wishlist: misc gorgonians/sea whips/sea fans

another species i'd like to add to our tank are the gorgonians.  while snorkeling off the coast of isla roatan, honduras we saw an abundance of fairly large fuchsia lace sea fans + large polyp purple sea whips + yellow-orange gorgonian bunches in the tiny little stretch of reef we visited.  i think the vibrant, contrasting skin/rind + polyps would make an excellent addition AND would, again, help increase the diversity in the tank's ecosystem.  they are infrequently stocked @ our LFS's so i'll have to keep my eyes peeled...

WISHLIST: MISC SPONGES + TUNICATES/SEA SQUIRTS

we've had hitchhiker sponges (like those illustrated above - bottom left) from the beginning (back in 15g MINI-REEF days), but always got the typical white or red-orange varieties. however, we recently acquired an sps colony w/ a blue sponge on it that's quickly spreading AND an red-orange tunicate colony on our new pagoda cup coral, which i'm very excited about since sponges + tunicates help diversify the tank ecosystem.  hopefully, we'll run across more sponges @ our LFS to add to our happy little (sps) stick collection.

WISHLIST: SPIRAL CORAL

gorgeous spiral coral specimen available @ live aquaria's diver's den!  it's green w/ yellow polyps.  they say it's a mari-cultured piece so i'd like to assume little impact on the black corals in the wild.  gotta' save up for it since it's fairly expensive.  hopefully, in a month or two we'll have our very own spiral to share w/ you.

illegal black Coral shipment seized by us Customs Officials

Recently I posted about my discovery of black coral and the dilemma I was facing on whether or not I could in good conscious buy a living specimen for our tank.  Just this week black coral made headlines with this smuggling bust by the US Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Two Taiwanese nationals pleaded guilty today in federal court in the U.S. Virgin Islands for conspiracy to ship internationally protected black coral into the United States in violation of federal wildlife statutes, the Department of Justice announced.

According to plea agreements filed with the court, the Chus ran a business named Peng Chia Enterprise Co. Ltd. that supplied materials including black coral to customers outside of Taiwan for jewelry design and manufacture. At times prior to 2007, the Chus were issued CITES export permits by the Taiwanese government in order to ship black coral overseas. Since 2007, however, they have been unable to obtain permits because they are unable to produce a legitimate certificate of origin.

Kingman Reef

Today while watching a rerun of the Discovery series Wild Pacific I was amazed by one segment where they focused on the waters surrounding Kingman Reef. 

Check out this National Geographic article An Uneasy Eden about Kingman Reef and don’t miss the photo gallery.

For more quick facts about Kingman Reef and what I thought was an interesting short documentary read more after the jump.

Black Coral

Over the past several months LiveAquaria.com has been featuring Spiral Wire (Cirrhipathes spiralis) corals in their Divers Den “New Arrivals” section.  As soon as I saw them I was hooked, I had never before seen these colorful uniquely shaped corals for sale or in any saltwater aquarium.  I needed one for our tank but first I wanted to read up on it to make sure it was something that we could keep alive.  I assumed the Spiral Wire coral was a type of gorgonian which worried me because we haven’t had the best of luck with our previous gorgonians. 

A few weeks went by and I kept seeing Spirals pop up on the New Arrivals list but I never got around to researching them.   I was way too busy at work trying to make sure all the loose ends were wrapped up before Mercedes had to head out on our cruise to the Western Caribbean.

 

While on our cruise we made a stop in Roatan, Honduras where we did a little snorkeling.  Several of our tour guides made references to “Black Coral” and how we should be extra vigilant while snorkeling not to disturb any of it and not to buy any black coral jewelry in town.  I had never heard of black coral before so I wasn’t sure what I was looking for underwater, I just made sure not to touch anything.

Once we got back home to Seattle I had two things on my mind; researching the Spiral Wire coral so I could make one mine and to figure out what exactly black coral was and how it was different then “regular coral”.  As it turns out the Spiral Wire coral is a type of black coral.

MARCH INVENTORY

croceas: ube + ube-doobay	green stylo
pink (chalice) echinophyllia	orange w/ lime-green polyps (sunset) montipora
green (pagoda cup) turbinaria	purple-tip plana acro
lime-green unknown acro	neon-green unknown acro
firecracker dendros	purple w/ purple polyps (purple haze) montipora
red selago acro	blue unknown stag acro
green w/ pink tip (elegance) catalaphyllia	purple w/ neon-purple polyp montipora
yellow-polyp (scroll) turbinaria	lime-green w/ pink/orange polyps (firetip) monti
pink w/ lime-green tips (bird's nest) seriatopora	tan w/ green polyps carolina acro
green w/ blue tips nana acro	neon-green unknown acro
orange w/ neon-green center (brain) lobophyllia	blue w/ green polyps (rommel's exotic blue) acro
red (brain) lobophyllia	purple lokani acro
red w/ white polyps (chili coral) alcyonium	neon-green w/ neon-green polyps (green slimer) acro
green w/ pink polyps (meteor shower) cyphastrea	sea foam green w/ blue-rim unknown acro + green slimer
green w/ purple-mouth (plate) fungia	neon-green (candycane) caulastrea
orange montipora	pink panther + blue zoos
purple w/ lime-green tips unknown acro	green w/ pink-tip (hammer) euphyllia
blue w/ red polyps (superman) montipora	silver/blue xenia
yellow w/ blue polyps montipora	green blastomusa
yellow unknown millepora	neon-green polyp (pipe organ) tubipora musica
blue w/ green polyps unknown acro	orange (rainbow) acan
green w/ blue tips (chip's) acro	yellow w/ pink polyp (pink lemonade) acro
purple w/ green-rim (chalice) echinophyllia	blue/grey (titanium) lokani
lime-green (supernatural) montipora	blue (hawkins) echinata acro
white bubble anemone	red (rose) millepora
green w/ pink polyps (meteor shower) cyphastrea	purple tort acro
orange acan	green (frogspawn) euphyllia
pink acan	green montipora
green w/ brown polyps (spongode) montipora