November 29, 2009
It doesn’t readily occur to people that the aquatic creatures in ponds, lakes, rivers, what have you, live the same way that we do – on energy from the sun. It’s easy to look down into the gloomy half-dark world they inhabit and to feel that in an aquarium, they could not want anything more than to be kept in a dark corner all the time and be blinded with bright lights when guests need to see how the light bounces off their iridescent scales. As it turns out, fish and all the pretty plants in an aquarium don’t quite work that way.
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November 29, 2009
You’ve probably seen live rock in all the most elegant saltwater aquariums you remember. They sell aquarium live rock in all the better aquarium supplies stores: pieces of undersea coral reef broken off through the natural action of the sea, picked up by divers for use in aquaria. Coral reefs are made of a very porous substance. The ocean’s underwater environment is filled with tiny creatures, crabs, crustaceans, algae and myriad other life forms that make their home in the little pores, nooks and crannies of these reefs. When a piece breaks off and is fished up by people for use in aquaria, these rocks come with all the life that fills their entire structure; hence the name, live rock.
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