Sushi Restaurant Serving Whale?
Whale Sushi
The filmmakers who made the Oscar award winning “The Cove”, a film about Japanese dolphin hunting, went undercover at a popular sushi restaurant in California to investigate rumors of whale being used in sushi. The Hump, in Santa Monica, was rumored to be serving whale meat, which is illegal in the United States. “The Cove” team’s investigation was conducted alongside law enforcement officials, who later raided the restaurant and confirmed the suspicions of whale meat being served.
Rare All Black Penguin Photographed
Rare All Black Penguin
OK, so this isn’t exactly aquarium related, but I found it to be quite interesting. An all black penguin was recently discovered in Antarctica. Andrew Evans from National Geographic was on a trip to the Southern Hemisphere when he stumbled across an extremely rare, monochromatic black King Penguin. This occurrence is so rare that Dr. Allan Baker, an ornithologist who specializes in bird melanism, said this bird had a “one in a zillion kind of mutation”. Melanism in birds is not uncommon, but usually animals that have these mutations have spots where melanin pigmentation has failed to color the skin or feathers. In this case, as previously stated, the penguin is all black, making it extremely rare.
For the full story, please visit National Geographic.
Tip of the Day – 3/11/10
Salt creep is not only annoying, it can also be dangerous. The salt, which is sometimes still damp, can travel all the way to a power outlet and do some serious damage. Power strips for example can burn up or cause damage to other items on the strip.
Blue Moon Aquatics LED Pendants
Blue Moon Aquatics LED Fixture
Photo Courtesy of Marine Depot, Marine Depot Blog
Blue Moon Aquatics has recently released three new LED fixtures, simply called the 90W LED, 300W LED, and the 600W LED fixtures. Each sports a massive array of LED bulbs as well as a sleek look and plenty of cooling fans. Read below for all of the technical specifications for each model as well as a description from Blue Moon Aquatics.
Tip of the Day – 3/10/10
The detritus that accumulates in the bottom of bare-bottom aquariums isn’t always full of harmful waste. Sometimes these piles of fish poop can be full of copepods, amphipods, and other beneficial organisms.
Coral Frag Caddy Simplifies Coral Transport
Coral Frag Caddy
The guys at BMC Acrylics have developed one of the most ingenious and useful tools for traveling frag traders/sellers, called the Coral Frag Caddy. This very simple setup allows users to safely transport frags on frag racks stored in buckets. The buckets then easily fit into a cooler, as demonstrated below.
Stunning Arrow Crab Video
The guys at the Morphologic Blog have released another eye-popping video, this time of an Arrow crab. Though the arrow crabs are fairly common in the aquarium world, the artistic masters at the Morphologic Blog somehow manage to make this creature seem strange and unfamiliar.
‘The Arrow Crab’ from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.
Tip of the Day – 3/9/10
Want to add flow to your tank but not another power hungry powerhead or pump? Try using a penductor/eductor on the end of your return line. These devices drastically increase the amount of water coming from your return pump but don’t use even a watt of energy.
Picture of the Week – 3/8 – 3/14
Stonefish
Pictured in this week’s AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a stonefish seen in a Moody Gardens aquarium.
Dolphin Documentary Wins Big at Academy Awards
The Cove
I normally don’t follow Hollywood related events, but a certain award given out at at the Academy Awards caught my attention last night. I was surfing the web while my wife watched the award ceremony, and the movie “The Cove” was displayed as a nominee for one of the categories. “The Cove”, a chilling documentary that brings to light the slaughtering of countless dolphins by Japanese fisherman, has won almost 50 awards, and last night they added the big one to their trophy case. “The Cove” won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature (full length documentary). We would like to congratulate the group for their win and would like to thank them for their efforts to bring the slaughtering of dolphins into focus.
