Reefkeeping South Africa » Reef Builders | The Reef and Marine Aquarium Blog

First look at the Hydro Wizard Small in development by Panta Rhei

Posted: January 31st, 2012, 11:02pm CST by Jake Adams

If the Hydro Wizard Medium is a pump for the 1% of reefers then maybe the Hydro Wizard Small might be one for 10% of us. A prototype of the Hydro Wizard Small does not yet exist in real life but that hasn’t stopped us from siphoning some information about Panta Rhei’s next water mover which is likely to find a home in more reef tanks than even fish tanks that could use some serious flow.

The Hydro Wizard Small propeller water pump from Panta Rhei is being engineered to push 3500 gallons per hour while only consuming only 20 watts. The kind of efficiency that the Hydro Wizard Small is aiming for is impressive but even more so when you consider that they are trying to pack it into a tiny package of 6 cm (2.5 inches) in diameter and 7 cm (2.75 inches) long!

Of course the true value of the Hydro Wizard Small will boil down to how much it costs but at least there is some discussion of making a dumb version which will only throttle speed, great for the coral farmers and hopefully cheaper too. If all goes according to schedule (it never does) we may see the Hydro Wizard Small hitting the aquarium scene at the end of the summer.
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Red Sea reef fish beginning to trickle back into the aquarium trade

Posted: January 31st, 2012, 10:13pm CST by Jake Adams

Sunrise dottyback, Pseudochromis flavivertex. Photo Russo's Reef

Red Sea reef fish were the pinnacle of aquarium fish provenance when we started keeping a marine aquariums in the nineties. For a decade orchid dottybacks, red sea pearlscale butterflyfish, broomtail wrasses and bicinctus clownfish seemed like staple aquarium fish that would be around forever. Although orchid dottybacks have persisted in the hobby, nothing compares to wild caught Pseudochromis fridmani and the other fish mostly disappeared from the aquarium scene about five years ago.

During that time we could still get purple and sohal tangs and some golden butterflyfish here and there but the majority of reef fish from the Red Sea catalog were simply not to be had. During parts of last year we began to see sporadic imports of other Red Sea reef fish, showing up in Asia as routed through Singapore but now it appears American reef fish enthusiasts will once again be able to enjoy the piscine fruits of the Red Sea once more thanks to Russo’s Reef.

You’ve seen the eight-line flasher wrasses and other Red Sea fish make brief appearances on the Diver’s Den and other fine fish stores in the U.S. but customers of Russo’s Reef may be the first to be able to enjoy gems from the Red Sea imported directly to New York. Check out the small sampling of Red Sea reef fish that Russo has already succeeded in bringing in this year and we look forward to Joe pulling some strings to get even more exotic Red Sea fish. Cirrhilabrus blatteus anyone?

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Deep Sea Aquatics Neo Storm getting video setup walkthrough

Posted: January 31st, 2012, 8:41pm CST by Brian Blank

Click here to view the embedded video.

A few years ago we were impressed with Deep Sea Aquatics’ Neo Nano and were happy to hear about the big brother coming out in the last part of 2011. While we are hoping to get more details on this system, it appears the 50 gallon system also incorporates the innovative cascade filtration and design to increase water flow without the need for a crazy amount of pumps. We’ll keep digging around for more information on this bad boy but word on the street is it will cost you somewhere north of $1,500 USD but includes the tank and stand, sump, return pump and T5 lighting.
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Acanthurus polyzona, a little known species similar to convict tangs

Posted: January 31st, 2012, 6:54pm CST by Tea Yi Kai

A gorgeous picture of Acanthurus polyzona showing off the unique markings on its face. Picture taken by Philippe Bourjon in the Reunion islands.

Acanthurus polyzona is a very seldom seen fish that closely resembles the obscenely common Acanthurus triostegus, more commonly known as the Convict Tang. Unlike the Convict Tang, A. polyzona is a Western Indian Ocean species and can be found in Mauritius, Madagascar, the Reunion islands and surrounding locales. Divergence and speciation probably accounted for the stark similarity in the two species and the un-overlapping ranges, as can also be seen in many reef fishes.

Acanthurus polyzona is a beautiful species of surgeonfish which has more vertical barring compared to the ubiquitous Convict Tang. The barring is thicker, and the fish also sports the occasional exotic facial markings as seen in the picture above. Despite the frequent collection of Mauritius fishes such as the Gem Tang, the very recent Piscilineatus flasher wrasse and a whole bunch of other new Mauritius fishes, we hardly ever see any A. polyzona being offered for sale. In fact, there hasn’t been any offered in the recent years as far as we know. It’s a shame that this very cool fish is overlooked in the wild, where it probably is pretty common. We hope to see some of these the next time a shipment from Mauritius is due.

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JBJ Unibody 36, 54 and 108 makes for one happy family of LED aquarium lights

Posted: January 31st, 2012, 6:33pm CST by Jake Adams

The JBJ Unibody 36 and Unibody 108 are smaller and larger iterations of the industrially machined LED reef light. The JBJ Unibody LED reef light hasn’t been shipping all that long but due to demand for the popular light, JBJ R&D is already moving forward with the pre-production of two new sizes with the Unibody 36 and the Unibody 108.

The JBJ Unibody 36 is a thirty six watt LED with a footprint of 8 x 4 inches which will be available with one channel of light control, but a dual channel driver can be paired up with it for $50 more. The JBJ Unibody 108 is the bruiser LED in the bunch with a footprint of 10 x 8 inches and paired up with a three-channel Trio driver box. Pricing for the Unibody 36 and 108 is still to be determined but if it’s anything like the original JB J Unibody 54, the smaller and larger lights should be very competitive in their relative size classes.
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