Woodstock, GA<br />
770-364-2240<br />
Premier Aquatics<br />
1801 Roswell Rd<br />
Marietta, GA<br />
678-453-3991<br />
Pure Reef<br />
12900 Hwy 9 North Ste B<br />
Alpharetta, GA<br />
770-754-7971<br />
Hawaii<br />
Coral Fish Hawaii<br />
98–810 Moanalua Rd<br />
Aiea, HI<br />
808-488-8801<br />
Idaho<br />
Fish, Aquariums & Stuff<br />
6112 West Fairview Ave<br />
Boise, ID<br />
208-377-1119<br />
Illinois<br />
Beyond the Reef<br />
205 W Golf Rd<br />
Schaumburg, IL<br />
847-885-7333<br />
Chicago Reptile House<br />
14410 John Humphrey Dr<br />
Orland Park, IL<br />
708-403-1810<br />
Fish Planet<br />
839 Waukegan Rd<br />
Deerfield, IL<br />
847-945-4700<br />
Sea Escapes<br />
1950 Silver Glen Rd<br />
South Elgin, IL<br />
847-695-9441<br />
Sailfin Pet Shop<br />
720 S Neil St<br />
Champaign, IL<br />
217-352-1121<br />
Indiana<br />
Inland Aquatics<br />
10 Ohio St<br />
Terre Haute, IN<br />
812-232-9000<br />
Iowa<br />
Aquatic Environments<br />
730 E Kimberly Rd<br />
Davenport, IA<br />
563-445-3687<br />
Maryland<br />
House of Tropicals<br />
7389F Baltimore<br />
Annapolis Blvd<br />
Glen Burnie, MD<br />
410-761-1113<br />
Massachusetts<br />
Krystal Clear Aquatics<br />
700 Southbridge St<br />
Auburn, MA<br />
508-832-2777<br />
South Coast Scientific<br />
109 McArthur Rd<br />
Swansea, MA<br />
508-678-8306<br />
Michigan<br />
Blue Fish Aquarium<br />
2939 Wilson Ave SW Ste 109<br />
Grandville, MI<br />
616-667-2424<br />
Moby Dick Pet Store<br />
3700 Sashabaw Rd<br />
Waterford, MI<br />
248-673-2520<br />
MVPets<br />
7429 S Westnedge Ave<br />
Portage, MI<br />
269-492-7387<br />
Oceans and Seas<br />
26085 Gratiot Ave<br />
Roseville, MI<br />
586-778-2223<br />
Preuss Pets<br />
1127 N Cedar St<br />
Lansing, MI<br />
517-339-1762<br />
Missouri<br />
Aqua-World<br />
16063 Manchester Rd<br />
Ellisville, MO<br />
636-391-0100<br />
Gateway Aquatics<br />
4570 Telegraph Rd<br />
Saint Louis, MO<br />
314-845-8686<br />
Seascape Studio<br />
3802 S Lindbergh<br />
Saint Louis, MO<br />
314-843-3636<br />
Montana<br />
Heights Pet Center<br />
895 Main St<br />
Billings, MT<br />
406-248-9310<br />
New Hampshire<br />
Aqua Addicts<br />
52 Lowell Rd<br />
Salem, NH<br />
603-890-0011<br />
Jay’s Aquatics<br />
10 Lawrence Rd<br />
Salem, NH<br />
603-893-8126<br />
Laconia Pet Center<br />
1343 Union Ave<br />
Laconia, NH<br />
603-524-8311<br />
New Jersey<br />
Adam’s Pet Safari<br />
19 W Main St<br />
Chester, NJ<br />
908-879-8998<br />
Aquarium Center<br />
1295 Blackwood Clementon Rd<br />
Clementon, NJ<br />
856-627-6262<br />
Ocean Aquarium<br />
6820 Black Horse Pike Rte 40<br />
Egg Harbor Township, NJ<br />
609-272-0660<br />
Pets, Pets, Pets<br />
2 JFK Blvd<br />
Somerset, NJ<br />
732-545-6675<br />
Tropiquarium & Petland<br />
Ocean Plaza, 1100 State Rte 35<br />
Ocean, NJ<br />
732-922-2300<br />
New York<br />
A Reef Creation<br />
4700 Genesee St Ste 112<br />
Cheektowaga, NY<br />
716-565-0700<br />
ABC Reefs<br />
527 Charles Ave<br />
Syracuse, NY<br />
315-882-0778<br />
122 CORAL
Ack’s Exotic Pets<br />
8107 Brewerton Rd<br />
Cicero, NY<br />
315-699-4754<br />
Eddie’s Aquarium Ctr<br />
1254 New Loudon Rd Rt 9<br />
Cohoes, NY<br />
518-783-3474<br />
The Fish Place<br />
141 Robinson St<br />
North Tonawanda, NY<br />
716-693-4411<br />
Long Island Aquarium<br />
431 East Main St<br />
Riverhead, NY<br />
631-208-9200<br />
Manhattan Aquariums<br />
522 West 37th St<br />
New York, NY<br />
212-594-2272<br />
Pet Friendly<br />
845 Manitou Rd<br />
Hilton, NY<br />
585-366-4242<br />
Tropical Fish Outlet<br />
2065 Lake Rd<br />
Elmira Heights, NY<br />
607-735-0423<br />
North Carolina<br />
Advanced Aquatics<br />
509 Woodlawn Ave<br />
Belmont, NC<br />
704-827-6648<br />
Aquarium Outfitters<br />
823 South Main St<br />
Wake Forest, NC<br />
919-556-8335<br />
Aquatic Consultants<br />
1610 US Highway 70E<br />
New Bern, NC<br />
252-638-4499<br />
Blue Ridge Reef & Pet<br />
103 WNC Shopping Ctr Dr<br />
Black Mountain, NC<br />
828-669-0032<br />
Croft Pet & Hobby<br />
Shoppe<br />
3800 Reynolds Rd, Suite 200<br />
Winston-Salem, NC<br />
336-924-0307<br />
Discount Pet<br />
100 N Main St<br />
Mount Holly, NC<br />
704-827-5859<br />
Greendale<br />
6465 Goldfish Rd<br />
Kannapolis, NC<br />
704-933-1798<br />
Mountains to Sea<br />
14 Sweeten Rd<br />
Asheville, NC<br />
828-707-1766<br />
Ohio<br />
Aquarium Adventure<br />
3632 W Dublin-Granville Rd<br />
Columbus, OH<br />
614-792-0884<br />
Belpre Aquarium<br />
1806 Washington Blvd<br />
Belpre, OH<br />
740-423-9509<br />
Salty Critter, LLC<br />
4809 Liberty Ave<br />
Vermilion, OH<br />
440-967-1634<br />
Oregon<br />
Saltwater Fanta-Seas<br />
4814 NE 107th Ave<br />
Portland, OR<br />
503-255-1645<br />
Pennsylvania<br />
Dave’s Aquastock<br />
2301 Duss Ave<br />
Ambridge, PA<br />
724-613-2782<br />
Oddball Pets &<br />
Aquarium<br />
262 Joseph St<br />
Pittsburgh, PA<br />
412-884-2333<br />
Something Fishy<br />
511 E 21st St<br />
Northampton, PA<br />
610-502-9760<br />
The Hidden Reef, Inc<br />
4501 New Falls Rd<br />
Levittown, PA<br />
215-269-4930<br />
South Carolina<br />
Aquarium Oddities<br />
1143 E Woodruff Rd<br />
Greenville, SC<br />
864-288-1191<br />
Ocean’s Floor, LLC<br />
179 Halton Rd<br />
Greenville, SC<br />
864-676-0104<br />
Sea Critters Depot<br />
1705A Edge Dr<br />
North Myrtle Beach, SC<br />
843-272-3657<br />
Texas<br />
Austin Aqua-Dome<br />
1604 Fortview Rd<br />
Austin, TX<br />
512-442-1400<br />
Birddog & Catfish<br />
Petshop<br />
115-D Old Boerne Rd<br />
Bulverde, TX<br />
830-980-8900<br />
Fish Gallery Houston<br />
2909 Fountain View Dr<br />
Houston, TX<br />
713-523-3474<br />
Incredible Pets<br />
1580 Keller Pkwy Ste 50-C<br />
Keller, TX<br />
817-753-7030<br />
Vermont<br />
Pet Advantage<br />
350 Dorset St<br />
S Burlington, VT<br />
802-860-1714<br />
Virginia<br />
Atlantis Aquariums<br />
9602 Patterson Ave<br />
Richmond, VA<br />
804-377-0243<br />
Fishworld<br />
11634A Busy St<br />
Richmond, VA<br />
804-379-2466<br />
Pet & Aquatic<br />
Warehouse<br />
2408 Wards Rd<br />
Lynchburg, VA<br />
434-239-6787<br />
Washington<br />
Barrier Reef Aquariums<br />
1717 NE 44th St<br />
Renton, WA<br />
425-277-7670<br />
Saltwater City<br />
14150 NE 20th St, Ste F3<br />
Bellevue, WA<br />
425-644-7050<br />
West Virginia<br />
Scales & Tails Reptile<br />
& Fish Store<br />
9 1 /2 W Washington St<br />
Westover, WV<br />
304-296-9218<br />
CANADA<br />
Reef Wholesale<br />
(distribution only)<br />
12 Vulcan St<br />
Etobicoke, ON<br />
613-867-8717<br />
Alberta<br />
Big Al’s Aquarium<br />
Supercentres<br />
3511 99th St NW<br />
Edmonton, AB<br />
780-435-3474<br />
British Columbia<br />
Paws N Jaws<br />
4750 Rutherford Rd #147<br />
Nanaimo, BC<br />
888-952-7297<br />
Progressive Reef<br />
110–1790 Island Hwy<br />
Victoria, BC<br />
250-478-2151<br />
Sell coral<br />
To sell CORAL in your store, contact us today:<br />
23 POND LANE | MIDDLEBURY, VT 05753<br />
Email: sales@rvmags.com<br />
CALL (800) 381-1288 | Fax (802) 388-1290<br />
Red Coral Aquarium<br />
118–3604 52nd Ave NW<br />
Calgary, BC<br />
403-338-1880<br />
New Brunswick<br />
Maritime Reef<br />
1595 Hickey Rd<br />
St John, NB<br />
506-721-6743<br />
Ontario<br />
Advanced Reef Aquatics<br />
4–18 Thompson Rd N<br />
Milton, ON<br />
905-693-6363<br />
Aquariums by Design<br />
668 Erb St West<br />
Waterloo, ON<br />
519-603-1896<br />
Coral Reef Shop<br />
1371 Plains Road East<br />
Burlington, ON<br />
289-337-3398<br />
Fish Tail Aquariums<br />
2208 Saint Joseph Blvd #101<br />
Orleans, ON<br />
613-845-0048<br />
Living Aquariums<br />
652 Bishop N<br />
Cambridge, ON<br />
519-653-5151<br />
Mail Order Pet Supplies<br />
2–558 Upper Gage Ave Ste 211<br />
Hamilton, ON<br />
888-648-6677<br />
Marinescape<br />
947 Carling Ave<br />
Ottawa, ON<br />
613-761-1743<br />
Oakville Reef Gallery<br />
579 Kerr St Unit 2A<br />
Oakville, ON<br />
905-338-2782<br />
Sea Life Central<br />
561 Southdale Rd East<br />
London, ON<br />
519-601-0062<br />
Quebec<br />
Raging Reef<br />
10227 Ave Papineau<br />
Montreal, QC<br />
514-385-5333<br />
Saskatchewan<br />
Bayside Corals<br />
501 45 St W<br />
Saskatoon, SK<br />
306-382-4222<br />
Pat’s Pets<br />
1303 Scarth St<br />
Regina, SK<br />
306-569-9070<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
Australia<br />
Aqua Blue Distribution<br />
17 Cairns St Unit 4<br />
Loganholme, Queensland<br />
07-3806-4255<br />
France<br />
Anthias<br />
3 Chemin de Maupas<br />
69380 Les Cheres<br />
33-437-50-29-80<br />
India<br />
Water World<br />
Ananda Dutta Lane<br />
Howrah-7111 01<br />
West Bengal<br />
91-983-022-5574<br />
Malta<br />
Blue Reefs<br />
82 Triq Guzeppi Mattew Callus<br />
Mosta, Mst 4105<br />
003-562-762-7463<br />
Netherlands<br />
Stunning Corals<br />
Wolvenlaan 285<br />
1216EV Hilversum<br />
Noord-Holland<br />
06-1569-9743<br />
South Africa<br />
Aquarium Depot<br />
#1 Mackenzie Park Capital Hill<br />
392 Le Roux Ave<br />
Halfway House 1685<br />
11-805-8899<br />
Sweden<br />
Bioted Marine Ab<br />
Korsgatan 16<br />
434 43 Kungsbacka<br />
0300-17960<br />
United Kingdom<br />
Midland Reefs<br />
Mount Rd Trading Estate<br />
Burntwood, Staffordshire<br />
01543-685599<br />
CORAL 123
advanced aquatics | J. CHARLES DELBEEK<br />
Lessons from<br />
the turf wars<br />
I<br />
n the aquarium hobby we have seen many fads come<br />
and go, some held onto so stubbornly by their proponents<br />
that they could be said to have become dogma—<br />
dogma being beliefs that cannot be doubted.<br />
As someone who has witnessed more than a few<br />
such events, in which dubious or experimental theories<br />
and ideas became enshrined as gospel, over the<br />
last 25 years, I am sensitive to all the questionable<br />
claims that have appeared again and again in our hobby.<br />
It seems as if some aquarists or manufacturers can become<br />
so self-confident in asserting the merits of their<br />
methods or products that their notions rise above questioning<br />
and become established as the “truth.”<br />
As Mason Cooley once noted: “Under attack, sentiments<br />
harden into dogma.”<br />
In fact, it could be said that many of the proponents<br />
of these methods became rather dogmatic in their defense<br />
of these methods despite often strong evidence to<br />
the contrary. By becoming so entrenched, these same<br />
people also close themselves off to alternative ideas and<br />
methodologies.<br />
When the reef hobby first began in North America in<br />
the late 1980s, it was based at first on the “minireef” concept<br />
of reef keeping pioneered in The Netherlands and<br />
Germany. This involved using live rock, stands of green<br />
macroalgae, Caulerpa, and trays of gravel or coral rubble<br />
through which tank water was plumbed to “trickle.”<br />
These gravel trays were not submerged, unlike the in-tank<br />
undergravel filters that were the norm in North America,<br />
and they served as biological filters. Thus the term “trickle<br />
filter” was coined in the aquarium hobby.<br />
Here nitrifying bacteria could find a home that allowed<br />
them to absorb much more oxygen than a submerged<br />
biological filter did, thus making them much<br />
more efficient at converting ammonia to nitrite and<br />
nitrite to nitrate. The trays of gravel quickly gave way<br />
to various inert man-made media such as Dupla’s “bioballs”<br />
and other plastic biomedia. Some hobbyists even<br />
attempted to use common household items, such as hair<br />
curlers and used shotgun shell casings, in sometimes<br />
failed attempts to avoid paying the steep prices of the<br />
imported media. An entire industry sprang up seemingly<br />
overnight, producing custom-made acrylic trickle filter<br />
chambers, sumps, and overflow devices, all designed<br />
around the benefits of trickle filters.<br />
What was interesting was that everyone became so<br />
fixated on using these filters that few questioned the validity<br />
of them. Yet, in the very articles introducing them<br />
to North America, George Smit had indicated that the<br />
live rock and the bacteria that they contained, both on<br />
their surfaces and internally, played a significant role in<br />
maintaining these systems.<br />
Meanwhile, in Berlin, Germany, a group of hobbyists<br />
had been keeping very successful stony and soft coral<br />
systems without dedicated biological filters since the<br />
mid-1970s. At the same time, a French researcher working<br />
in conjunction with the Monaco Aquarium, Dr. Jean<br />
Jaubert, had developed another system that relied on a<br />
completely different form of biological filter, namely the<br />
Jaubert Method, which employed a pervious material<br />
that separated two regions of a tank bottom: one that<br />
created a bare void at the bottom, overlaid with a thick<br />
coral sand/gravel layer. This void space was referred to as<br />
a “plenum,” and it was argued that this region of lowoxygen<br />
water not only helped to break down biological<br />
wastes such as ammonia and nitrite, but also offered a<br />
method by which denitrification could be used to break<br />
down nitrate into nitrogen gas. Of course, the system also<br />
contained live rock, again a fact that few seemed to attach<br />
much significance to as all the focus was on the plenum.<br />
In the December 1990 issue of Freshwater and Marine<br />
Aquarium Magazine, Julian Sprung and I co-authored a<br />
paper titled “New trends in reef keeping: Is it time for<br />
another change” In this paper we detailed the Jaubert<br />
and Berlin methods of reef keeping, but also championed<br />
the view that in systems with adequate live rock,<br />
no form of additional biological filtration was necessary.<br />
We argued that the live rock by itself could provide all<br />
ALL: J. CHARLES DELBEEK<br />
124 CORAL
The Smithsonian Institution’s Coral Reef Exhibit in<br />
Washington, D.C., in 1995. Connected to an algal turf<br />
scrubber system, it became notorious for yellowish water<br />
and poor coral survival, but its defenders for years resisted<br />
suggestions for improvements or change.<br />
CORAL 125
126 CORAL<br />
the nitrification and denitrification required, and that having an external<br />
trickle filter was superfluous. In fact, we believed that having one was a detriment.<br />
By being so efficient in converting the ammonia to nitrite and eventually<br />
nitrate, it effectively robbed the bacteria living on and in the rock of<br />
nitrogenous compounds.<br />
As a result, denitrification within the live rock was overwhelmed with<br />
nitrate from the trickle filter. This rapid conversion of nitrogenous waste<br />
to nitrate resulted in an equally rapid production of acids as a by-product<br />
of nitrification, which affected the buffering system in the water, specifically<br />
the alkalinity. For these reasons we felt that tanks would benefit from<br />
the removal of the biomedia from their trickle filters, a process that became<br />
known, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as “yanking your balls.”<br />
As you can imagine, such a radical suggestion rubbed a lot of people the<br />
wrong way. However, as more and more hobbyists began to do just as we had<br />
suggested, the reports of success began to accumulate and the debate shifted<br />
from whether to do it or not to how much biomedia to pull at once. At that<br />
time I was regularly lecturing at aquarium societies, and I can still remember<br />
comments from audience members and exhibitors after my lectures, questioning<br />
my recommendations and telling me that people will never go for<br />
removing the biomedia from their trickle filters and relying on large protein<br />
skimmers as the only filtration method. Today it is very unusual to see artificial<br />
biomedia filtration as part of a reef aquarium filtration system.<br />
Perhaps the most dogmatic stance I have encountered in the aquarium<br />
hobby concerned the algal turf scrubber (ATS) system developed by Dr. Walter<br />
Adey in the late 1970s at the Smithsonian Institution’s Natural History<br />
Museum in Washington, D.C. The system consisted of shallow troughs with<br />
a plastic mesh screen, illuminated by intense lighting. Water pumped to the<br />
troughs entered via a dump bucket, generating a surge that helped the algae<br />
exchange gases and take up metabolites while preventing over-illumination<br />
or over-shading. Various turf-forming algae were grown on these screens,<br />
and they removed ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, and heavy metals from the<br />
water (Adey and Loveland, 1991). The screens were periodically removed and
“harvested” by scraping off the excess growth with<br />
a plastic wedge. The algal mass was thus exported<br />
from the system. It could be discarded, analyzed<br />
for nutrient content, or returned to the aquarium<br />
as food for the fishes and other creatures to stimulate<br />
higher productivity when nutrient levels were<br />
very low. The harvested screens were then reinstalled<br />
with the still-living cropped algae adhering<br />
to them. Both Julian Sprung and I had observed<br />
Smithsonian Marine<br />
ATS systems in operation in the 1980s and 1990s<br />
Ecosystems curator Bill at the Smithsonian, Biosphere 2, the Pittsburgh<br />
Hoffman in front of the AquaZoo, and the Ontario Science Center in Toronto,<br />
Canada.<br />
Coral Reef Ecosystem<br />
display at the Smithsonian<br />
All of these systems exhibited the same problems:<br />
yellow/green water and poor coral surviv-<br />
Marine Station Marine<br />
Ecosystems Exhibit in<br />
ability. Yet no matter what critique was leveled<br />
Ft. Pierce, <strong>Florida</strong>. When<br />
at them, the dogmatic proponents of algal turf<br />
augmented with skimming,<br />
ozone, and the use of<br />
systems refused to acknowledge that these problems<br />
were due to the ATS technology and offered<br />
activated carbon, properly<br />
sized algal turf systems can other explanations, such as the one that the color<br />
work very well.<br />
temperature of the lighting was to blame for the<br />
water color. In Delbeek and Sprung (1994), we<br />
expressed that in our opinion, “Although algal<br />
turf scrubbers work quite well for mangrove and<br />
estuarine microcosms, producing model ecosystems that really look exactly<br />
like the natural environment, the results in the coral reef microcosms we<br />
have seen that rely exclusively on this type of filtration, with little or no water<br />
change, are less spectacular.”<br />
However, by the time we published our third volume we had both seen<br />
a number of successful systems employing algal turf scrubbing in operation<br />
over a long period, and had spoken with quite a few marine scientists, coral<br />
reef biologists, and aquarium hobbyists who had used them, maintained<br />
them, or observed them. It was clear that algal turf filtration could be utilized<br />
What’s black<br />
and white and red<br />
AND used all over<br />
Two Little Fishies<br />
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What’s more<br />
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CORAL 127
ADVERTISER Index<br />
128 CORAL<br />
A&M Aquatics ............................ 17, 80<br />
www.amaquatics.com<br />
Acan Lighting ................. Inside front cover<br />
www.acanlighting.com<br />
American Marine .............................29<br />
www.americanmarineusa.com<br />
Aqua Craft Products® ................... 5, 34, 35<br />
www.aquacraft.net<br />
Aqua Medic ............................105, 119<br />
www.aqua-medic.com<br />
Aquascapers ................................121<br />
www.aquascapers.com<br />
Aquatic Life ...................................9<br />
www.aquaticlife.com<br />
Atlantis Aquariums ..........................121<br />
www.atlantisva.com<br />
Bashsea .....................................110<br />
www.bashsea.com<br />
Boyd Enterprises .............................25<br />
www.chemipure.com<br />
Breeder’s Registry ...........................117<br />
www.BreedersRegistry.org<br />
Brightwell Aquatics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22, 126, 129<br />
www.brightwellaquatics.com<br />
Champion Lighting & Supply ..................98<br />
www.championlighting.com<br />
Continuum Aquatics ...................... 18, 19<br />
www.continuumaquatics.com<br />
Coral Restoration Foundation ................102<br />
www.coralrestoration.org<br />
CPR Aquatics .................................82<br />
www.cprusa.com<br />
D-D ............................inside back cover<br />
www.theaquariumsolution.us<br />
Eco Reef Corals ...............................21<br />
www.ecoreefcorals.com<br />
EcoTech Marine .......................10, 11, 94<br />
www.ecotechmarine.com<br />
Fluval Sea ....................................27<br />
www.hagen.com<br />
Fritz Aquatics ................................83<br />
www.fritzaquatics.com<br />
Grotech ......................................79<br />
www.grotech.de<br />
Hydor .......................................20<br />
www.hydorkoralia.com<br />
Kent Marine ..................................13<br />
www.kentmarine.com<br />
KP Aquatics .................................117<br />
www.kpaquatics.com<br />
Lifegard Aquatics ............................16<br />
www.lifegardaquatics.com<br />
Lifereef Filter Systems .......................107<br />
www.lifereef.com<br />
MACNA 2013 ................................117<br />
www.dfwmacna.com<br />
Marata .....................................100<br />
www.marata.org<br />
Marco Rocks Aquarium Products ..............28<br />
www.marcorocks.com<br />
Milwaukee Instruments .......................15<br />
www.milwaukeeinstruments.com<br />
Ocean Nutrition .............................108<br />
www.oceannutrition.com<br />
Orphek .....................................110<br />
www.orphek.com<br />
Pacific Sun ...................................61<br />
www.Pacific-Sun.eu<br />
Pet Advantage ..............................121<br />
www.thepetadvantage.com<br />
Piscine Energetics ............................81<br />
www.mysis.com<br />
Poly-Bio Marine ..............................37<br />
www.poly-bio-marine.com<br />
PolypLab ...................................114<br />
www.polyplab.com<br />
Prodibio ....................................118<br />
www.prodibio.com<br />
Quality Marine ...............................53<br />
www.qualitymarine.com<br />
Red Sea ................................. 71, 101<br />
www.redseafish.com<br />
ReefBuilders ................................109<br />
www.reefbuilders.com<br />
Reef Life 2013 Calendar ......................102<br />
www.coralmagazine.com/shop<br />
Reef Nutrition ...............................113<br />
www.reefnutrition.com<br />
Reefs.com ....................................14<br />
www.reefs.com<br />
Rising Tide Conservation .....................99<br />
www.RisingTideConservation.org<br />
Rod’s Food ..................................114<br />
www.rodsfood.com<br />
San Francisco Bay Brand .....................107<br />
www.sfbb.com<br />
Segrest Farms .................................6<br />
www.segrestfarms.com<br />
Thrive Aquatics ..............................23<br />
www.thriveaquatics.com<br />
Tropic Marin .........................back cover<br />
www.tropic-marin.com<br />
Tropicorium Inc. .............................121<br />
www.tropicorium.com<br />
Tunze ........................................83<br />
www.tunze.com<br />
Two Little Fishies . .14, 21, 36, 100, 109, 110, 114, 127<br />
www.twolittlefishies.com<br />
Ushio ........................................97<br />
www.ushio.com<br />
Wallet Pen ..................................117<br />
www.thewalletpen.com<br />
ZooMed .....................................33<br />
www.zoomed.com<br />
For a CORAL Media Kit or other information, please contact:<br />
802.985.9977 Ext. 7
successfully for growing corals, contrary to our earlier opinion, provided certain<br />
operational conditions were met. It took the open mindedness exhibited<br />
by the biologists at the Smithsonian’s Tropical Ecosystems Center in Ft.<br />
Pierce, <strong>Florida</strong> to show that when combined with standard reef aquarium<br />
practices, ATS systems could grow corals very successfully.<br />
The problem was the dogmatic attachment to ATS systems that many<br />
early proponents had without acknowledging the shortcomings of the system,<br />
specifically the lack of removal of organics and inadequate maintenance<br />
of the calcium/alkalinity/pH relationships. By using means to control organics,<br />
such as protein skimming, ozone, and activated carbon, water color was<br />
no longer an issue. There was also better color-temperature lighting, and by<br />
using additives and kalkwasser to maintain calcium and alkalinity, true longterm<br />
success with stony corals was achieved.<br />
In addition, the initial size of the ATS filters compared to the system size<br />
resulted in the algae out-competing corals for nutrients. By reducing the size<br />
of the ATS filters, low levels of inorganic nutrients could still be achieved<br />
without starving the corals.<br />
While it is fine to champion an idea and promote your own, one must always<br />
be mindful of moving into the realm of dogma, where your mind closes<br />
to critique and the influence of new ideas.<br />
Perhaps Steve Jobs said it best in his much-quoted commencement address<br />
at Stanford: “Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the<br />
results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions<br />
drown out your own inner voice.”<br />
REFERENCES<br />
Adey, W.H. and K. Loveland. 1991. Dynamic Aquaria: Building Living Ecosystems.<br />
Academic Press, New York.<br />
Delbeek, J.C. and J. Sprung. 1994.The Reef Aquarium: A Comprehensive Guide to the<br />
Identification and Care of Tropical Marine Invertebrates. Vol. 1: Stony Corals and Tridacna<br />
Clams. 560 pp. Ricordea Publishing, Coconut Grove, FL.<br />
Delbeek, J.C. and J. Sprung. 2005. The Reef Aquarium: A Comprehensive Guide to<br />
the Identification and Care of Tropical Marine Invertebrates. Vol.3: Science, Art and<br />
Technology. 680 pp. Ricordea Publishing, Coconut Grove, FL.<br />
Sprung, J. and J.C. Delbeek. 1990. New trends in reef keeping: Is it time for another<br />
change Freshwater and Marine Aquarium 13 (12): 8–22, 180–184.<br />
United States Postal Service<br />
Statement of Ownership, Management, & Circulation<br />
Filed 10/3/2012<br />
The title of this publication is CORAL (ISSN 1556-5769). It is published bimonthly, with 6 issues published annually at an annual subscription<br />
rate of $37.00. The office of publication and the general business offices are located at 140 Webster Road, P.O. Box 490, Shelburne, VT 05482. The<br />
publisher and editor is James M. Lawrence, 140 Webster Road, P.O. Box 490, Shelburne, VT 05482. The owner is Reef to Rainforest Media LLC, 140<br />
Webster Road, P.O. Box 490, Shelburne, VT 05482.<br />
Publication Title: CORAL, The Reef & Marine Aquarium Magazine<br />
Issue Date for Circulation Data Below: September/October 2012<br />
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During Preceding Months Published Nearest to Filing Date<br />
A. Total Number of Copies (Net press run) 12,543 13,524<br />
B. Paid Circulation<br />
1. Mailed Outside-County Paid Subscriptions Stated on PS Form 3541 5,572 5,483<br />
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D. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution<br />
1. Free or Nominal Rate Outside-County Copies Included on PS Form 3541 463 352<br />
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3. Free or Nominal Rate Copies Mailed at Other Classes Through the USPS 100 100<br />
4. Free or Nominal Rate Distribution Outside the Mail 556 1,040<br />
E. Total Free or Nominal Rate Distribution 1,119 1,492<br />
F. Total Distribution 9,984 10,403<br />
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H. Total 12,543 13,524<br />
I. Percent Paid 88.8% 85.7%<br />
TM<br />
I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete.<br />
(Signed) Judy Billard, 10/3/2012<br />
129 CORAL<br />
CORAL 129
TK<br />
reef life | LARRY P. TACKETT<br />
130 CORAL
An enhanced, natural salt manufactured by solar<br />
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This pure base salt is then specially enhanced for the reef<br />
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The ultimate high<br />
magnesium salt<br />
WHAT IS IN YOUR BUCKET<br />
Even if you can detect all of the elements that occur naturally in the water<br />
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these 23+ minor trace elements evenly during the manufacture of a<br />
synthetic<br />
salt when they occur at less than 1 gram to 1 tonne of salt. What is the<br />
effect of<br />
these trace elements if you get more than your fair share in your bucket With<br />
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pH 8.3 8.2 - 8.4<br />
dKH 9.3 8.7 - 9.8<br />
Calcium (Ca2+) 440 430 - 460 mg/l<br />
Magnesium (Mg2+) 1340 1300 - 1380 mg/l<br />
Chloride (Cl-) 19550 19960 - 20130 mg/l<br />
Potassium (K+) 410 380 - 420 mg/l<br />
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PRO PLUS FORMULA – BOOSTING YOUR MAGNESIUM<br />
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RO WATER<br />
H2Ocean Pro+ is designed for use with reverse osmosis, deionised or soft<br />
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