Infolific » Saltwater Aquariums

Cleaner Wrasses

Travis Burke — Tue, 01 May 2012 07:30:38 +0000

Co-operation can sometimes go beyond simple commensalisms and take the form of a real partnership -- a mutualism. One dramatic example is the way that some species of fish and shrimps clean parasites from the skin of larger fish. The high densities of fish found on coral reefs gives rise [...]

Protein Skimmers

Travis Burke — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 10:17:50 +0000

Protein skimmers (foam fractionaters) have been in the marine hobby almost fifty years. The importance of fine aeration from wooden air diffusers to increase oxygen saturation was an early finding, along with the observation that ugly slime and gunk accumulate at the waterline. An early idea was to adhere a [...]

Clownfish and Sea Anemone Behavior

Travis Burke — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:05:06 +0000

Probably the most famous example of a symbiotic ("living together") relationship on the coral reef -- if not in the entire animal kingdom -- is the remarkable relationship between clownfish and anemones. How important is this relationship to the partner organisms? It seems that both organisms benefit considerably from the [...]

Chameleons of the Sea

Travis Burke — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 01:28:20 +0000

Small animals on the reef are in constant danger of ending up as a snack for the ever-hungry predators patrolling the area.This fact of life has driven the evolution of some remarkable adaptations, not least those used by reef animals to blend into their background. For camouflage to be most [...]

Fish Fights: The Lead-Up

Travis Burke — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:32:38 +0000

The aggressive nature of many tropical marine fish, particularly their intolerance for their own or similar species, can present a real problem for fishkeepers. Like all animals, fish must compete to acquire resources such as food, territories, or mates. On the coral reef, food, hiding places, territories and mates are [...]

Juvenile Reef Fish

Travis Burke — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 23:56:12 +0000

Less than 1% of the fish that started their journey through life inside the egg survive to settle on a coral reef as a juvenile. These larvae come inshore to the reef, guided by its smells and sounds, often borne on incoming tides and under cover of darkness. Yet even [...]

Defending Against Predators

Travis Burke — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 11:02:54 +0000

The coral reef is a dangerous place for all its inhabitants; most animals live in close proximity to a host of dangers and different kinds of predators. Their survival depends on their defenses and their ability to break the predation cycle. For reef fish, self-preservation tactics range from keeping alert [...]

Using Behavior for Communication

Travis Burke — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:28:54 +0000

Body language -- communicating with others through behavior -- is a vital part of the behavior repertoire of all visual animals and fish are no exception. A wide variety of signals can be transmitted through body language; some are relatively subtle, but others are very deliberate and obvious. When it's [...]

Filter Feeders and Anemones

Travis Burke — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 07:25:03 +0000

By far the majority of individual marine invertebrates on the coral reef feed on microscopic prey borne on the ocean currents, sifting it from the water with a variety of net- and mesh-like body parts. These filter-feeding animals are usually sessile, or at the least slow moving, so they rely [...]

Coral Diseases

Travis Burke — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:04:07 +0000

Corals are subject to many stressors, including parasites, infectious diseases, and extreme environmental changes. They often respond with loss of zooxanthellae, tissue necrosis, abnormal growths, and diebacks. Around the world, large-scale loss of scleractinian corals is associated with many biological and physical causes. Variations in weather may damage corals. Heat, [...]

Living on the Reef

Travis Burke — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:09:45 +0000

Fish are one of the most successful groups of animals on the planet. There are over 20,000 species of fish, occupying every imaginable habitat. In each case, evolution has shaped both their appearance and their senses over countless generations and millions of years, resulting in the most effective adaptations to [...]

Understanding Light

Travis Burke — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:43:15 +0000

The basis of the reef aquarium is the growth of corals. Corals survive by feeding their wastes to enclosed symbiotic algae, the algae in turn providing the corals with nutrients. The symbiotic relationship is mutually obligatory; if the algae die, the corals cannot survive, and the algae cannot exist outside [...]

Fish Communicating Through Smell

Travis Burke — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 20:00:32 +0000

Although vision is arguably the most important sense for most inhabitants of the coral reef, their sense of smell also has a key role. Odors may be detected a long distance from their source -- beyond the range of an animal's vision -- and can help, say, a predator locate [...]

Seasonal Changes on Coral Reefs

Travis Burke — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 06:48:19 +0000

At the equator there is very little variation in day length or temperature over the course of the year. As a result, the animals that live on coral reefs at very low latitudes show few regular annual patterns in their growth or behavior. But with each mile traveled north or [...]

Coral Reefs at Dawn and Dusk

Travis Burke — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:10:33 +0000

Dawn and dusk are incredibly active times on coral reefs. Together, these twilight, or crepuscular, periods take up only about an hour of each day, which amounts to only about 4% of the 24-hour cycle, but they are extremely important to all reef life. This is a time of transition [...]

Reef Fish Diets

Travis Burke — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 05:33:17 +0000

Over tens of thousands of years, fish have evolved to be expert foragers, feeding on a huge range of different food sources, both animal and vegetable. Some have become specialists on a certain kind of food, others are opportunists, feeding on whatever they can. One thing all species have in [...]

Algae Problems in Saltwater Aquariums

Travis Burke — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:35:02 +0000

Under certain conditions a bloom or excessive algae growth may develop. Algae usually grow in a fish-only tank because it has no competition. Maintaining a regular routine of partial water changes, thus providing stable, appropriate conditions, deters most algae growth. Various fish and invertebrates can be added to control algae, [...]

5 Rules for a Successful Marine Aquarium

Travis Burke — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 13:02:29 +0000

Give some serious thought to the undertaking before you decide to become involved in the marine aquarium hobby. A marine aquarium requires considerable investment of time and can cost a significant amount of money. However, both time and money are well-rewarded by the entertainment and educational value of a thriving [...]

Poisonous Reef Fishes

Travis Burke — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 05:43:08 +0000

The Stonefish is Poisonous Enough to Kill a Person Reef fishes face the same predation pressures as invertebrates, so it is perhaps not surprising that some of them, too, defend themselves with toxins. However, fish have fewer methods of deploying their poisons. In most cases, they inflict them using their [...]

Introduction to Coral in the Aquarium

Travis Burke — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 10:17:25 +0000

Coral Conservation Issues Corals of all types are now being propagated for the aquarium trade. In fact, the best choices among aquarium corals are those that reproduce themselves under captive conditions -- such specimens have obviously demonstrated that they adapt to captivity. Usually, the requirements for their aquarium care have [...]