Tank Profile: Joe Garza’s SPS-dominate Reef Savvy Rimless Aquarium

The blue thumb behind this beautiful reef, Joe Garza, is a U.S. Navy veteran who spent years traveling the oceans, exploring the globe, and admiring the beauty of the aquatic world. He kept aquariums filled with all sorts of colorful…

Cirrhilabrus marinda, a cryptic new species of fairy wrasse similar to C. condei

Cirrhilabrus marinda is the newest species of fairy wrasse to be described, with the new fish being a very close offshoot of the common aquarium favorite, Cirrhilabrus condei. Marinda’s fairy wrasse looks very similar to Conde’s fairy wrasse with a nearly identical…

What’s in a name?

Scientists are often pretty whimsical in their own way when it comes to describing a new species for science. To the undiscerning amateur like us, we may find scientific names cumbersome, made up of an unpronounceable mass of consonants with an unearthly…

Reef Nuggets 4: Macropharyngodon and notes on maintaining a harem

This is the fourth installation of a running series we call Reef Nuggets, a platform in which we share informative and useful tips on reef keeping in general. In this chapter we take a look at my recount regarding the…

Top 10 new fish species of 2014

The last few years have been really hot ones for the discovery and description of new reef fish species and 2014 was no slouch either. Sometimes it seems like new species descriptions are dominated by dwarf gobies of the Eviota and Trimma genera,…

Awesome Fish Spotlight: The pugnacious Novaculops halsteadi

Today’s Awesome Fish Spotlight goes to an unorthodox wrasse member from the genus Novaculops. Novaculops is a member of Novaculinae, which includes six genera of sand dwelling wrasses. The largest genus is Xyrichthys, but perhaps the most well known species from this…

Sequential Hermaphrodites: Protandrous, Protogynous or serial bidirectional?

Things are rather peculiar in the realm of reef fish. Few phenomenons are clear cut in black and white. At a glance it’s as if the myriad of biological processes walk the grey zone, waiting for the deciding waves to push them…

Understanding the photography triad: ISO, aperture and shutter speed

As aquarium owners, we are often very proud of our creations and want to capture them in pictures. Perhaps it’s that Acropora that you’ve been growing, or that fish that you love so much. Photography is a great way to…

California Academy of Sciences dive team is scoring big in the depths of the Philippines

After what has been a lengthy period of preparation, scouting and diving, the California Academy of Sciences’ expedition to the Philippines is beginning to yield a nice catch of truly exotic deep reef fish. The first notable catch of the…

Gorgeous Atavai wrasse from Polynesia arrives as a pair at Pacific East Aquaculture

Polynesia is an alien world of unknown reef fishes in the aquarium world and topping the list of must-haves from the region is Pseudojuloides atavai. The Atavai wrasse is one of those obscure species of slender wrasses whose congeners are poorly…