New Patio Pond

Indoor/outdoor living is more popular now than ever, especially in Florida's climate.  Rare is the home that doesn't have some type of designated outdoor living space. Many people designate significant time and resources to making their outdoor spaces just as comfortable and aesthetically appealing as the inside.  In addition to staples such as comfortable outdoor furniture, pleasant landscaping, insect control, etc., aquascapes are a fantastic way to add interest to your outdoor design.  Even in an apartment or condo, often neglected patio space can be made much more inviting because of the ambient sound, aquatic foliage, and even animal life a patio pond adds.

Sara H. is one of our experienced marine aquarists that doesn't keep freshwater fish and has never had a pond.  She is planning a makeover for her condo's screened lanai and wants to include a water garden.  She's planning one very small table top container water garden, and a roughly 2x3x2 above ground water feature with aquatic plants, fish, and a small waterfall.  With the help of a Tampa Bay Aquatics' aquaculturist and suggestions from our readers, she plans to get started this weekend.  Please feel free to contact us at tampaaquatics@gmail.com and share your thoughts, tips, and pictures of your aquascapes. We look forward to hearing from you.  

New updates

After a brief blogging hiatus in order to develop some new content, the group at Tampa Bay Aquatics is ready to begin sharing regular news, tips, expert advice, and much more aquatic hobby related information.  Visit us regularly for upcoming posts about a recent Costa Rica scuba diving trip, species identification in gulf waters, building easy to maintain patio ponds, tips for moving fish tanks, and more.

Seeding Base Rock

There is no question that this hobby we've chosen can consume a significant amount of our time, not to mention our money!  The group at Tampa Bay Aquatics is committed to using any cost saving measure we can as long as it doesn't compromise the well being of our livestock.  One of the many expensive parts of starting a new reef or fish only with live rock tank is the addition of the live rock.

 Though we fully understand why some make the choice to have artificial reefs, none of us are particularly fond of them or the look (they also tend to be expensive).  Therefore in all of our new systems, with live rock typically retailing from $4.00 to $9.00 a pound, we'd be looking at a fairly large investment for just the rock.  Base rock, however, typically retails for $1.50 to $3.00 a pound.  As such, we are all supporters of creating your own live rock by seeding base rock.  

Not only will you save a fair amount of money, another benefit is that you'll be able to have a much more custom look to your rock arrangement and can be more artistic with your design.  It's much easier to bring home a box of base rock and take it outside and start chiseling away to create the exact look you want where as with the live rock, you're stuck with what you can find.

As the question was recently posed by a new hobbyist, we'll take this opportunity to mention that you cannot simply add any rocks you find interesting from your back yard or the local park in your tank.  The specifics as to why are beyond the scope of this article and will be discussed at a later time, along with a tutorial on how to actually create safe, do it yourself, man-made rock.

In almost all of our new environments, we start with a couple of good pieces of live rock either purchased from a retailer or borrowed from one of our other tanks, and fill the rest with base rock.  With a little patience, the microscopic life from your live rocks will start to migrate and the bleached out plain white rocks will be teaming with new life at a fraction of the cost.

Pond Hobbyists

We would like to extend a sincere thank you to our early visitors.  While we've had a fair amount of discussion about marine environments, the aim of Tampa Bay Aquatics is to be a comprehensive resource for all aquatic hobbyists.  While we continue to build content, we would like to welcome ideas and submissions from those with an interest in or experience building ponds or water gardens.  We would especially like to see, and perhaps feature photos of your creations.  Please feel free to contact us at TampaAquatics@gmail.com.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Amanda's Updates

Progress!  Amanda’s tank is coming along nicely with the addition of live rock, and two damsel fish (the anemone was a 1 day temporary resident Aunt Sue was moving to another environment).  Once the kalkwasser trouble was resolved, the tank settled and cleared beautifully.  Once cleared up, it was obvious how poor the stock lighted hood that came with her tank kit was.  She purchased a new, inexpensive, much brighter LED light for just under $50.  While it made a significant difference to the visibility and beauty of the tank, it is only appropriate for a FOWLR (fish only with live rock) tank.  As Amanda intends to add corals at a later time, we would have advised spending the money now on reef appropriate lighting.  Even though it is a significantly higher expense, she’ll need to spend it at some point and she’ll be out the $50 on the light she bought now as she’ll have no use for it.  Hopefully they can make use of a site like Craigslist and re-coup some of the money when it is no longer needed.  Luckily, she won’t have to spend quite as much on a smaller light for a tank of this size than most of us do for our larger reef systems.  She’ll soon send detailed pictures of her fish.  Because of their popularity, we’ll be adding them as our first two “Spotlight Species”, a series where we’ll discuss individual aquatic species, from fish to inverts, in depth.  Check back soon for these additions.  As you can see, she's made quite a lot of progress since day 1!

Florida Aquarium Partners With National Aquarium of Cuba

 

Another relevant and exciting article from an August issue of the Tampa Bay Times.  It discusses groundbreaking cooperation between the United States’ Florida Aquarium, and the National Aquarium of Cuba to protect the world’s coral reefs.   Hopefully the Florida Aquarium's aquaculture research combined with the great work being done at the National Aquarium of Cuba will result in a strong further understanding of our reef ecosystems and how to prevent further damage to these "underwater rainforests."  Click HERE to read the article.  Click HERE to visit the Florida Aquarium website.  Click HERE to visit the National Aquarium of Cuba.  

Coral Bleaching

I recently read this article about Florida's coral reefs by Chelsea Harvey of the Washington Post that was picked up by the Tampa Bay Times.  She discusses this being a particularly bad year for coral bleaching due to rising ocean temperatures and a disease outbreak that is affecting the state's Atlantic barrier reefs.  There is a good summary of what happens during bleaching and how the reefs are disrupted.  Some of the threatened corals are over 400 years old.  Click HERE to read the article.  

Some coral along the Florida reef is afflicted with "white plague disease." A widespread bleaching event on the Florida reef tract has left coral vulnerable to disease. [Photo by Brian Walker via Washington Post]

Tampa Bay Aquatics would love the opportunity to feature your original photographs of Florida's reef ecosystems, or any US marine environments (full credit to the photographer).  If you have something to share, please submit to TampaAquatics@gmail.com.