The Coral Aquarist Research Network (CARN) is holding its 1st Annual Conference on the 1st June 2010 at the Royal Geographical Society, London.
CARN, formed in October of last year, was created to facilitate and initiate the exchange of knowledge, expertise and experience between coral reef researchers, coral growers, national and public aquaria, and reef hobbyists. This network is in place to structure opportunities for coral industries such as suppliers and growers to engage with, utilise and collaborate with the world class coral and reef biology research community in the UK.
This first conference will include a number of presentations that are both research and industry orientated highlighting the current status of knowledge, technology and, importantly, gaps in our understanding of coral physiology, ecology, transport, growth and sustainable harvesting.
Indeed, I will be delivering a presentation looking coral nutrition in the captive environment.
This conference provides substantial networking opportunities and a chance to discuss ideas, address queries or simply take interest, and potentially become involved in, impact-led research initiatives from an economic and sustainability perspective as well as from an enhanced coral growth, coral diversity and improved conservation measures viewpoint.
If you think you might have something to contribute (many hobbyists are ahead of educational organizations and public aquaria when it comes to growing corals) or would just like to come along and learn, please get in touch with me ASAP so that I can communicate with the organizers to ensure that name badges are printed, ready for the event.
Oh, and just because it might sound a bit advanced or scientific, please don’t be afraid to come along. I can promise you that there will be accessible content and that it’ll be a great chance to talk with enthusiastic like-minded individuals.
CARN is a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) funded project, within the the University of Essex’s Coral Reef Research Unit (CRRU).
Apologies for the lack of articles over the last few weeks. Recently nearly all our time has been taken up with preparation for exhibiting at the Interzoo pet trade show in Germany.
Interzoo is held every 2 years and is probably the largest pet and aquatics trade show in the world. This was Midland Reefs’ first time exhibiting at an international trade show, a lot of hard work but very rewarding.
We went to the show to introduce the Reef Scientific range to the international market at the same time as launching two new product ranges, MarinePure - filtration media, and Reef Scientific Calanoid Copepods - frozen food of the highest nutritional quality. Read more about these two new ranges in future posts.
A small part of the Reef Scientific range along with MarinePure.
Here’s a shot of the booth during a quiet period at the show with Jon talking to a couple of customers from Switzerland.
If you live outside of the UK and are interested in any of our products, please get in touch. We hope to now be able to direct you to a Reef Scientific retailer or distributor in your own country.
Now that we’ve returned from Germany after a successful show, normal service is once more resumed, there’s a backlog of articles waiting to be both written and published on Reef Ramblings, so get ready to read!
There’s unsettling news this week about a Canadian LFS that seems to have been a victim of sabotage.
The recently opened Indoor Jungle, located at 1285 Kennedy Road, Scarborough, Ontario, is Canada’s largest exotic fish and reptile store.
The storeowners suspect vandalism after hundreds of fish died after bleach or a bleach like substance was poured into the centralised water system. The first indication that something was wrong was when customers alerted store employees to a strong smell of bleach coming from the tanks but by the time they reached the wall of 70 tanks, hundreds of fish were dead or dying.
Fish including small Bamboo Sharks, Queen Angelfish, and Black Lionfish along with hundreds of rare shrimps were among the 700 animals killed, along with corals imported from Australia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Caribbean.
Co-owner Adam Gharavi said he’s certain it wasn’t an equipment malfunction and believes that a chemical was poured into the centralised system servicing 400 tanks holding more than 5,000 fish. He said the vandal, who attacked on Wednesday afternoon, went for the store’s most expensive fish and 200 pieces of rare coral.
“We know whoever did this had some knowledge of how fish tanks work and what the fish need to survive,” Gharavi said. The cost of the incident is estimated to be tens of thousands of dollars.
Inland Jungle is one of about a dozen fish stores along Kennedy Rd. between Steeles Ave. E. and Eglinton Ave. E. Stores have happily coexisted here for years in the knowledge that the more different stores you have in the area, the more people come, to everyone’s benefit.
A Toronto police detective has been assigned to investigate the scene, and on Thursday morning, yellow police tape was seen to close off the wall lined with tanks filled with dead fish.
We’ve just created a new Midland Reefs facebook page with the aim of keeping you informed about new products and brief news stories, without cluttering up the pages of Reef Ramblings.
Go to the facebook page to learn about our new products, ask questions about our product range, and to discuss Tim’s articles on Reef Ramblings and in Tropical Fish magazine.
It was reported today that the massive Dubai Aquarium had sprung a leak, resulting in the evacuation or partial evacuation of the surrounding shopping mall.
This aquarium features the world’s largest viewing panel at 32.8 meters wide and 8.3 meters high, and contains 33,000 fish including sharks and rays in a volme of 10 million liters of water (just over 2 million UK gallons).
The extent of the damage is not clear at this time but the mall is reported to be cordoned off.
I’ve managed to locate a still image and a short video relating to this incident.
One of the world’s largest coral atolls which, surprisingly, belongs to Britain, may soon become the biggest Marine Protected Area (MPA) on Earth.
A three-month public consultation is underway to persuade the UK government to protect the Chagos Archipelago, a group of 55 tropical British islands, in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
This week the 10,000th person signed up in support of the campaign.
The Chagos Environment Network (CEN) who put forward the proposal to protect the giant reef, which is twice the size of Britain, 544,000 sq km area, and boasts the cleanest seawater ever recorded on Earth.
The Chagos contain some of the world’s healthiest coral reefs and the world’s largest surviving coral atoll. It is home to over 220 coral species and 1000 fish species, including the endemic Chagos clownfish, Amphiprion chagosensis.
The pollutant levels in Chagos waters are exceptionally low. Analyses in 1996 suggested that the marine environment of the Chagos Archipelago as a whole is exceptionally pristine, and that it was the cleanest water tested in the world at that time.
In addition the Chagos is a breeding ground and refuge for important populations of sharks, dolphins, marine turtles, and other vulnerable marine and island species.
The area includes deep-sea habitats including 6000 m deep trenches, oceanic ridges, and seamounts, each harbouring specially adapted species. Despite a Fisheries Conservation Management Zone with commercial catches limited by licence, legal and illegal fishing has impacted the area. Sharks, sea cucumbers, turtles, and fish are all known to have declined as a result of illegal fishing and the by-catch from legal fishing. Protecting this area would contribute to a richer Indian Ocean, benefiting people living in and around it
This is one of the best quality reefs remaining on the planet and, from a reef science perspective, it provides a good comparison to reefs damaged by climate change, rising sea temperatures, and other anthropogenic factors. The Chagos Archipelago is an area comparable in importance to better known areas such as the Galapagos or the Great Barrier Reef.
The Chagos Environment Network (CEN) is a collaboration of nine conservation and scientific organisations: The Chagos Conservation Trust, The Linnean Society of London, The Marine Conservation Society, The Pew Environment Group, The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, The Royal Society, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Zoological Society of London, and Professor Charles Sheppard of Warwick University.
The consultation, ends on 12th February, and examines three options for protection:
A full, no-take, marine reserve for the entire territory.
A marine reserve of the same size that allows some seasonal deep-sea fishing in certain zones.
No-take reserves protecting only the vulnerable reef systems.
The Moral Dilemma.
Unfortunately creating this MPA is not as straightforward as might be hoped, owing to the ongoing court case brought by relocated Chagossians at the European Court of Human Rights, which is expected to be decided later this year.
Between 1967 and 1971 the entire population of the Chagos islands, numbering around 2,000 people, was evicted from the archipelago to make way for the Diego Garcia military base. The islanders were forcibly relocated to Mauritius and the Seychelles, where many have lived in poverty ever since.
In 2008 the islanders lost a long-running battle with the British government when the House of Lords, the final court of appeal in the UK, overturned High Court rulings that had repeatedly found in favour of the Chagossians. Whereas the High Court found that the Chagossians, as British dependent Citizens, had been unlawfully dispossessed and ordered that they be allowed to return to their home, the House of Lords overturned this ruling in favour of the British government.
The Guardian, a UK newspaper, recently reported that Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour MP chairing the all-party parliamentary group for the Chagos islands, said he was “concerned” that the marine protection consultation had not sought the views of exiled islanders. “The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is completely at variance with UK marine conservation policy that seeks to involve the local community,” he said.
Corbyn also said there was concern among Chagos island groups over media reports that portrayed their return as a negative for the environment, that would mean the construction of an airport and town and increasing tourism.
“You will get a small number of people living [in the Chagos] who will support sustainable fishing and ecotourism. If the ‘ultras’ in the marine reserve brigade get their way they will have to have people there to protect the environment. It’s extraordinary that islanders are not trusted but the marine community is. Wealthy people land there in yachts and stay on the islands all time. They are trusted but the islanders are not. I find it patronising and extraordinary.”
It’s Your Decision.
This is not a simple clear-cut subject. As a marine aquarist I’m in favour of the MPA, given the deteriorating state of reefs around the world conserving the Chagos would be a great step forward. I’m particularly interested in the idea that it could be used as a comparative instrument against which the health of other reefs could be measured.
I do however have sympathy with the Chagossians, who I believe have been badly mistreated by the British Government, I also find myself a little uneasy with the idea of an area where access might be restricted to scientists alone. Everywhere else in the world, wherever reef conservation is carried, out it’s considered good practice to get local people involved as much as possible.
There is an alternative to just signing up to the www.protectchagos.org proposal, if you go to http://www.marineeducationtrust.org/petition/protect-chagos you’ll find a petition organised by the Marine Education Trust that is in favour of the MPA, urging the Foreign Secretary to work with the Chagos islanders and the Government of Mauritius to devise an MPA solution that makes provision for resettlement and that protects Mauritius’ legitimate interests.
To find out more about the various issues, in addition to the previously mentioned links, take a look at the following:
Also take a look at, “Stealing a Nation”, the John Pilger documentary, winner of the 2005 Royal Television Society Award, that tells the story of the expulsion of the entire population of the Chagos islands.
If you do decide that you’d like to add your support to the proposed MPA, visit: http://www.marineeducationtrust.org/petition/protect-chagos or www.protectchagos.org, according to your conscience, before the February 12th 2010 deadline, to register your support for the creation of a Chagos no-take Marine Protected Area.
By the way, my conscience moved to me to sign the Marine Education Trust petition.
Although we tend to associate coral bleaching with elevated water temperatures, it may not be as widely known that it can also occur when water temperatures drop below the low limit of coral survivability, 15 ˚Celsius. Bleaching occurs when a coral undergoes stress and loses or expels its zooxanthellae, or symbiotic algae, with prolonged stress resulting in coral death.
Cold-water Bleaching on the Reef.
The recent sustained low water temperatures in South Florida and the Florida Keys have triggered severe coral bleaching and coral fatalities. Temperatures in some areas of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary have dropped to as low as 11 ˚Celsius for several days, well below average for the time of year. This is the first time that cold-water bleaching and die-off has occurred in Florida since the late 1970s.
“The Keys have not seen a cold-water bleaching event like this since the winter of 1977-78, when acres of staghorn coral perished,” said Dr. Billy Causey, southeast regional director of NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. “But today we are better prepared to document and assess the impacts of stress thanks to numerous partners.”
Over the next two weeks, teams of science divers from federal and state agencies, non-governmental and academic organizations, will be surveying the reefs to assess and monitor mortality and changes in coral health.
“If there is any ‘good news’ it’s that reef managers and scientists are able to quickly respond to this event and are in a good position to learn more about how reefs will rebound following such a rare occurrence,” said Chris Bergh, director of The Nature Conservancy’s Coastal and Marine Resilience Program.
Usually the Florida Reef Resilience team carries out surveys following warm-water bleaching events. Activating the team now will provide valuable insights on what happens to corals when they get too cold. Monitoring needs to be implemented as quickly as possible, because macro-algae and cyanobacteria quickly invade or overgrow dead coral making identification of recently deceased corals difficult.
Reports so far indicate that all species have been equally affected by the cold, though more will be known when the results of the survey are in. It seems that offshore reefs have fared better than inshore and mid-channel reefs.
The coral reefs of the Florida Keys are part of a unique and diverse ecosystem that forms the third largest barrier reef in the world. Reef-related expenditures generate more than $4.4 billion annually in southeast Florida and reef recreation supports more than 70,000 jobs.
Cold-water Bleaching in the Aquarium.
Cold-water bleaching can also occur in the reef aquarium. During the very cold weather of December 2009 - January 2010, I experienced this phenomenon in one of the Midland Reefs research tanks. Interestingly it was a half a dozen or so Entacmaea quadricolor, Bubble-tipped anemones, that were affected rather than any of the stony corals in the system.
The problem was caused, as you might have guessed, by a couple of defective heaters. These had been running since the system had been set-up so were in the region of 8 years old, As an aside, I’ve noticed numerous equipment failures in the fish house over the last year so I’m now minded to change many items of equipment, heaters, ballasts, pumps, etc. once they reach the 6 year mark. After all, no item of equipment is going to last forever, especially non-serviceable items such as ballasts, ignitors, and heaters.
So far the anemones are remaining in good health, they’re feeding well and producing nematocysts but there’s not yet any sign of recruitment of new strains of zooxanthellae.
I feel an experiment coming on to ascertain whether the anemones can use the strains of zooxanthellae present in the corals that they share the system with. I’ll try removing half of the bleached anemones to a system containing unbleached specimens of the same species and then compare the two systems for signs of zooxanthellae recruitment.
And in the meantime, whilst I’m awaiting results of the experiment, it’s time to search the science for more information regarding zooxanthellae and which organisms that they choose to inhabit.
A new movie from Disney Nature, “Oceans”, is to open on Earth Day 2010.
For the first week of the movie Disney will be donating money on behalf of all moviegoers to help fund a new MPA (Marine Protection Area) in the Bahamas in conjunction with The Nature Conservancy’s Adopt a Coral Reef Program. Disney have pledged a minimum donation of $100,000.
If you’re involved in education there’s a 42 page “Educator’s Guide” available to download. It’s aimed at US grades 2 - 6, ages 7 to 12, and looks quite a useful resource.
So how about this for a unique reef aquarium related crime? It’s been recently reported that 300,000 US pounds of maricultured live rock (that’s 135 UK tons or 136,000 kgs!) has been stolen in the Florida Keys.
Sometime during the past 18 months someone stole about 300,000 pounds of decorative live rock that Miami boat captain Neal Novak had planned to harvest for salt-water and reef aquariums from his aqua farm three miles offshore of Islamorada. A spokesman for the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission said, ”As far as I know, this is a first in the Keys, we’ve caught people bringing in live rock, but not stealing from someone’s aqua farm.”
Novak started his live rock harvesting company in 2005. It took six months for him to obtain a federal permit from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a one-acre leased aqua farm and a further 2 ½ years to place the rock in 20 feet of water. The rock used was a high quality Florida aquifer rock of light yellow, white or brown colour looking like Swiss cheese, from a Homestead quarry. After three to five years in the clear, mostly nutrient-free water off Islamorada, the rocks turn purple and can be considered as live rock, having become colonised by coralline algae, feather duster worms, sponges, and many other kinds aquatic organisms.
Live rock produced this way sells for about $3 per pound wholesale and $8 per pound retail, making his loss somewhere between 1 to 2 million dollars, this doesn’t include Novak’s investment in the equipment need to run the business. He’d bought a flatbed truck to transport the rock, a special boat designed to hold the large amount of weight that also contained two salt water holding tanks for transporting the harvested live rock, and five tanks totalling a capacity of 1,400 gallons for holding the live rock ready for sale to pet stores and other aquarium suppliers.
The theft was discovered on May 13 when he and his wife made trip out to the aqua farm to begin the harvest. Novak said he never thought anyone would steal 150 tons of submerged rock in an area used by recreational divers near about seven other aqua farms. The rocks were not insured. ”About 30 to 50,000 pounds were left, basically just rubble left on the sand” he said “That’s all I have left of five years of work. It’s financially ruined me.” The last time he’d checked on the aqua farm was about 1 ½ years ago, when he took a sample. ”I should have checked on them more, but I had to care for my parents,”.
The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office is investigating along with FWC. The crime is grand larceny of farm animal aquaculture species, a third-degree felony. If anyone reading this out in Florida has any information about the theft, please help Neal Novak out and get in touch with the Sheriff’s Office.
Midland Reefs is proud to announce that DT’s phytoplankton has been chosen by the British Antarctic Survey for use in research during one of its Summer 2009 projects.
Later in the year I hope to be able to bring you a report about this project and the part that DT’s phytoplankton played.
So, if DT’s Phytoplankton is the plankton of choice for a scientific organisation such as the British Antarctic Survey, it should also be the choice of the informed reefkeeper!
