Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Big Tank Aquarium fishes

I have gathered a little collection of Big Tank aquarium fishes, and I also threw in a picture of a big mussel and an anemone :) They are all taken through glass walls in a big tank at Bergen Aquarium.

Black Back Butterflyfish
Feeding almost exclusively of soft corals as Sarcophyton and Synularia, it is normally found in areas with a good cover of those corals. They live in pairs or small groups and they habitat flat reefs or reef fronts in the  Indo-Pacific and Red sea.

Sohal Tang
In the wild this fish feeds predominantly on reef algae and weeds. A fully grown adult can attain a length of 40cm (16 inches). The natural habitat of the Sohal Tang is the reef plateau of the Red Sea, Arabian Sea and Arabian Gulf at depths usually less than 18m (60 feet).


Orangeband Surgeonfish
The Orangeband Surgeonfish mainly feeds on zooplankton and algae. They can reach a length of 35cm and their natural habitat is reef fronts with bare rock, rubble and sand. They are typically found on depths from 9 - 46 m . Juveniles are found in protected bays and lagoons. The Orangeband Surgeonfish is found in the Indo-Pacific Ocean, to the Hawaii, and north to Japan and also off the north west coast of Western Australia.

Sailfin Tang
A sailfin tang can reach 40 cm (16 in) in length. They primarily feed on macroalgae and seaweed, and brine shrimp on occasion. Their habitat is coral and rock reefs in the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and Red Sea. Young sailfin tangs are found alone around corals and rocks in strong currents. Adults usually are found in pairs.

Mussel

Schooling Bannerfish
The Schooling Bannerfish, also called False Moorish Idol, grows to about 18cm lenght. Their diet is mostly zooplankton. You can find them from the Red Sea and the east coast of Africa to Hawaii, and they often gather in large groups. They are often found swimming above thee reef or near the reef slope.

Lamarck's Angelfish
The Genicanthus Lamarck, or Blackstripe Angelfish, is naturally found along the coral reefs in Indonesia, from Solomon Islands, North Coast Australia, via Thailand and Vietnam and as far north as the southern tip of Japan. It can be 25cm long, have no natural predators and feed on phytoplankton. The male has a yellow spot on the forehead and longer tail fin. The female has a slightly more pronounced black line, often extending into the tail fin.

Queen Angelfish
The Queen angelfish lives in the Western Atlantic and Eastern Central Atlantic. It inhabits coral reefs and it lives alone or in pairs. The depth range is 1-70m. It is especially fond of stony reef building corals like Acopora and reefs with prolific populations of Porifera sponges. The longest individ found, measured 45cm. In the wild, the Queen angelfish feeds mainly on sponges, but it will also eat a certain amount of algae, plankton, jellyfish, hydroids, tunicates and bryozoans.

Convict Tang
The Convict tang, or Convict surgeonfish as it is also called, is a schooling surgeonfish. In the wild they can be found in schools of thousands of fish. It is an herbivore fish that feeds on benthic algae in the wild. Benthic algae are algae that grow on the bottom of the sea. A Convict Tang can reach 25cm, but usually they are smaller. The geographical range of this tang stretches all the way from eastern Africa to the lower Gulf of California and western coast of Central America.

Blueface Angelfish
Also known as the Yellowfaced Angelfish or Yellow Mask Angel Fish. It is from the family Pomacanthidae, and was first described by Bleeker in 1853. It is found in the Indian Ocean from the west coast of Africa north of the Maldives, east to Vanuatu and further north towards Japan. They live alone as juveniles. Adults usually also live alone, but sometimes in pairs. The young fishes prefer sheltered caves whereas the adults favours lagoons, outer reef slopes and channels at depths from 5-45m, and is often found among rocks and near caves. They eat sponges, tunicates, etc, and sometimes algae. An adult fish may be close to 40cm long.

Foxface Rabbitfish
living in the western Pacific Ocean along the coral reefs and associated lagoons. They have this bright yellow color during the day, but at night, or when they are stressed, they can change to a dark, mottled brown color. They can be 25 cm long and eat algae and other vegetation. The fins of the fish is poisonous, and it can really hurt if you get a scratch from these.


Bluespine Unicornfish
In their natural habitat they are usually found at depths between 5 - 80 meters along outer reef walls. They rarely occur alone, rather they are usually seen in small schools in shallow moving waters of inner and outer reefs and canals. Juveniles occur in groups close to the reefs. In Hawaii they are used as a food fish. They are found throughout the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to Japan, the Rapa Islands, Hawaii, Tuamotu, and the Marquesas. The Bluespine Unicornfish, or Unicorn Tang, are primarily herbivores and feed mainly on leafy brown algae. A grown up can reach a length of up to 70 cm.

Anemone

Saturday, November 3, 2012

The Small Things in Nature

When you are wandering around in the nature, there are a lot of objects we don't see, or we don't notice - the smallest plants, straws, moss, etc. The following pictures are from one of my trips in the Norwegian mountains near Ustaoset.

Some kind of moss

Straw


Purple reindeer moss

Cotton grass


Some kind of mushroom