Goldfish - Not the one in story.

Nick Richards, a 16 year old fishing enthusiast from the UK, reeled in a whopper of a goldfish from a lake in Poole. The fish weighs an astounding 5 lbs, which is only 2 lbs less than the world record for goldfish. By all accounts it appears to be the biggest goldfish ever caught in Britain, and the youngster is quite pleased with the catch. He had set out to catch a common carp, which happen to be in the same family as the goldfish, but instead he reeled in this golden monster.

This is quite a catch, considering that goldfish are only generally 1 inch to 9 inches long, and generally do not weigh in at any more than however they do have the habit of growing to suit their surroundings. Another reason this is such an amazing catch is that goldfish can generally only survive in tropical to subtropical waters, and any sudden changes in temperature can be potentially fatal for the fish.

When asked to comment on the catch he had this to say, “Apparently it’s the biggest ever caught in the UK. I’ve heard it weighs only 2lb less than the world record.”

I would hate to burst the kids’ bubble, but while this may be the largest goldfish in the UK, the record still goes to the goldfish discovered on the west coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. That fish measured a staggering 2.5 meters long, by 1.70 meters tall! No weight was given for the monstrous fish, but I guarantee it was a wee bit over 7 lbs. Sorry kid, better luck next time.

That being said, no one can say for sure just how the goldfish Nick caught got into the lake, however there are a few generalized ideas which may explain the phenomenon.

It is believed that the goldfish started out as one of the prizes commonly doled out at fairgrounds in Dorset town, but was later abandoned when it got too big to live in its bowl. It is not an uncommon occurrence for prize goldfish such as these to be tossed into lakes and ponds, as the owners get bored of them, or they do not want to be bothered with finding more suitable living arrangements when they outgrow their bowl.

This is good news for fishing enthusiasts such as Nick, as they can sometimes reel in a whopper from surrounding lakes, and have a good fish story to tell. However it should be noted that the majority of the goldfish which are tossed aside as yesterday’s news, often don’t make it long enough in the wild to be considered today’s news.

It is not known what Nick plans to do with the fish, however you can rest assured it is most likely not going into his frying pan.

ORA has finally announced the initial release of it’s first batch of 100% cultivated Spotted Mandarins (Synchiropus picturatus). Their biologists have been working around the clock in developing the methods to raise this remarkable fish.

Even though the Spotted Mandarin is often considered one of the most popular and coveted fish to have in their aquariums, the mandarins which are caught in the wild are very difficult to feed and most often perish in aquariums.

ORA has effectively eliminated the issue of feeding by training the Spotted Mandarins bred in captivity to eat a myriad of commercially available foods. Now even the rookie aquarium keeper can more conveniently find an affordable, and available, food source for their ORA dragonettes.

However, it should be noted that caring for an ORA Mandarin is not as simple as tossing in a cube of frozen food, and then following up with a sprinkling of food pellets every now and then. These fish are between 1.25” and 1.5” in length, and as such they are still growing and will have gargantuan appetites. This means that you will be feeding your new ORA Mandarin very frequently, at least two times and sometimes more per day. Some of the frozen foods which the ORA Mandarin will readily accept in its diet include: baby brine shrimp, prawn eggs, Hikari Blood Worms and fish roe. They are also used to eating New Life SPECTRUM Small Fish Formula Pellets, just in case some of the other aforementioned ingredients happen to make your stomach squirm.

The Council of Agriculture in Taiwan surprised the world last week by stating that they had successfully created fluorescent cichlids. These cichlids were created by breeding  trangenic Convict cichlids and Angelfish.

The creation of this fish was the brain child of the Academia Sinica, Taiwan’s national research academy, and took just shy of 7 years to accomplish.

Some other innovative fish that this group has cooked up are the GloFish Zebra danio (Danio rerio) and the fluorescent Medaka (Oryzias latipes). These fish have been authorized for sale, and quite popular, since 2003 when they first hit the market in Taiwan as an aquarium fish.

Dr. Chih-Yi Chen, the head of the investigative team which created this cichlid, has stated that creating this cichlid took a lot of effort because of the lack of control they had over the spawning process, as compared to the smaller fish they previously tinkered with.

The scientists had to literally sit by the aquarium and wait for the fish to spawn so that the gene fragments could be immediately inserted into the Convict cichlid eggs. If it is not injected immediately, the results don’t seem to take.. This made the whole process very fickle.

An even greater obstacle was overcome, when they were in the process of spawning the fluorescent angelfish, as the couldn’t use micro-injection techniques in the same manner as with the Convict cichlids. In this case, they needed to apply an electric field to the cell membrane, in order to inject the gene fragments.

Well, they pulled it off.. The only question now is… What the heck is it good for? A fish nightlight?

Fluorescent Convict cichlid (Amatitlania nigrofasciata) - Pic by JY Lin Co Ltd

There has been an ongoing census of the fish community in Lake Tanganyika for the last twenty years. During this census the Japanese scientists have taken note of some rather drastic changes in the fish populations. These findings were published in the most recent issue of the journal “Ecology of Freshwater Fish”.

The conclusions were reached by Yuichi Takeuchi and team, while surveying the density and number of the different fish in Kasenga Point, at the southern end of Lake Tanganyika between 1988 and 2008.

The investigative team, headed by Yuichi Takeuchi, took note of a total of 54 chichlid and six non-cichlid species of fish, over the period of the survey. The most abundant type of fish recorded were the aufwuchs feeders.

Even though there was an abundance of fish and no lack of number of species present, their research indicates that there was a steep decline in the density of the aufwuchs feeders and invertebrate eaters during the course of the study. In a strange turn of events, there was an increase in the density of detritus feeders during this time.

The researches theorize that the change in the fish community could be due to human activities in the area such as deforestation, and agriculture run offs, which would lead to sediment loading in Lake Tanganyika to increase.

While they could not completely rule out natural variation for these changes in the fish community of Lake Tanganyika, there is no doubt that human activity is also making a large impact on the area as well.

Above you can see a fascinating video of squat Urchin shrimp and below you find some basic information about this tiny shrimp.

The squat Urchin shrimp, known in scientific circles as Gnathophylloides mineri, is quite a fascinating invertebrate that many aquarists would often look over, or even never see.

This fascinating little creature is only milometers in length, and it survives in its own little world, not seeming to care about how the rest of the Sea Urchins live. These Sea Urchins actually live ON TOP of other Sea Urchins!

The Squat Urchin Shrimp is incredibly tiny, often never reaching more than 6mm in length, and it often orients itself parallel with their hosts spines, which not only protects it from becoming lunch for some other sea critter, but also makes it nigh on impossible to see, some would even say it’s effectively invisible to the naked eye. Colonies of these little guys often have numbers ranging from a few to a half dozen will share the same host Sea Urchin. Not only does it seek protection from its hosts spines, it actually feeds on them, proving once again just how successful this tiny creature is at surviving. This is a rather odd kind of parasitism, as it does not have any ill effects for the host.

The Squat Urchin Shrimp also will take every chance they get to feed upon the detritus that the host sea urchin picks up off the ocean floor on it’s travels.

Sounds weird? If so you haven´t heard about the ”fish mail box” in Inada Park, Kawasaki, Tama River in Japan near Tokyo. The ”fish mail box” is a 7 meter by 4 meter large concrete water tank that have been placed along the river to give people a place to drop unwanted fish. The goal of the fish box is to prevent people from releasing fish into the river, since foreign species can wreck havoc with local ecosystems.

People are encourage to call before they drop off their pets as fish can die from the shock if not acclimatized correctly, but it is is permitted to just drop off fish as well. People are also encouraged to drop off tropical invasive species they catch in the river in the fish box.

The fish left in these fish boxes are cared for by Mitsuaki Yamasaki, 51, the head of a local river fish association, before they are placed in new homes. The box is receiving about 10,000 fish a year ranging from small fish to large gars.

The Tama River has seen a lot of new species released in it in recent years during which the aquarium hobby has become even more popular in Japan than before. This has in no small part to do with the movie “Finding Nemo”, even if the increase in popularity started before the movie was released. More than 200 species of foreign tropical fish have been found in the Tama River ranging from typical aquarium fish such as guppies and angelfish to less frequently kept creatures like piranhas and arowanas, earning it the nick name the Tamazon River. Some of the tropical species have established breeding populations while others haven´t, but most species can survive the winters by staying near water treatment areas along the river.

Mitsuaki Yamasaki and other members of the local river fish association are afraid that breeding populations of gars will establish themselves in the river since more and more gars are sold and they have been found in the river. Gar species are predatory fish that could have a severe negative impact on native fish such as sweetfish . Gars are likely able to establish breeding populations in a river with the conditions of the Tama River.

It can not be denied that with over 10,000 fish received by one of these fish boxes since it opened the initiative could aid the struggle to prevent invasive species from getting a foothold in local waters, and it might be an idea that deserves being tried in other problems areas around the world, such as Florida. The only question is if projects like this could work with out the devotion and support from people like Mitsuaki Yamasaki, people who are really passionate about what they do.

Any one interested in or planning to start a similar project somewhere else is very welcome to contact us here at AquaticCommunity as we would love to document your work getting the project of the ground and running it. Leave a comment in the commentary field or send an e-mail to admin@aquaticcommunity.com.

In south-east Asia and northern Australia, Archer fish can be seen spitting jets of water up to three meters to knock out insects and spiders and make them fall into the water. Archer fish does for instnace help control the populations of mosquitoes and flies.

In captivity, insects in the air can be scarce – especially during the chilly Bristol winter. That is why a shoal of archer fish living at Bristol’s Blue Reef Aquarium have been given a mobile dotted with plastic flies for target practise.

The archers living in the aquarium are roughly 1.5 years of age and staff said that their natural hunting instinct may have become rusty. To combat this, the staff is now smearing the fake flies with bloddworm so that when a fish manages to hit a fly, tasty bloodworm falls down into the water.

“In the summer if we have some insects flying around I’ll be surprised if they don’t go for them,” said senior aquarist Lindsay Holloway.

If you’re into interior design, you have probably encountered the online tools that allow you to try different types of interior designs online without breaking a sweat. With a simple drag and click you can move around heavy sofas, rearrange book shelves and try out 54 different types of rug.

But did you know that there is a very similar tool has been created for all the aquarium aficionados out there: the AquaSketcher. You start out by picking out an item, e.g. a plant, piece of wood or nice rock from a list, and then proceed to choose its colour, dimensions etc. Last but not least, you start placing your objects in the aquarium to see how well they go together. You can naturally go back and change things, gradually building towards the perfect setup.

Naturally, a tool like this has its limitations. Just as the tools developed for interior design it will only give you a hint about the final results, and it will naturally be impossible to find a plant, root or rock that looks exactly as in the picture. Also, you have to keep in mind that factors such as light play no small part in how we perceive a room or an aquarium. In an aquarium, water movements will also be of importance. Perhaps a later version of the AquaSketcher will allow you turn on your imaginary filter system to see the plants move with the current?

If you want to give the AquaSketcher a try you can find it here:

The low temperatures that’s been holding the state of Florida in a firm grip this winter is causing troubles for tropical fish raised in outdoor ponds. Aquarium fish farmers report losing up to 50% of popular tropical species to the cold, and a severe guppy shortage has already emerged – boosted by the fact that Americans are more inclined to purchase guppies and other aquarium inhabitants during the winter season.

Roughly half of the tropical fish sold in the United States is raised in Florida, a state heavily dependant on its warm climate. The fist fish farmers showed up here as early as the 1930s when it was still possible to purchase cheap land around Miami, but nowadays a majority of the fish Florida farms is found in the lake-rich part of Florida located between Tampa and Orlando. Up until a few years ago, the number one cargo shipment out of Tampa International Airport was tropical fish.

Fish native to tropical parts of the world normally find it difficult to stay alive if the water temperature drops below 60 degrees F (15 degrees C) and even temperatures around 70 degrees F (20 degrees C) may have a detrimental effect on their immune system. It is therefore easy to imagine what happens if the air temperature suddenly drops below the freezing point – as it has done in Florida this winter.

And even in situations where the cold isn’t severe enough to instantly kill the fish it can send them into a sedentary state where they fail to hide from predators like hungry birds, especially if living in unplanted ponds offering few places to hide. Many fish eating birds have been forced to see their normal hunting grounds being sealed off by ice and fish farms struggling to keep the water temperature up constitute a highly appealing alternative when the hunger sets in.

In desperate attempts to save their fish from freezing to death or being eaten by predators, Florida farmers have been covering their ponds with plastic sheets and pumped in warm water. When the cold turned out to be more than just a short dip, those who could scrambled to get as many fish as possible indoors. Many farmers have been forced to prioritize older fish close to the size needed for shipping, leaving younger fry behind to die.

Farmers that have lost more than 50 percent of their fish are entitled to financial relief from the Department of Agriculture if they file a crop insurance claim.

Below you will find my review of the Reef One  60L/16 gallon BiOrb. The orb was provided to me by the company, but this is not paid advertising space. If I’ll end up hating the orb, you’ll know about it. Other companies that are interested in having their product reviewed here are welcomed to contact me, provided that they understand that giving me something for free doesn’t guarantee a positive review.

BiOrb 60 Classic Collection review – setting it up
I am going to start by saying a few words about Reef One. Reef One develops aquarium products sold in more than 20 countries. Their goal is to be innovative and offer new exiting products, and as a part of this quest they have developed a line of small aquariums and BiOrbs of which I will review the BiOrb 60.

This is an initial review based on my experiences of setting up the BiOrb. It will be followed by a second review when I have had the aquarium up and running for a few weeks and know how it works over time.

The BiOrb arrived as a big package in the mail; 60 cm x 60 cm (24 cm x 24 in). The parcel contains everything you need to setup a simple, basic beginner aquarium. You get a 5 stage internal filter, ceramic media, air pump, plug top 12 volt transformer, halogen light unit, water treatment, plastic plants and even some fish food. The equipment is plastic but does not feel cheap or tacky and can be used in most settings without looking out of place.

Included in the package is a manual on how to setup the tank, and I personally find the manual easy to understand and follow. It should allow even a beginner aquarist to set up his or her first aquarium without much ado. If you are an experienced fish keeper, you are probably already familiar with the steps of the manual that doesn’t specifically pertain to the orb itself.

As mentioned above, the BiOrb comes with its own filtration system. It is designed to promote biological filtration and is surprisingly quiet. Unlike many other filter systems, this one won’t be a problem in the bedroom or office. Since I haven’t had the BiOrb running for very long I don’t know if the filter system works well or not; I will get back to it in my follow up review.

The filter is designed to allow you to setup the BiOrb as a marine tank if you get the marine tank conversion kit, but I decided to set it up as a freshwater tank for this review because I believe that more people will use it for freshwater. After all, the quantity of freshwater aquarists vastly outnumbers that of marine fish keepers. If you decide to set it up as a marine tank it will give you the option to keep marine creatures that aren’t suitable for normally rectangular aquariums. Jellyfish are for instance prone to get stuck in corners, something that won’t be a problem in a sphere shaped tank like the BiOrb.

The BiOrb can be put to together in a short amount of time, but you should nevertheless wait at least a week or two before you add the fish since you need to cycle the aquarium first. This is true even if you use the included water treatment from Reef One or any other type of starter kit – regardless of what the bottles or the staff of your local fish store might say.

The tank looks good at once after it has been setup and I have at this point not found any problems with it. It seems like a good product at this point. The only thing I might complain about is that the advanced LED light that simulates real daylight isn’t included in the standard package, but that would on the other hand make the package more expensive and for most beginner aquarists the included halogen lights will suffice.

I must however admit that I might be a bit hesitant to buy this product myself for one reason and one reason alone: the price. Sure, it is a nice product, but you could get a larger tank for the same price – or the same size for a lower price – if you went for a regular rectangular or square tank. In other words; the BiOrb is a fine tank but at £164.99* it is a pricy choice. Is it worth the money? Well, that’s up to you and will depend on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a low-cost beginner tank, than no, I wouldn’t recommend the BiOrb. If you on the other hand have some extra cash to spend and are in the market for a sleek orb that fits your interior design in a highly visible space like your living room or corporate office, than yes, this might be the right one for you.

You can read more about Reef One and their product line on their webpage, where you can also order their products.

*£164.99 is 264 USD or 183 Euros.