20140817 Waikiki Aquarium- Species tank exhibitions

Species tank, by definition- means the exhibition features, and often times, only contains one species of creature. Obviously often times you'd also see some supporting casts such as plants, cleaning crew, etc. But the best illustration is some of the standard public aquarium displays. Often times when you approach the tank you can tell that this is focused on only one animal.

 Above is the Hawaiian Green Sea Turtle display. As a research institute, Waikiki aquarium is able to house a pair of baby sea turtles. Outside of that, unless you have a license as researcher, you will face either cash penalty, jail time, or both, for not only housing them in your own aquarium but even to touch them in nature. By the way, they can touch you, but not the other way around. Sea Turtles are one of the most vulnerable part of the marine ecology. It plays an important role but many are now critically endangered due to human overfishing, pollution, and long-ling fishing accidental kills. They are thus deserve the strict laws to protect them. You can find Sea Turtle Law and Guidelines here.

Keeping Jelly fish seems to be on the rise in saltwater hobby. I have never kept them myself but I have done a lot of reading, and observed public aquariums' systems and maintenance processes. If kept successful, they can be very pleasing to observe. However, keeping jelly fish poses tremendous challenge- first, you must design and build special tank for the water to move in a circular motion. The current must be strong enough, but not too strong to wash them into the overflow. Now, speaking of overflow- because jellyfish has no "hard" body part, they are basically a sac of water. They can simply slip through opening of any size you might have. So it's very important to design the overflow to accommodate for this need. Lastly, they need food, lots of food almost on a constant basis - at least that's in the wild. At home aquarium, you must feed them several times a day with highly nutritious plankton matter. This means you must have a good filtration system to avoid water spoilage. Here is one of the many resources you can find for Jelly fish care online. You may also find some "kits" available for sale, my advise is to gear away from these. As the picture already is misleading- keeping other fish with Jelly fish, who are predators and are extremely toxic is a recipe for disaster. This vendor is obviously only out to get money without responsibly educating the care and needs of Jellyfish. They are not goldfish, one does not simply throw them into a circular tank with a pump to keep it alive (I mean seriously, the kit doesn't even come with a heater to regulate the water temperature?). Before you go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a Jellyfish kit like this one, please do enough research before you flush your money down the drain.

20140807 Two color maxima (Blue Chimera)

I have only heard of this in legends. Now you can own it! the elusive- blue- bicolor- chimera maxima clam at Pacific East Aquaclture- as long as you have $2500 to spare in your wallet. This is a catch, not only this is super rare, it is also a decent 5.5" size. Most maxims under 3" do not live long in captivity because they rely more on phytoplankton feeding than photosynthesis. But if you are a clam enthusiast like me, you cannot miss this clam!

Chimera maxima clam as seen on Pacific East Aquaculture

20140803 Waikiki Aquarium- Hawaiian Island Fish

The next exhibition after the show piece clams is the local species from the Hawaiian Islands tank. This tank also features natural sunlight with corals- the corals aren't as abundant, large, and colorful as the South Pacific display, but the fish in the tank is no less vibrant than that of the previous tank.

 In the photo above you can spot some of the more common fish in the N.American aquarium trade such as banner fish, anthias, cleaner wrass (should not be sold to individual owners), convict tangs, etc. But also many rare, expensive species- the masked angel, the Yellow pyramid butterflyfish, and the super expensive Bandit Angelfish (click on the link to see how much you should expect it to be)

 In this trip, the one fish that captured my attention is the blue line tang. To be honest, no responsible aquarium retail store should sell this fish to an average hobbyist. Because they can grow to an enormous size, as I have witnessed while snorkeling. But their beauty is truly unrivaled. This is the one fish I will not keep in my tank, but hoping to someday surround myself with when I move out to Hawaii.

Another look at the $1000 fish- the bandit angel.

20140729 Waikiki Aquarium 4- coral Extension

One of the most amazing things I've seen in Waikiki Aquarium is placing what we would normally consider "not reef safe" fish in their reef displays. Below is their South Pacific display with the mighty Gigas clam. You can see the beautiful table shelf acropora coral happily growing and extending with coral eating butterfly fish in the tank.

 This is a "smaller" tank (probably 1000 gallon) with anemone and clownfish display. Interesting enough- the tangs in this tank all look very beat up. They don't look unhealthy, just really beat up, I am guessing from all the clowns (very aggressive and territorial) and probably tangs beat each other up among themselves.

20140724 Waikiki Aquarium 3

My third installment of the Waikiki Aquarium post is the highlight of this facility- the 5,500 Gallon South Pacific Reef tank

 The reason this is the highlight of the facility- well, I think the photos speak for themselves. I guarantee you will not find happier captive fish, coral, anemone, and clams happier than this place. I have visited many high-profile public aquariums in my life. And none of these public aquariums with admission up to 6X the price of this place hosts healthier and happier livestock than this small aquarium.

 The pair of Tridacna Gigas here is the world's oldest, and largest captive grown giant clams. Please also observe the amount of hard and soft corals surrounding it. Also, the tanks houses a large variety of both common and rare marine fish.

 Once again, the tank is lit primarily with natural sunlight with a few 1000W metal halide lights supplementing the light.

Because of the size of this system, once again, it houses many of the species we would normally deem "not reef safe", yet none of them are nipping the corals!

20140719 Waikiki Aquarium 2

Part II of the Waikiki Aquarium tour today-
I've already said this was where I first fell in love with the hobby. But the true reason I fell in love with it was because of its clam display. The setting is a bit different now than before as they have moves some of the larger "small clams" to an outdoor display (to come later). But they still host a variety of beautiful "small" giant clams. Such as these three tridacna squamosa in a reef tank with some of the happiest soft and large polyp stony corals I've ever seen

 Here is another Long nose hawk, not as large as the display by the entrance but equally as adorable

 Another squamosa under the light. I also want to point out that almost ALL reef system aquariums here are exposed to actual natural sunlight with supplemented 1000W metal halide bulbs- you cannot beat this lighting environment.

With huge system capacity and space, you can clearly tell that you can break a lot of the "rules" on what's reef safe and what isn't. For example, normally people would not consider harlequin tusk wrasse nor copper-banded butterfly "reef safe". But you can see that they are not only thriving in this system, but so are the corals!

 An illustration of how "happy" corals should look like, look at the tissue extension on all of them! And the water seems really bubbly because of the unique "surge" tank system Waikiki Aquarium invented to provide natural, life-like surges for the best of corals' health and oxygenation.

20140717 Waikiki Aquarium part 1

This is the birthplace of my aquarium hobby. Ten years ago I came to this aquarium and fell in love with all reef dwelling creatures. Ten years later I love these reef animals just as much, but with much more respect.

 The Waikiki aquarium has been one of the leading research and educational facilities in marine biology. Unlike most aquariums in the mainland focuses on tourism with unnecessary dolphin or beluga whale shows, not to mention over priced admission- The Waikiki aquarium charges a very reasonable $12 / adult admission with optional audio tour included at no additional cost.

This is a very happy long nose hawkfish living in the display tank by the entrance. It's the largest long nose hawk I've ever seen, over 5" and very perky. This tank also features several butterfly fish (you can see the long nose in the background) that does not touch the corals at all.