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.

Here’s more information, taken from Telegraph.co.uk

California state prosecutors told the New York Times that the restaurant was likely to be charged with violating federal laws against selling marine mammals, an offense punishable by a year in prison and a $20,000 (£13,000) fine.

The documentary team says it began investigating the restaurant in October last year after being tipped off by friends that The Hump – reportedly named after pilot slang for the Himalayas – had raw slices of whale on its menu.

Restaurant employees said at one point the meat came from a Mercedes parked in the rear of the restaurant. The investigation team also made it clear that the servers new the meat was from a whale, explaining to the “customers” why the sushi dish was so expensive ($60). We commend the crew of “The Cove” for their great efforts with both the documentary and their help on this investigation.

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.

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.

Blue Moon Aquatics LED Fixture Closeup

Photo Courtesy of Marine Depot, Marine Depot Blog

Here’s a snippet from Blue Moon’s website:

A fascinating “powerful” light that enhances the fluorescent dyes, growth and colors of corals, clams and invertebrates. It creates an intensive natural shimmering effect throughout the entire tank.

The color temperature and spectrum of the 15,000K 90W LED fixture with its high lumen output replicates the intensity of the sun around a shallow coral reef. It combines its spectrum with a 460nm actinic range and has been created to achieve the blue chlorophyll absorption for zooxanthellae symbiosis.

Scientifically created especially for aquatic use with an excellent light spectrum designed for marine aquariums

Most invertebrates and corals kept in a marine tank originate from shallow waters. Up to 10 ft depth nearly the entire “visible”color spectrum of light is evenly spread.

A blue accenting illumination combined with a full spectrum light of a 15,000K temperature bears therefore a desirable lighting to keep and grow corals.

To create such light the benefits of LED lighting come especially handy: While traditional lighting has often several peaks across the entire color spectrum,the spectrum created by LED lights can be set exactly to the desired points.

Looking at the color spectrum of the Blue Moon Aquatics fixture the uniform curve shows besides the desired increase of the actinic range an evenly spread natural spectrum curve with a reduced red spectral range to ensure a remarkable growth of all corals and invertebrates with endosymbiotic algea.

Blue Moon Aquatics LED Fixture Fan Vents

Photo Courtesy of Marine Depot, Marine Depot Blog

Features:

• Low energy costs because of lower consumption wattage caused by the LED efficency
• Extremely durable with a 50,000 hour lifetime
• Notable higher light output – compared to traditional flurescent tubes
• Low operating temperature – never worry again about heating issues The BMA LED fixture comes with three cooling fans that start quietly when operated. They remove the “heat” from the LED heat sink to ensure a long lifetime of each single LED.
• Best possible eco balance: long lifetime without mercury

Blue Moon Aquatics LED Fixture Spectrum

Fixture specifications:

• 90W LED Pendant:
  • LEDs: 60x 1W 15,000K high intensity LED, 30x 1W 460nm high intensity LED
  • Dimensions:
    • Length: 16 inches
    • Width: 8.5 inches
    • Height: 2.5 inches
  • Weight: 12 pounds
  • Power Output: 90W
  • Universal Input Range: 100 to 240V AC / 50-60Hz
  • AC Cable Length: 6 ft
  • Regulatory Compliance: (meets requirements/limits) CE & RoHS
• 300W LED Pendant:
  • LEDs: 192x 1W 15.000K high intensity LED, 96x 1W 460nm high intensity LED
  • Dimensions:
    • Length: 19 inches
    • Width: 12.5 inches
    • Height: 2.5 inches
  • Weight: 11.023 pounds
  • Power Output: 300W
  • Universal Input Range: 100 to 240V AC / 50-60Hz
  • AC Cable Length: 6 ft
  • Regulatory Compliance: (meets requirements/limits) CE & RoHS

• 600W LED Pendant:
  • LEDs: 384x 1W 15.000K high intensity LED, 192x 1W 460nm high intensity LED
  • Dimensions:
    • Length: 34 inches
    • Width: 12.5 inches
    • Height: 2.5 inches
  • Weight: 11.023 pounds
  • Power Output: 600W
  • Universal Input Range: 100 to 240V AC / 50-60Hz
  • AC Cable Length: 6 ft
  • Regulatory Compliance: (meets requirements/limits) CE & RoHS

Blue Moon Aquatics LED Fixture

Photo Courtesy of Marine Depot, Marine Depot Blog

Retail prices:

• 90W LED Fixture: $550
• 300W LED Fixture: $1600
• 600W LED Fixture: $2600

Images Courtesy of Marine Depot, Marine Depot Blog, and Blue Moon Aquatics.

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.

Frag Tank with Coral Frag Caddy Trays

On top of easing coral transport, each frag rack can be placed directly into your aquarium or frag tank. Simply place the rack into the tank, insert frags, let the corals heal and encrust onto the frag plug, then relocate the entire rack-full of corals into the Coral Frag Caddy bucket. It couldn’t be any more simple.

Coral Frag Caddy

Each set of Coral Frag Caddys comes with 4 staggered-height trays and a bucket for transporting frags. Frag tray sizes are 8.25″ x 8.25″, with legs ranging from 1 to 4 inches. The oblong holes in the center of each tray are finger grips so that you easily grab the tray to removed it from the aquarium and place it into the bucket for safe transport. Two buckets fit easily inside a large drink cooler.

Coral Frag Caddy in Ice Chest

Coral Frag Caddy In Ice Chest

‘The Arrow Crab’ from MORPHOLOGIC on Vimeo.

Stonefish

Pictured in this week’s AquaNerd Picture of the Week is a stonefish seen in a Moody Gardens aquarium.

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.