I came across some information this week that I thought I would share here.

The below article has a pretty good ans easy to use reference chart to help better understand the needs of certain corals

http://successfulreefkeeping.com/learn/what-your-coral-needs/

Below is a good article giving you a firsthand account of one person’s experiences using tap water and RO water for their marine aquarium.

http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-blogs/fish-biz-buzz/2012/reverse-osmosis-for-making-marine-tanks.aspx

And this below article talks about the benefits of using macro algae in a marine aquarium set-up

http://www.fishchannel.com/fish-exclusives/fama/macroalgae.aspx

I also found a very interesting video about mantis shrimp.  Both informative and entertaining.

http://blog.aquanerd.com/2013/06/true-facts-about-the-mantis-shrimp.html

For those of you that are interested in following new trends and designs with skimmers, the below article is a pretty good write up about the new Skimz model.

http://blog.aquanerd.com/2013/05/skimz-oval-protein-skimmer.html

A really good read about pods

http://www.aquariumdomain.com/viewArticle.php?article_id=14

The lightning Maroon Clownfish is a one of a kind truly stunning clown fish that was caught of Papua New Guinea.  One of a kind fish like this usually go to people willing to pay biiiig money for them but in this case Blue Zoo Aquatics opted to make sure that it went to an established breeder instead to make sure that we all might get to enjoy these stunning color morph in the future.  It would not be the first time a new color morph has been developed form a single original fish.

Although the lightning Maroon Clownfish paired of last year (2011) the pair has so far not laid any eggs or produced any offspring.

Pairing video:

The breeder has now decided to try to use a technique called “Double down” in which you move a batch of eggs another couple laid to the couple you want to start breeding. The idea is that either the fish start caring for the eggs that are given to them, which usually triggers them to start laying their own egg before long, or they eat the eggs that are given to them and get a very nutritious meal.   In this case, the eggs, taken from an Onyx Percula spawning, were received somewhat well and the pair is showing signs of caring for the eggs which might be a good sign and hopefully we will get to see baby lightning Maroon Clownfish before long.  If you want more info or keep up to date with the attempts to spawn the lightning Maroon Clown fish you can visit the lightning project website and if you want more info on this particular breeding attempt you can click here.

The lightning Maroon Clownfish guarding the new eggs: