Aqua Scaperz | The Freshwater Aquarium Blog

The Black Ghost knifefish is an elongated freshwater fish that swims around by unudlating it’s long anal fin, much in the same way that some eels and brotulas do. Researchers from Northwestern University studying the motion of Black Ghost knifefish decided to build a robot model of the unusual fish. Ghostbot accurately reproduces the undulating motion of Ghost Knifefish and it has allowed the scientists to discover a jetstream motion of water that develops right underneath the fish as the undulations meet each other on the underside of the fish. Of all the fish to roboticize, we would have placed the Black Ghost Knife at the bottom of the list but the result is undeniable cool. Full video when you click on the header image.

One glance at the intensity of the red coloration on these Chilli Endler livebearers and it’s easy to see how these will likely become a very unique domestic strain of the once-wild strain of wild guppy. We just spotted the Chilli Endler in an AquaBid auction listing so we have no details on their origin and who is responsible for this fantastic strain. The completeness of the coloration and the residual bar and spotting are particularly attractive. If you have any info on the red Chilli Endler let us know what’s up in the comments.

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Badis juergenschmidti male photographed by Ingo Schindler.

Badis juergenschmidti is a new species of Indo-Burmese freshwater fish from the family Badidae which was recently described from specimens collected in Myanmar. Badis juergenschmidti differs from similar Badis species by it’s distinct lack of an opercular spot, and the bright white margins of it’s unpaired fins. The largest specimen, the Holotype of Badis juergenschmidti , measures in a just under 35mm, or about 1.5 inches long. This may seem small but it is still much larger than other more diminutive Badis species which rarely reach over an inch long. A male Badis juergenschmidti is pictured above without any bars, but males appear to display this barring pattern at will. Badis juergenschmidti has already been spawned in captivity and it has been discovered to be a cave-spawning species with young being under parental care for about 7 days. Badis juergenschmidti was described by Ingo Schindler and Horst Linke in the latest issue of Vertebrate Zoology. More and larger images of Badis juergenschmidti can be seen on the Mesonauta website.

With plants as with corals, if you grow them well and in high density, your aquarium will invariably suffer from too much of a good thing. Case in point are these images of the aquarium I am currently overhauling with new substrate because my Eriocaulons have nearly replaced the substrate with the thickest root mat you ever did see. The plant that is mostly responsible for this corner of the clogged substrate is Eriocaulon “Aussie 2″ which has never yet flowered for me, therefore it gets uprooted and replanted much less frequently than say Erio ‘Japan’ or Eriocaulon cinereum. These picture represent just about a year and a half of intensive Eriocaulon culture and I’m just amazed at how much mass of roots the Eriocaulaceae can produce.

Aqua Design Amano is a line of premium aquarium products which are primarily designed for the freshwater and planted aquarium hobby. Although only a small number of reef aquarists may actually use ADA products, the impact that ADA has had on the expectations for well designed and aesthetically striking aquarium products is undeniable. Many other aquarium product companies have followed in the footsteps of ADA’s shiny finish and simplistic lines. Alas, the Japanese-designed ADA products have always commanded a premium and due to rising costs of materials and manufacturing, the ADA line of aquarium products will experience a slight price increase across the board starting in January 2011. Aquarium Design Group is the exclusive North American distributor of the ADA line of aquarium products, and their full press release regarding the price bump can be read after the break.

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Tetra Media Lifeguard is a brand new type of medicine and takes advantage of Tetra’s formula. The new formula in Lifeguard is called “Halo Shield” which contains an active ingredient called N-halamine. N-halamine has been proven to be more effective and faster versus traditional methods. Media Lifeguard works  against a wide variety of diseases (eliminates ich, fungus and a variety of other bacterial, fungal and parasitic infections) and comes in a tablet which you can easily drop in your aquarium water. Remove filter carbon and turn of UV sterilizer before use. Currently, this is a freshwater product only.

Sera has a new CO2 reactor with a novel pinwheel design to break up the gas before it travels down the reaction body. CO2 and Ozone reactors are normally the type of device which is DIY’d or handmade into existence which is why it is so refreshing to see a different design for this often ignored segment of the aquarium market. The robust acrylic body is about two inches wide and ten inches long, near the top incoming water pushes the needle wheel to help break up the incoming gas into finer bubbles for quick and thorough dissolution. All of the connections of the Sera CO2 reactor are twist-off, the body, the intake and outflow and the gas inlet. Not sure when the Sera reactors will be hitting U.S. aquarium stores but when they land expect them to sell for $60 to $80.

Whether you want to dose carbon dioxide to your planted tank like the Sera CO2 reactor is intended, dissolve some CO2 before hitting the calcium reactor or dissolve some ozone before hitting the protein skimmer, the slim bottle design looks sleek and effective. We are currently using a hand made CO2 reactor on a Tonina Style plant tank that was cobbled from odd fittings and an old Aquarium Pharmaceuticals tap water purifier and we’d much rather see something this solid in it’s place. Amano loves to sell carbon dioxide diffusers for every small nature aquarium or planted tank out there but is planted tanks are strongly focused on aesthetic, why don’t more companies make external CO2 reactors? Better yet, we’d rather see a canister filter maker design a model with a built-in CO2 reactor, that would be the bomb.

Once upon a time, the Eheim 2011 was the shorty in the world famous line of Eheim canister filters. When power filters and larger tanks started to dwindle the market for small canisters, the 2011 was retired and the aquarium world was left to their own devices for filtering the 10-25 gallon range of aquariums. With the resurgence of small aquariums, nano tanks and lots and lots of planted tanks, Eheim saw the opportunity to bring back their petite canister filter and give it a makeover in the Eheim 2211. Rated at 80 gallons per hour with a power consumption of five watts, the Eheim 2211 is plenty of filtration for a whole host of small aquarium applications. Sure you could spend half of the estimated $80-90 msrp on internal and power filters but if space or aesthetics are a concern, the Eheim 2211 is a much better candidate. Furthermore, the much larger volume of the 2211 means that it can hold more mechanical and biological filter media, so you don’t have to get all up in your filter nearly as often. The Eheim 2211 should already be stocked at finer Eheim dealers everywhere.

The green eye tetra, Moenkhausia chlorophthalma, and the lead tetra, Moenkhausia plumbea, are two new species of characins that have recently been described from the Tapajos river drainage system. In the most recent issue of Neotropical Ichthyology, Sousa et al formally described these two new species which are related to perennial aquarium favorites the red eye tetra and the diamond tetra. Like the red eye tetra, the green eye tetra, Moenkhausia chlorophthalma, is so named by the color of it’s eye, which is a brilliant green in living specimens, and somewhat visible in the specimen pictured in the image above. The green eye tetra originates from the tributaries of the Rio Xingu river drainage system. The lead tetra, Moenkhausia plumbea, was collected in the areas of the Tapajos River system and it superficially resembles the green eye tetra with a gold line on it’s side with a broader, darker stripe below it. Unlike the green eye tetra, the lead tetra does not have much coloration to the eye and it has a series of dark splotches on the upper part of the body. Both of the newly described species are closely related and similar in appearance to Moenkhausia petymbuaba, a species which was described in 2006 from the Rio Xingu river system. We don’t expect to see either the lead or green eye tetra for sale in aquarium shops any time soon but we guess that the green eye tetra could make for a striking ornamental aquarium fish.

[via PFK]

The floating gardens of Benjamin Graindorge & Duende is an interesting proof of concept installation which is part aquarium and part planter. For the life of us we cannot figure out if this is a fish tank with a planter for a filter or a planter with an attached aquarium for the fish to provide a source of natural nutrition. Judging by the sparse (read: nonexistent) aquascape in the aqueous portion of the tank, we’d guess the designers conceived this project first as a planter. The Floating Garden was designed to instill some introspection as to how the world is a balanced ecosystem. Don’t expect the BG&D Floating Garden to show up at your local fish store as this project was really more of an art exhibit than a prototype aquarium product. Even though the concept of using vegetative biology to absorb nutrients from aquarium water, we still think that these guys pulled off it in a very stylish way and that the Floating Garden could be an inspiration for aesthetic continuum from the aquarium to the external vegetative filter.

[via Duende Press]