A surprsing and welcome new addition into the hobby today are tank raised Pinnatus Batfish. Like mandarins, they are another of the beautiful species known to have low survival rates, and these tank raised fish will allow knowledged hobbyists to add a beautiful new tankmate. On an important note however, these new captive raised arrivals are only 3" tall, it's important to keep them in a system that can adequately handle their adult height of 18". These new Pinnatus Batfish were imported by Pacific Aqua Farms, the same Los Angeles wholesaler who earlier this year received the famous Lightning Maroon Clownfish from New Guinea. Due to their rarity, these new tank raised fish will be few and far between as the breeder builds their numbers, and are making a very limited debut in the hobby. Very few Los Angeles fish stores have managed to procure a few fish, and they are making their first out-of-state appearance at Aquatouch in Phoenix, AZ. Continue reading

One of the perks of working as a rep at a good, coral based wholesaler is getting to see the huge variety of crazy corals that end up making their way into the hobby. On the other hand, one of the most unbelievably frustrating things about working with wholesale corals is seeing them get marked up 10,000% by unscrupulous hobbyist vendors. A lot of people think these hobbyists have great hidden connections, or that they pay huge amounts for them from online vendors, and for the most part these hobbyists are only too happy to let these myths go on. The simple fact is, some of the nicest corals in the hobby can be found at your local fish store. Some may need to be colored up which takes a trained eye, yet others are colored up, and priced, just fine. This is going to be a small pictorial of various corals that have passed through here in the last 30 days (aside from one or two older ones). Except for the first red mushroom that I just had to keep, the rest of these corals all went to physical LFS locations; local stores that rely on the support from... Continue reading

Editor's Note: this post introduces Miguel Toloso, a coral farmer and wholesaler saltwater livestock reseller from Los Angeles and a new author here at the Captive Aquatics blog. He is the owner of practicalcoralfarming.com. Rubber bands are so 2009... How do you ship fish and coral? Just about everyone shipping corals these days uses rubber bands to seal their bags. The biggest issue with rubber bands is that if the bags are hit hard enough they will leak, and if your the styrofoam cooler is leaking, the carrier usually delays or returns the shipment, which kills a lot of corals or fish. It's also really time consuming to bag up corals with rubber bands, and doing so for long enough will make for some pretty annoying blisters as well! Fortunately, there's a much better way that's not only faster and safer for the corals, but can save a lot of time and money! Heat sealers, normally called impulse sealers, seal bags with a thin metal filament covered by a strip of teflon. The metal strip melts the plastic together and creates a nearly impermeable seal if used correctly. Heat sealers are very easy to tune to the thickness of your... Continue reading