divers.neaq.orgGiant Ocean Tank Divers Blog

New England Aquarium MembershipDonate Host an Event Shop Buy Tickets Visit Exhibits Learn Support Get Involved Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life 6/16/16 Myrtle Loves Shell Scratches Did you know our sea turtles get back scratches? Myrtle especially seems to really enjoy a shell scratch. Sometimes the divers rub a shell on her back, other times she finds a way to scratch that itch herself. Anyone who’s clicked around on the internet has likely seen funny videos of little turtles getting their shell scratched by a toothbrush or their keeper’s fingernails . In fact, turtles do have nerve endings in their shells and a scratch seems to feel good. Our big sea turtles are no exception! So the next time you visit and you see one of the turtles shimmying their shell under a finger of coral, now you’ll know they’re just enjoying a good back scratch. Learn more about Myrtle on the Divers Blog. See a photo of her Merry Christmas back scratch Check out some beautiful pictures of Myrtle shot by photographer Esther Horvath Find out what Myrtle eats for her Thanksgiving feast Watch outtakes from Myrtle’s TV campaign Posted by NEAQ at 11:51 AM 0 comments Labels: back scratch , myrtle , sea turtle week , video 4/29/16 Dispatches from Quincy: Hatching a surprise This is a guest post from Shannon Mahoney, an aquarist working in our off-site Animal Care Center in Quincy, Mass. She helps care for animals before they go on exhibit. In this post, she explains how the Quincy team also rears larval fish from eggs laid in the exhibits on Central Wharf. Every so often we add new fishes to the Giant Ocean Tank and each of them usually has a unique story about how they arrived at the New England Aquarium. Some are from our Bahamas expeditions , some are Gulf Stream orphans , and some of the newest additions are actually returning to the GOT , now as juvenile fish that we reared from eggs harvested from the tank nearly a year ago. Giant Ocean Tank But let’s take a step back and talk about fish and their eggs. Almost all marine fishes release eggs that develop and hatch while exposed to the elements of the ocean. You can find some exceptions to that rule at the Aquarium, like live-bearing lined seahorses , but the majority of the fishes at the Aquarium are either pelagic spawners that release eggs into the water column, or demersal spawners that lay eggs on some kind of object or substrate in the tank. Blue chromis | Photo: Mark Rosenstein On June 7, 2015, GOT divers came across a demersal egg nest” at the bottom of the tank that was being defended by blue chromis. We are in the early stages of developing a larval rearing program at NEAq and blue chromis are high on the list of desired species to raise in house, so we were all very excited to hear the news of a fresh nest. The nest was transported to our offsite facility where we have dedicated space for special larval rearing tanks and to culture live foods for larval fish. The eggs are super tiny and super sticky so they attach to individual sand grains as you can see below. See the tiny, round eggs sticking to the grains of sand? It takes a lot of trial and error to figure out the best method to raise larval fish because every species can have different temperature, light and food preferences. Because of this we take careful notes of everything, and we try to take a lot of pictures to track the growth of the larvae. About 10 days after hatching we noticed dorsal spines developing on the larvae that were definitely not chromis-like. We started to wonder whether we actually had blue chromis growing in our tanks. Day 7 after hatching, the tiny dorsal spine is appearing By Day 12, there was no more wondering. It was pretty clear we had some kind of filefish. There are five species of filefish swimming around in the GOT ( including orange filefish ), so we weren’t completely sure which one we had until 65 days after hatching. By then the larvae were large enough so we could count the number of fin rays and confirm they were planehead filefish! Even though they weren’t the blue chromis we were aiming to grow, this was the first time that anyone has successfully raised planehead filefish from eggs! Day 22 Day 32 We think the nest collected from the GOT last June was most likely a combined planehead filefish and blue chromis nest and the planeheads out-competed the chromis larvae for food early on in the game. Blue chromis are fairly small fish, but they make up for their small size with their aggressive temperament. Planehead filefish on the other hand are one of the more friendly species in the GOT, which makes us think the planehead filefish probably laid their nest first, then the blue chromis took the space over for their eggs and stayed to defend their nest. A couple weeks after collecting the eggs, one of the GOT divers was able to take the video below of two planehead filefish laying a nest and you can see how difficult it can be sometimes to find a quiet spot in the GOT to lay some eggs. We ended up with 64 juvenile planehead filefish and just recently put four of them back in the GOT. The remaining 60 animals were sent to other zoos and aquariums all over the country so other visitors can observe and learn about this species. In the years to come, our goal is to exhibit more and more fish that came from our breeding program, so stay tuned for more success stories like this one! One of the new additions just before being released from its acclimation pen into the GOT general population Posted by NEAQ at 2:13 PM 0 comments Labels: chromis , eggs , filefish , larvae , Quincy , shannon 3/8/16 Celebrating National Pig Day, Aquarium-Style There’s a holiday for everything—pancakes, dragons, and lots and lots of animals. You might think that the Aquarium can’t recognize the more terrestrial animals. But you’d be wrong. For National Pig Day, we honored the hogfish and porkfish in the Giant Ocean Tank! In this video you can spot several types of hogfishes and the porkfish. Hogfishes are in the wrasse family, three species are featured in our tank. Spotfin hogfish are red and yellow and Spanish hogfish are purple and yellow. Both species act as cleaner fish as juveniles, snacking on larger fish’s dead skin and ectoparasites. There are also several large hogfish that are pinkish in color. The largest in the tank is a super male and the smaller hogs are females in the harem. This species is hermaphroditic, meaning that the largest female can turn into a male if the super male dies or moves to another reef. You can spot the porkfish by their striking yellow and black colors. This species of fish is in the grunt family. Grunts get their name because they make a grunting sound when their grinding teeth deep in their throats are amplified by their swim bladder. Hope you had a Happy National Pig Day — Aquarium style! Celebrating other holidays at the Aquarium: Appreciate a Dragon ! Divers at Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Treats for the Seals Posted by NEAQ at 2:03 PM 0 comments Labels: animal_holiday , hogfish , porkfish , spanish hogfish , spotfin hogfish 2/12/16 Selfies with Scuba Divers Alfred Kyrollos is a volunteer who gives up most of his Saturdays to come to the Aquarium and help feed and care for the animals in the Giant Ocean Tank. In fact, we couldn’t care for an exhibit as large as the GOT without our volunteers! It turns out that he and his fellow volunteers have a lot of fun, too. In this post, Alfred explains how the Saturday Crew is very social—in more ways than one. If you have ever been to the Aquarium, you have undoubtedly stood in awe in front of the Giant Ocean Tank. 200,000 gallons of pure awesome, a pristine example of a Caribbean coral reef. But it doesn’t stay that way on its own. To keep this tank going you need an elite team of highly motivated and trained individuals. I call them my friends, but you might know them as the volunteers . Part of the Saturday crew, from left: Lindsay, Alfred, Lauren, Gabby Chances are...