Pictured in the latest installment of the AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a rose bubble tip anemone, but not just the regular old run of the mill RBTA. This anemone has bright red tentacles and a deep green color on its oral disc. This anemone isn’t a rare color morph by any means, but it certainly makes for an interesting specimen with it’s watermelon-like colors. Adding to the coloration are white specks that dot the tentacles and disc of the anemone.

This week’s AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a reader submitted photo from our friend Louis-Pierre Rich. In the image, an elaborately camouflaged Marble Mouth Anglerfish (Lophiocharon lithinostomus), which faces the camera in case you can’t tell, is laying in wait for an unsuspecting prey fish to swim by so that it can be snatched out of the water column and into that very expandable mouth. This fish obviously blends in well with its surroundings, as it looks like a piece of the live rock covered in purple and green algae. Heck, even the fish’s nares (scientific jargon for nostrils) look like tiny sponges. This anglerfish, and most others, use their dorsal fish to lure in prey close to its mouth so that it can rapidly suck up anything big enough to fit.

Showing up in the latest AquaNerd POTW is a beautiful Copperband Butterflyfish (Chelmon rostratus) during feeding time at the Kemah Aquarium restaurant. This fish is a crowd favorite among aquarium keepers due to its coloration, but many will find it especially useful for its appetite for Aiptasia anemones. Despite their popularity, the Copperband can be finicky and hard to care for. Additionally, these butterflies have been known to nibble at corals from time to time.

Gracing our pages in this week’s AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a red firefish goby (Nemateleotris magnifica) seen in the reef aquarium at the Aquarium Restaurant in Kemah. This particular fish is very common in the hobby, but its frequency in the trade doesn’t detract from its beauty even in the slightest bit. The dartfish sports a predominantly white anterior that gradually changes into a rich red posterior that eventually terminates into a deep crimson caudal fin. The fish’s beauty is also matched by it’s personality. The goby will hover around the rock structure and constantly flick its dorsal fin and small groups will usually hang out near each other. When frightened, the fish will dart into a hole in the rocks or may even jump out of the aquarium.

In the AquaNerd Picture of the Week, we typically like to focus on the rare and beautiful aquarium livestock. Unfortunately, we wanted to expose another travesty perpetrated by the wonderful folks at Petco in this latest installment. Pictured above is a freshwater fish with a very obvious eye problem. The eye is white, bulging out significantly, and even has some other growth extending out quite a bit. The quality of livestock typically found at Petco isn’t much better than this. We’ve reported on extremely decayed fish floating in Petco aquariums in the past, and we’ll likely continue to encounter these poor quality fish in the future.

Thanks again Robert for the photograph. If you would like to send in a picture for the AquaNerd POTW, email us at admin@aquanerd.com. Have a similar Petco experience, tell us your story in the comments below.

Pictured in this AquaNerd Picture of the Week is one of my favorite fish, the Lineatus Fairy Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus lineatus). This fish can be very beautiful, though the females of the species are nowhere near as pretty as the males, which is typical of just about all fish and wrasses especially. In terms of rarity, the Lineatus Fairy Wrasse has a limited distribution around the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea, and tends to not be very common in the aquarium trade. They are seen on stock lists from wholesalers with some irregularity, and these are often only the females and there are usually only a couple to be had. This drives the price per fish to over $200 in most cases. This particular individual photographed is either a female or sub-dominant male. The super dominant males of this species is far more colorful and is quite a sight in a salty aquarium.

While traipsing through the local fish stores, we came across a beefy Tridacna squamosa clam and noticed it had another little bivalve attached to the side of its shell. The small hitchhiker appears to be a scallop, and it is tucked away in between some of the lateral scutes on the side of the much larger squammie. This little scallop and other hitchhiking clams are commonly found on imported live rock, corals, and clams. They often go unnoticed because they blend in very well with the rocky substrate, however the hitchhiker shown above stands out like a sore thumb. Fortunately, the scallop can be easily removed without harming the clam.

Pictured in this week’s installment of the AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a glowing rainbow Lobophyllia brain coral seen in one of the vendor aquariums at MACNA from earlier this year. The coral has at least four distinct colors, sporting a red ring that surrounds green, then purple, and finally a blue center. Rainbow colored corals are all the rage these days, and their coloration typically drives the price way up. Interestingly though, corals of this color have become increasingly available over the past year especially, showing up in aquarium stores all over the country.

We typically like to focus on rare and beautiful aquarium livestock when we post the AquaNerd Picture of the Week, but this time we wanted to do something just a little different. The focus of this week’s photo is an orange Montipora coral that obviously started out as a small frag and has since grown out, taking on a very unnatural appearance as it grew to the shape of the square frag plug. Most of the corals that are grown out from frags take on this appearance, and it’s very unsightly in our opinions. To avoid these shapes we suggest that you use more natural looking frag plugs, such as a piece of live rock rubble or an artificial plug that is designed to blend in with your reef.

Pictured in the newest AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a Lettuce Nudibranch (Elysia crispata). While most nudibranchs are not desirable in the home aquarium, this little sea slug serves one very beneficial function…consuming unsightly algae. The lettuce nudibranch, which technically isn’t a true nudibranch, consumes different types of algae from the rockwork and incorporates the photosynthetic chloroplasts from the algae into its own cells. This allows the nudibranch to derive some of its nutrition from light energy, making it very easy to keep these slugs fed in the aquarium. Because of their diet, they are completely reef safe, but do occasionally find their way into the propellers of water pumps.