Fish

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

Pond plants keep algae down, help with filtration by trapping debris in their root system, and keep your water aerated. Plants also provide a place where shy fish can hide and escape from bullies.

Plants help put air in the water by taking in all the carbon dioxide and replacing it with oxygen. The fish take in the oxygen and expel carbon dioxide. That is why fish and plants need each other.

Plants, whether normal or aquatic, need nutrients to survive. The good news is that pond water will provide nutrients for healthy plants. Ponds can go bad if nitrates and animal waste reaches dangerous levels, but plants thrive on it. So, aquatic plants will help absorb some of this bad stuff and the filter does the rest.

All aquatic plants need a good base to grow on. If the base is not good, the odds are that your plants will be in pretty sad shape. Most people make the mistake of thinking that any type of gravel or substrate will do. This is not so.

A good mixture for a plant base in a pond would be two inches of low-calcium gravel available at most pet stores. Then followed by 3 to 4 inches of any substrate you choose. This will help your plants anchor themselves in a pond.

When buying plants, be sure to research which plants do best in your climate.

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

Here are things you can do to your pond in order to avoid unnecessary death of your fish.

Do not overstock your pond. The rule of thumb is one Koi per every 1000 liters of water.

Long term power failure can deplete the pond of oxygen. If your area is prone to power failures, you may want to consider using an emergency generator.

If you live in higher altitudes, it is more difficult to oxygenate your water.

Don’t let your pond water get too warm. Fish are cold-blooded animals so when the water temperatures rise, their metabolic rate increases which means they need more oxygen. To keep pond water temperature down, plant shade trees near the pond. You can also install a water pipe system that will push cold water into your pond when there is a need.

Don’t let algae build up in your pond. If you have a green pond, it reduces the supply of oxygen. It also makes your fish more susceptible to disease.

Make sure your pond is well aerated. Waterfalls or fountains may be good for the surface but you need to get the oxygen to the bottom of the pond. This can be achieved by creating vertical circulation in the pond. The easiest and cheapest way is to use air stones or curtains. Another way which seems better is to put in power heads in several locations.

Be sure to use power heads suited for pond use. They must be able to put out 3000 to 4000 gallons of water an hour. If used correctly, the power heads will give your pond more filtration.

With these pointers, it should reduce the mortality rate of your Koi.

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia has named a new species of catfish after a man who worked for 37 years in their mailroom.

Frank Gallagher, who was the mailroom supervisor, retired in 2003 and was well-liked by the employees. Frank was known for passing along gossip as well as the mail. He also had a keen interest in science.

Delivering mail was just part of the job. He had to handle the shipping and receiving of biological specimens. The Academy now has 1.3 million fish so you can imagine how many specimens Frank handled in 37 years.

The new catfish was named Rhinodoras Gallagheri by Academy fish scientist Dr. Mark Sabaj Pérez and it was announced in the March issue of Copeia. Scientists must always give a Latin name to species so that is why they had to change the name to Gallagheri. I guess they didn’t want to use “Franki”.

The common name for this fish is the Orinoco Thicklip Catfish and it lives in the Orinoco basin in Venezuela and Colombia. The fish hides during the day and seeks its food at night.

Frank is enjoying his retirement and thought is was very nice of the Academy to honor him.

It was noted that one of Frank’s favorite comments was "I've been here so long, I should be part of the collection by now."

His wish came true!

Source: Science Daily

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

After being studied time and time again, scientists have made a startling discover with the humble sea cucumber. This one leads towards medical technologies.

One such development is a new plastic material that mimics a sea cucumber’s ability to quickly change the density of its skin as a defense mechanism. When dry, the plastic is very hard and stiff. When it gets wet, it softens and becomes bendable and is very capable of switching back and force very rapidly.

Inspired by the chemical make up of the sea cucumbers skin, the material is composed of a rubber-like base with fibers of cellulose attached to one another by hydrogen bonds which create a rigid surface when dry. When water is added to the system, the hydrogen bonds are broken and the material becomes flexible.

When allowed to dry out again, the hydrogen bonds quickly re-form making the surface hard again. One of the possible uses for this new plastic could be for brain implants during brain operations. It could also be used to treat Parkinson's disease or even spinal injuries or even some parts of heart implants like pacemakers. They have already found a gene in the sea cucumber that blocks the parasites that cause malaria.

As scientists continue to examine the sea cucumber, they just keep finding new uses.

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

Paul Loiselle of the New York Aquarium and Damaris Rodriguez of the American Museum of Natural History described the new species as Bedotia Leucopteron in a paper in the July 2007 issue of the systematics journal Zootaxa.



This unknown member of the Bedotia genus was given the common name of White-Finned Rainbowfish. This species was discovered in streams located in the central area of the Iaroka-Rinala basin in eastern Madagascar.

The Bedotia genus contains sixteen species but only seven have been officially described. Unfortunately, many of these species are about to become extinct due to the destruction of the rain forest in Madagascar. Scientists believe the Bedotia Leucopteron may not be threatened with extinction because they seem to be able to live in areas where deforestation has already occurred.

Bedotia Leucopteron is a shoaling fish and scientists have seen as many as 50 to 100 fish in one school. They were found swimming around waterlogged wood in rapidly moving water. The water conditions tested at a PH of 6.0 to 7.0 and temperature ranging from 64 – 82 degrees F depending on the altitude of their habitat.

In captivity, the Bedotia Leucopteron can reach the size of 7 inches whereas most other Bedotia members grow to approximately 5 inches. They were brought into North America in 1996 by Paul Loiselle.

What qualified the White-Finned Rainbowfish as a new discovery was its appearance. The body is blue and gold metallic with black spots on its sides. The fins have white trim.

I’m glad to see that the fish may not become extinct because many fish that are native to Madagascar have disappeared.

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

Finally after years of wrangling through the system, a government has taken a stand. Hawaii moves to limit the number of fish to be captured or caught. The government acted a while ago to set up a sanctuary for fish along one third of the coastline of Hawaii, the largest of the Hawaiian Islands. The boundaries have yet to be determined.

This bill was carried 7 to 0 by the Ocean Recreation and Marine research committee. However; it did reject an outright ban on the collection of tropical fish species in a sixty mile stretch from Kawaihae to Milolii. This Bill will face further deliberations before going to the Senate. The banned area would be from the shoreline outwards to where the waters reach a depth of 670 feet.

This law pitted the state’s $50 million tourist diving industry, which needs the fish to entertain the divers and snorkelers, against those in the $10 million tropical fish industry, which sends beautiful colored fish to shops across the country and the world.

So it does go to show that not all people in government just think for today, but think for the future too. If Hawaii looses their beautiful fish now, what are they going to show the divers and snorkelers down the road?

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

The Bering Sea produces 50% of all fish caught in America and 1/3 all the fish caught world wide. Chances are the last fish you ate came from the Bering Sea. Studies and experiments are suggesting the ecosystem will support less than what we are harvesting, like the Pollock and Hake.

The Bering Sea is showing climate changes before the rest of the oceans so this may be a sign of things to come. It is much warmer now and marine mammals and birds are having mass die offs, and there’s many invasive species. In general, it’s going through massive chances to a more temperate ecosystem that is not going to be as productive as the last.

The effects of carbon dioxides are often over looked by the general public. It’s good that people are starting to worry about melting ice and rising water levels world wide. We are only now starting to see a comprehensive change in the world’s ecosystem, and some of these changes don’t look great for the future.

Phytoplankton takes sun light and converts carbon dioxide into carbon based foods. Small fish eat the plankton, and bigger fish eat the smaller fish, and an entire ecosystem develops which just keeps repeating its self until some thing in the system is disturbed.

The Bering Sea is very productive thanks to diatoms a large type of phytoplankton. Large diatoms are eaten by large zooplankton in turn are eaten by large fish. When the phytoplankton becomes scarce the zoo plankton becomes scarce and all the sea creatures that eat the diatoms and zooplankton will also become scarce.

Thus the ecosystem seems to be changing in a way that doesn’t support the top predators, and the top of that list is MAN!

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

If you or I went deaf, we would not blame it on global warming; however hotter seas can pose a problem for young coral fish.

These fish are more likely to get misshapen ear bones and are most apt to get lost and die. According to a study on fish around Lizard on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, warmer waters just make the problem more intense.

After hatching in the open seas, most fish spend a few weeks out in the open waters of the seas to adjust all their senses. Then they go to the reefs to settle down. The key factor of them finding home is sound. The fry have to seek out and listen to the high-frequency noises made by invertebrates like shrimp and sea urchins. In turn, they have to avoid the low frequency noises made by adult fish and crashing waves.

Monica Gagliano, at the Australian Institute of Marine research in Townsville Queensland, has discovered that at the time of hatching, just over 50% of all Ambon damsel fish have ear bones or asymmetrical otolith (which is a bad thing). A team of scientists suspect that it might be impossible for these fish to pinpoint the origin of a sound, which in turn, increases their chances of getting lost in a big ocean.

Gagliano says that an unpublished article shows that exposing adult reef fish to higher water temperatures and increasingly acid waters both of which are associated with global warming, increase the percentage of offspring born with asymmetrical otoliths

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

Why is it we can modify plants animals, birds, and fish, but when it comes to genetically modifying a human through cloning it is considered one of the biggest sins ever? Clones at least would help people with medical problems or even allow stem cell research.

I came across an old head line that reads “Scientists Have Created the Ultimate Fish” That means in the future you wont need aquarium lighting, your fluorescent fish will do the lighting of your tank and most likely reduce your power bill as well.

Scientists believe that the Night Pear bio-fish represents the shape of pets to come. Pets of the future all will arrive at your doorstep with a few extra genes that will have hair that does not shed or no claws in cats or no teeth in rats. When the pet dies just clone it. Has anyone at all seen the long term effects of changing what was here before we were?

Here is a good example. Why not put cold water fish genes into tropical fish so then you don’t have to heat the aquarium. Sounds like a fantastic idea to me and it take a bit out of the old electric bill.

How many people flush their fish down the toilet or even worse let them go in a pond or a lake. Now we have tropical fish growing in our waterways amongst other fish they have never seen before. With this upset to the balance of nature, maybe all the small trout and salmon will get eaten as fry.

Mind you, I think it would be rather cool seeing a purple pink orange fish swimming in our water system.

Posted by Douglas DuHamel

Global warming and reef disturbance are thought to be the cause of the increased amounts of dinoflagellate which cause the formation of ciguatera toxins in the flesh of the fish. How does this happen?

Harvesters and divers disturb reefs and cause the coral to die. Dinoflagellate which is an algae species breeds on dead coral. Warmer ocean waters caused by global warming accelerate the growth of dinoflagellate. Fish feed off of the reefs and ingest the toxins.

In an article from the Australian Medical Journal, Dr Leigh Lehane speaks of ciguatera as becoming one of the most common food-borne illnesses related to the consumption of finfish and believes the number of cases to rise dramatically in the near future.

When you buy fish, you can’t detect the disease on the fish itself. The fish smells and tastes no different. In addition, ciguatera toxins are not destroyed by cooking like most toxins related to food poisoning.

Symptoms of this disease usually begin within hours of eating infected fish. Vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pains are the first to appear, but gastrointestinal symptoms are not always present. You could experience pain, sensory and neurological disturbances which could persist for weeks, months or even years.

Ciguatera was limited to fish in southern waters and it wasn’t even known to exist in the northern part of the world. With the increase in inter-regional transportation of seafood products, human poisonings have expanded the beyond the original geographic range.