Baby Rhizotrochus found in Pieter-6-meter’s basement

On the reef-related websites, Pieter van Suijlekom is better known as ‘Pieter-6-meter‘, referring to the size of his tank. This topic is about something in his less well-known tank, namely his azooxanthelate reef. This tank is kept in Pieter’s basement, where…

All Rhizotrochus are illegally collected and imported

Have you ever wondered why you’ve (most likely) never seen a Rhizotrochus typus available for sale at your LFS? The obvious reason is that their suppliers probably don’t have them because this coral species is simply not legal to collect,…

Top 10 Unknown Azoox Corals

The American reef aquarium hobby is always looking for the latest and greatest new strain of corals to grow and exalt. Strains of very familiar corals like the Homewrecker Acro and Kun Pao Monti may turn some heads and have…

Recent trip to Japan: Part2 – Visiting Ceppo in Aichi prefecture

The second opportunity to visit an aquarium shop in Japan was Ceppo in Aichi prefecture.  Aichi prefecture is just middle of between Tokyo and Osaka, so it takes 100 minutes from Tokyo station by Shinkansen (Bullet train).  Unfortunately many of…

Truncatoflabellum veroni, this unseen azoox coral makes reef aquarium debut

Truncatoflabellum is a genus of Azoox corals so obscure, and rarely documented (alive), that we never had hope of seeing specimens in our aquariums. Thankfully, Cairns Marine, purveyor of so much exotic marine life from Australia has scored again by…

A visit to the Smithsonian Institution’s vast coral collection

Aquarists spend the majority of their coral-keeping career looking at, staring at, and growing live corals, hopefully. This is the inverse case for coral taxonomists such as Dr. Stephen Cairns who studies the remains of corals as skeletons, and all…

Mariusz’ sun coral reef is an azoox coral paradise

Mariusz Sun coral reef is one of those classic systems every serious reefer should know about. Mariusz sun coral reef is no longer in existence, and most of the photos are several years old, but reef is too worthy to…

Illustrated key to azooxanthellate Scleractinia is high def identification gold

An illustrated key to the genera and subgenera of the recent Azooxanthellate Scleractinia, is one of the coolest in depth LPS azoox identification keys we’ve come across. Even if you have zero interest in azoox corals, you absolutely have to check…

Stephanocyathus coral among many new finds of deep water marine life

Most of the deep sea exploration stories we hear about has to do with the mobile, megafauna like deep sea squids, octopus, jellyfish and the like. However a new report seen on National Geographic features at least one super nice…

Chrysiptera glaba, canary damselfish is completely at home in Long Beach Aquarium’s deep water reef exhibit

The canary damselfish, Chrysiptera galba is a beautiful yellow deep water damselfish from the Western pacific Ocean. In many ways the canary damselfish shares the same (relatively) mild disposition as the better known and closely related Starki damslefish, Chrysiptera starki.…