The Waikiki Aquarium, already considered a premiere public aquarium by most, has decided to up the ante with the creation of their Northwestern Hawaiian Islands exhibit. The new feature houses some of Hawaii’s best and rarest livestock, including a few masked angelfish (Genicanthus personatus), of which prior to this exhibit there are only a few known in captivity. Needless to say, having a single masked angelfish is a feat all unto itself, but three (judging by the video) in a single tank is just amazing. To top it off, several bandit angelfish (Apolemichthys arcuatus) and flame wrasses (Cirrhilabrus jordani) also share the massive tank. Also described in the video are how the fish and corals were collected. Rick Klobuchar, the acting curator at the aquarium, along with several other collectors, had to ride out to the Northwestern part of Hawaii to handpick each and every fish, coral and invertebrate. The daunting task obviously proved fruitful, and has made for a very pricey display (in hobbyist terms).

For the full story, visit Hawaii News Now.

Several years ago, the Waikiki Aquarium announced they were going to be adding a new exhibit to their already spectacular facilities. Originally slated to open July 2nd of this year, the opening was actually pushed back to August 18th, which happens to be next week. This new exhibit, unlike the others on display at the Waikiki Aquarium, will focus entirely on Hawaiian livestock specifically from the northwestern part of the island chain. The 5000-gallon system will feature some of the rarest fish and corals that Hawaii has to offer. These include the Masked Angelfish (Genicanthus personatus), Japanese Pygmy Angelfish (Centropyge interrupta), a total of nine Bandit Angelfish (Apolemichthys arcuatus), and loads of live corals. All of the fish and corals were collected from the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a marine refuge that former President George W. Bush restricted access to in 2006. Fortunately, the aquarium was given access to collect from the preserve, and they have collected some of the rarest livestock ever seen (or not seen) in the hobby. We’re not sure if the exhibit will feature more than one masked angelfish, but one thing is for sure, that fish would cost more than a plane ticket and week-long hotel room stay in Honolulu. Besides the gorgeous fish to drool over, the exhibit will also have interactive touch screens that will provide information on the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, as well as information about the residents of the exhibit.

The exhibit costs a reported $300,000 and the aquarium has been accepting donations to help cover the costs. For more information on how to submit a donation please contact the Waikiki Aquarium’s development office at 808-440-9015.

Me sticking my head in the shell of a Tridacna gigas clam at the Waikiki Aquarium

Qatar and the other states that make up the Unite Arab Emirates are known to be on the cutting edge of over the top architecture, not even limiting themselves to building just on land. One of their latest structural wonders is a semi-submerged floating island resort. The $500 million amphibious resort sits right in the middle of a marine reserve and features four massive hotels, each with underwater rooms. If the submerged hotel room isn’t exclusive enough, you can also rent one of 80 self-contained floating suites, which happened to be called “Jelly-fish”. Each suite has five floors, one of which is an underwater lounge. On top of all that, there will apparently be hydrogen-powered yachts available to cruise around the seas. A massive saltwater aquarium is also rumored to be housed at the resort.

While this resort is quite attractive and all, we’re wondering what sort of damage it will do to the surrounding native life, especially given the fact that it is located in the middle of a marine reserve. Obviously the marine life will be impacted, but the real question is by what amount? Only time will tell of course.

For more information on the resort, please visit Gizmag.

Our contact in the Marshall Islands has been very busy since his last update, and the latest set of images that he sent our way shines a little light as to why. Chuck has naturally taken to SCUBA diving, after all there’s not a whole lot to do when your stuck on an atoll in the middle of the Pacific and sitting at the water’s edge kicking his feet around in the tidepools could never be enough. With each trip into the ocean, our Kwajalein-locked friend has really been honing his underwater photography skills, as the images keep getting better and better. Chuck’s latest offering includes my single most coveted piece of marine life, the black and white Tridacna maxima clam (seen above), along with tons of pictures of huge Acropora colonies and other clams. Chuck also revealed that he’s been making frequent dive trips with a renowned fish collector, who has apparently been showing him the ropes of that side of the hobby. I doubt Chuck will be ditching his day job to catch fish for a living, but who in this great hobby gets to claim they been collecting fish in the wild?

Thanks again Chuck for sharing these wonderful images with us. We look forward to more contributions in the future. Until then, we’ll just have to “settle” with the handful of images below.

How would you like to spend a night in the ocean, and not mob style either? We recently stumbled across this gorgeous underwater suite at the Conrad Rangali Island Maldives Hotel, which is part of the Hilton Hotels family. The room was previously an underwater restaurant, but was converted over to a super exclusive, and presumably expensive suite for two. The room is located 16 feet below sea level and gives a 180° view of reef and marine life. Despite the fact that is has a bed, I think it would be hard for me to sleep in such a room. The close quarters and millions of gallons of water over my wouldn’t even remotely bother me, but I’d be that one guy with a giant flashlight looking at every visible square inch of nighttime reef life.

Thanks to Ariel Freudenthal for sharing the image of this stunning undersea hotel room over on Facebook and sparking our interest.

Troon Golf and Dutch Docklands recently unveiled plans for a new 18-hole floating golf course coming to the Maldives Islands. The monster golf course will consist of a series of floating platforms, each containing two or three holes. Each of the floating platforms will be linked by a series of underwater tunnels, which also lead to nearby hotels. Artist renderings of what the golf course would look like once completed show these tunnels to be see-through. To keep the golf course as “green” as possible, the engineers will be using sustainable desalination and water cooling techniques, and the entire course will be solar powered. The project is estimated to cost around $500 million and is slated for completion in 2015.

Continue reading below for our thoughts on the Maldives golf course.

I occasionally hit the links, and enjoy the game even though I’m terrible at it, but I’m not thrilled to see this golf course going up. Sure, it’s nice that the facilities are solar powered, but the presence of the course could have terrible repercussions based on location alone. If the platforms are placed above or even near reefs, then you can bet those reefs will be severely negatively impacted. Runoff will cause algae outbreaks, platforms will overshadow corals, and construction of the undersea tunnel will likely directly result in immediate coral death. Additionally, how with the reefs be able to handle all of the golf balls that will inevitably find their way into the ocean? After all, they aren’t exactly biodegradable.

Taken from Wired.

The jet lag from the trip back home from London is still kicking my butt, but I managed to arrange some of the footage taken at the London Sea Life Aquarium. The video above highlights a handful of aquariums at the facility, including the large display tank full of tons of different fish and a fake whale skeleton, an aquarium full of clownfish and rose bubble tip anemones, a garden eel display, Bangaii cardinalfish hovering over soft corals, and a packed reef tank full of corals and some fairly uncommon fish.

Overall, the aquarium wasn’t a jaw-dropper, but it certainly had its bright spots which can be seen in the video above. I can’t say that I had a favorite exhibit, but I did enjoy seeing a very healthy Achilles tang swimming among a group of anthias and a decent backdrop of corals. The freshwater displays were very nice, especially the planted aquariums, but we’re fairly partial to saltwater aquariums here at AquaNerd so they won’t get much (or any) airtime unfortunately. So enjoy the video while I try to recuperate and get back on track with the normal routine.

While in London, I managed to carve out enough time from all of the touring to visit the London Sea Life Aquarium. The aquarium itself was somewhat disappointing, but it had several reef aquariums that made the trip worthwhile. The main display aquarium was pretty typical, with virtually no lighting, a tunnel going through the exhibit, and tons of large schooling fish and sharks. The interesting thing about that tank was the dead whale skeleton, fake of course, that was used in the display. It added something new to the same old scene.

The coral and saltwater fish tanks in the London Aquarium were hit or miss. There were a small handful that really stood out, but there were also several that were too dimly lit for good pictures, had more than enough Aiptasia, or had just the wrong mixture of animals. For example, there was a really neat pair of cylindrical tanks that were joined together by two tubes. The problem with these tanks is they were full of purple tangs, and lots of them. As most of know, purple tangs are pretty aggressive fish, especially to other tangs in the Zebrasoma genus. The two cylindrical tanks had a least 20-30 purple tangs, and some of them really showed the byproducts of conspecific aggression. Torn fins were everywhere. There was three reef tanks that I really enjoyed, including one with an Achilles tang, one with a ton of rose bubble tip anemones, and the last with a small school of Bangaii cardinals.

The London Aquarium had a great deal of freshwater displays, including piranha, freshwater sliders (aka turtles), and lots of planted tanks. The freshwater displays were much nicer, but I mostly only care for saltwater tanks, so the beauty of these tanks was most likely not fully appreciated…though they were very nice.

Overall, the London Aquarium was a little bit of a let down. Like I mentioned previously, the dark rooms and dimly lit tanks made photographing the fish very frustrating. On top of that, the displays weren’t spectacular and the whole facility felt like it was geared more toward the younger audience. The price for one adult was £18 (pounds), which translates to approximately $30 per person. A bit overpriced for a mediocre public aquarium, but the bright spots in the facility make it worth the trip.

I am still currently overseas, so I’ll be cutting the post short. We’ll post more information and images once we get back to the states.

Here is some amazing dive footage brought to us by Underworld Film Productions and taken in the waters of Borneo. The video opens with a gorgeous nudibranch, and follows with a wide variety of different creatures, including anemones with resident porcelain crabs and shrimp, various anglers and frogfish, a few different eels, and one amazingly unique pipefish.

In addition to the daytime video above, a nighttime counterpart has also been loaded up on YouTube for our viewing pleasure. The night dive is full of even more interesting and different creatures, and we highly recommend you watch that clip as well.

I’ve recently been given the opportunity to head across the big pond and visit Great Britain for a little R&R, and I couldn’t be more excited. While in London, I’ll be sure to visit as many reef aquarium hot spots as humanly possible, with a guaranteed trip to the London Sea Life Aquarium. The AquaNerd Blog won’t stop updating while I’m gone, in fact, we probably won’t even slow down. I will have plenty of time to update the site on the extremely long flight straight from Houston to London and I’ve got a stockpile of topics to discuss. The trip isn’t for a couple of weeks, but in the meantime I’ll be prepping my aquarium for the time I’ll be gone, and perhaps a few helpful tips will arise from these preparations.

And while I’m discussing the trip, does anyone know of any must see aquarium-related places to visit?