Continuing on with our coverage of the massive sure in new Tunze product releases, we now come to the Tunze Silence PRO. Like other models in the Silence lineup, the PRO model is a quietly running pump that can be used in-sump or externally. Unlike other Silence pumps, however, the Silence PRO ditches the barbed hose fittings for soft plumbing, choosing instead to go with a 1 1/2″ inlet and outlet for PVC connections. The pump moves water at 2900 gallons per hour with a power consumption of 95 to 125W depending on head pressure. Speaking of head pressure, the Silence PRO has a maximum head height of 14 3/4′. The Tunze Silence PRO will be available at a retail price of $385 and some change.

When gearing up for a water change, it’s best to fill the container completely with freshwater before adding salt. The reason for this is the fact that if you put too much salt in a small volume of water, parameters will be so out of whack that you’ll likely get calcium precipitation and deposits on the walls of the container. The unfortunate thing about deposits on the container is that they won’t necessarily dissolve back into the freshwater once it’s filled completely to the top. This means the resulting saltwater mix won’t have all of the ingredients needed to perform a quality water change and you’ll end up with more work to do to clean the mixing container.

Earlier today we wrote up a brief sneak peak of the upcoming second episode of Fish Tank Kings, where the crew from Living Color Aquariums travels to Curacao for a little deep sea fish collecting above a submarine. Little did we know that we’d be getting an exlusive peak at an insanely rare deepwater basslet, which currently resides at the Florida Aquarium. AquaNerd contributor, Steven Bitter, happens to work at the aquarium and he sent us this footage of the banded basslet, Lipogramma evides. The aquarium is the feature of tomorrow’s episode of Fish Tank Kings, so Steven’s timing couldn’t have been any better.

If the embedded video still shows as private, please follow this link: Lipogramma evides builds a burrow in aquarium decor

The thing that amazed Steven and the rest of the gang at the Florida Aquarium was the basslet’s jawfish-like behavior. The L. evides basslet can be seen gathering up large rocks, which we’re told are used to build a burrow or cave-like structure. As can be seen in the video, the fish is clearing glancing over the large rubble material, selecting the one it wants, and carries it up into water column and into a secluded spot in the rocks.

UPDATE: The video has been made public. We’ve also been told that this fish was collected via submersible by Dutch Shrier, the founder of the Curacao Sea Aquarium. To make the aquaruim even more drool worthy, it turns out that there are actually two L. evides and they’ve paired up in the same burrow!

One of the big downsides to owning a smaller aquarium is the fact that they are prone to significant water parameter fluctuations if the tank isn’t constantly being monitored and cared for. The biggest cause of these fluctuations is a varying water level, which drops rapidly over a few days as water evaporates. To combat these stability issues, Tunze has released a top off unit designed specifically for small aquaria. The Osmolator Nano 3152 is a water level controller that has a single water level sensor and a low voltage metering pump that is controlled by a processor that prevents the unit from adding too much water. Like the larger Osmolators, the Nano come with a sensor attached to a magnet holder, which allows the end user to place it anywhere in the aquarium. The top off device is suitable for tanks up to 200 liters (a little more than 50 gallons), and the entire assembly costs €74.60, or just under $95 if the rates hold steady.

Click on the Image to be Taken to the Video

The super rare Peppermint Angelfish (Paracentropyge boylei) is an amazing fish to say the least. Up until March of this year, only one was known to exist in captivity and the aquarium community almost never got to see images or videos of the fish. Fortunately, the Waikiki Aquarium got hold of one thanks to renowned explorer, Richard Pyle, and recently put it on display. This move didn’t just allowing the Hawaiian locals and tourists to see this fish’s unmatched beauty first hand, but it also means we, the online aquarium communtity get to see plenty more digital media of the angelfish. The latest video comes to us from KITV, a Hawaiian news channel who does a great story on the fish along with some words from Richard Pyle himself.

In the brief clip, Richard explains that he caught the fish at a depth of 100m (a little more than 330ft) and actually had to extend his dive time in order to capture the elusive female angel. Interestingly, this is probably not the only P. boylei hauled up during a string of dives, as Richard states “this is one of the females”. So, we’re assuming he means there were more taken, and quite possible a male to go with it. A disembodied voice of a Waikiki Aquarium staffer in that last video clip we posted said they were supposed to be getting another of the peppermint angels, so maybe multiple fish were caught. We could only hope. Delving a little further into the clip, it is revealed that the fish was actually sought out by the Smithsonian Institute for study, but that the fish would have been killed and preserved. Luckily, Pyle realized the value a live specimen would have and arranged for it to be sent to the Waikiki Aquarium.

Despite its rarity, the Peppermint Angelfish isn’t the rarest fish in the tank, though. It shares its new digs with a fish that’s labeled as the rarest in the world, the Abei Angelfish (Centropyge abei).

Earlier in the week, we showed off the brand spankin’ new LED fixture from Tunze. In that article, we also talked about the Tunze 7097 Multicontroller, though very briefly, which is designed to control up to four separate LED fixtures. Curious about finding out every little detail about the controller, we went digging. Eventually, we stumbled upon this snapshot of the 7097′s software interface on Tunze USA’s website, and while it’s not the image of the physical controller we’re looking for, it’s enough to keep us talking for now.

What we first notice in the photo is a vast array of sliders that can be used to adjust the intensity of the LED fixtures at up to 8 different time intervals. The intensity of the white and blue channels can be adjusted from 0-100%, with the time listed directly below. This arrangement will provide users with the ability to create an elaborate daytime lighting scheme complete with a gentle and more natural dawn to dusk period. Along the right hand side, we see a section where each LED can be independently adjusted, with the nice feature to clone the settings of the first LED fixture onto the remaining three. Another thing we notice is a moonlight section. Apparently, one LED (presumably from each fixture) will be selected as the moonlight, or by checking a certain box in the interface, all of the diodes can act as moonlights.

Wrapping up our examination of the image, we also see a tab at the top for “Pump Control”. We don’t assume that the hardware portion of the 7097 Multicontroller can control both lights and pumps simultaneously, and we are guessing that the pump tab is merely the software used for the 7096 controller, which was designed to control compatible Tunze Stream and Nanostream pumps. But wouldn’t it be great if you could control your pump speed based on the settings of the LED fixtures? Even if that doesn’t happen, it’s still nice to see all of the software coming bundled together as one.

Remember all of those articles we published on rare deepwater fish from Curacao and other exotic places? Well, those deepwater collecting techniques and the resulting super rare fish happen to be one of the focuses of the second episode of Fish Tank Kings, and we couldn’t be more excited. We were privileged enough to get a special private airing of the new episode a couple of days ago, which doesn’t officially air until this Saturday, and without spoiling it for the rest of you, we wanted to share a little bit of what’s viewers are going to see. Hands down, this is going to be an amazing episode that many of you will enjoy. Besides the deepwater collecting, the second episode of Fish Tank Kings also features a huge shark tank build that takes place within an extremely narrow time frame. Will the guys from Living Color Aquariums get the tank built in time? Will they collect some amazingly rare deepwater fish? Obviously you’ll have to tune in on Saturday to find out all of the details, but we can share a few of those with you.

The owner of Living Color Aquariums, Matt, gets a unique request from Allan Marshall of the Florida Aquarium to help spruce up an unpopular exhibit at the aquarium. The tank gets the deepwater treatment, and in order to make the attraction really unique, Allan asks Matt to tag along with him on a trip to Curacao. There, they hook up with Dutch Shrier, the founder of the Curacao Sea Aquarium and the owner of a very unique and expensive submarine. During their stay, Matt, Allan, and Dutch hop in the $2 million submarine and hit depths greater than 800 feet in their hunt for rare fish. So, what did the guys catch? In total, over 20 specimen were collected, which include the Pugnose Bass (Bullisichthys caribbaeus) and the very rare Sabre Goby (Antilligobius nikkiae). We even get a brief appearance by the Spanish Flag (Gonioplectrus hispanus), which wasn’t actually collected during the trip but it did get some air time.

Besides getting to see the very awesome deepwater collecting via submersible, we also get a peak at how those fish are brought to the surface. Because fish are affected by decompression issues just like humans, they can’t be brought straight to the surface after being collected in deep waters. Usually, when collectors dawn SCUBA gear and net these fish, they have to make decompression stops along the way, often puncturing the swim bladder of the fish to prevent it from expanding too much. But for collecting fish at 800 feet, a different technique has to be employed. When the fish is sucked into the sub, they are sent to individual collecting containers. As the submersible ascends, the operators actually drop the canisters of fish off at predetermined depths, where they stay overnight. The next day, divers come in and move the fish to a shallower depth, and continue to do this over the period of a couple of days until the fish has been successfully brought to the water’s surface. For the deepwater collecting led by Dutch Shrier, this method has proven to be very successful time and time again.

Like we mentioned above, we’re very excited about this episode of Fish Tank Kings and we strongly encourage you to tune. Interestingly enough, the series premiere of the show, which featured the huge aquariums at the Miami Marlins ballpark, wasn’t the episode that the guys from Living Color Aquariums wanted to show off first, and this second episode more than makes up for that. Additionally, we’re told that the rest of the episodes will be more exciting like the second episode, and the guys at Living Color encourage everyone to stick around for those much better shows.

We also wanted to thank Francis Yupangco, the “Fish Nerd” at Living Color, for sending us the footage from the second episode and keeping us informed about this exciting television show.

It may be fun purchasing up all sorts of inexpensive aquarium livestock when first setting everything up, but keep in mind what these purchases will be like a year or more down the road. For example, damselfish are very popular among new aquarists. They are very hardy, and are often quite colorful and entertaining to watch. Unfortunately, they can essentially turn into demons of your aquarium, bullying other fish and killing more expensive and delicate animals. For new coral keepers, Anthelia and Kenya Trees are often purchased. These are usually very, very cheap (sometimes free) and they grow like crazy. This is a welcome site to the new coral keeper, but in a few months time, these corals can dominate a display and be a pain to remove once the hobbyist develops a taste for other types of coral. So, with every purchase, consider how the animal will be in the future.

The very ambitious Banggai Rescue Project, whose primary goal is to study and breed Banggai cardinalfish (Pterapogon kauderni) in an effort to bolster their wild populations, is in full swing, with the first expedition to Indonesia set for next month. In preparation for the trip, a group of eight scientists has been rounded up (though not all will make the journey), with the team consisting of marine aquaculturists, marine fisheries scientists, and aquatic verterinarians. The team will primarily be based out of the University of Florida Tropical Aquaculture Laboratory (abbreviated UF/TAL) in Ruskin, Florida, though some of the team members are based out of Bali, Indonesia.

Members of the group include:

• Craig A. Watson, M.Aq., director and research coordinator at UF/TAL
• Matthew L. Wittenrich, Ph.D., a larval fish physiologist also at UF/TAL and renowned breeder of marine ornamental species
• Roy Yanong, V.M.D., an aquatic animal veterinarian and a long-time tropical fish enthusiast working with UF/TAL
• Eric Cassiano, M.Sc., a marine biologist with an interest in marine ornamental fish larvaculture
• Tom Waltzek, VMD, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher and aquatic veterinary virologist

In addition to those five, three are located in Indonesia:

• Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley, a marine conservation and fisheries expert and founder of LINI, the Indonesian Nature Foundation
• Yunaldi Yahya, M.Sc., an experienced Indonesian fisheries scientists specializing in reef monitoring, fish identification, and reef survey methodologies
• Ketut Mahardika Ph.D., a fish pathologist working with The Gondol Research Institute for Mariculture

Of the 5 US-based members of the Banggai Rescue Project science team, Drs. Matt Wittenrich and Roy Yanong will be making the trip to Indonesia. Tagging along for the ride will be CORAL Senior Editor Ret Talbot, as he is the embedded writer with the expedition.

For more details on the upcoming trip, as well as in-depth bios of each team member, be sure to visit the Banggai Rescue Project Blog.

Tunze has been quite busy over the past several months gearing up for this recent onslaught of new aquarium equipment. Their latest products, which are currently on display at Interzoo, consist of a pair of new internal filters that are being added to a long standing line of Tunze Comline Filters. The two newest additions, the Comline Filter 3162 and Streamfilter 3163, are merely updated additions to that lineup and don’t appear to be replacing anything in particular. Only two new models are will be released at this point, with both getting a tank rating of 15 – 105 gallons for freshwater or marine aquaria. Additionally, both have very similar hardware, with the only difference between the two being the pump. While the Filter has a simple pump with a narrow outlet, the Streamfilter actually has a Tunze Nanostream built into the bottom which offers more water flow in a wider pattern.

With the Comline, water is pulled in from two sources: the top and bottom of the filter. The surface skimming obviously pulls in oils and proteins that have accumulated at the surface of the water, while the  bottom opening draws in larger particles and other substance. The water is then run through a couple of layers of media, which can be customized to the hobbyist’s liking, and expelled back into the aquarium.

Magnet mounting hardware secures the Comline equipment to the side of the aquarium, with both models capable of handling glass up to a half inch thick. A heater section is also built into the filter, which can accommodate heaters up to 75watts, and a port is built in that allows for an easy hookup the Tunze Osmolator products.

Both filters are priced under $70 and we’re expecting a release date sometime later this summer, though we haven’t technically received the official word.