Haven’t shown a picture in awhile. Here’s a picture of the 3 clams in my tank. 2 maxima clams and 1 crocea. The brown maxima is a teardrop (got it back when teardrops were all the rage) and was stoked when I picked it up for cheap. Nowadays, they’re pretty much everywhere…brown ones that is..but if you can get your hands on a color teardrop…wow!

The other maxima i picked up a few months ago for the unique tiger-stripe pattern. Really unique. The last clam is a crocea. Usually for me, croceas all look the same but this one had a nice edge color that runs along side the rim of the clam. So I couldn’t pass that one up.

While I was at the Long Beach Aquarium, this one tank caught my eye. We’re so used to having the same type of tanks that when you see something unique like a theme tank (didn’t someone have a lego tank before?), it’s pretty refreshing.

So this tank was to mimic an underwater environment at the pier. A great idea if you are looking in having a circular tank - just hide all the equipment in the middle so the fishes swim in circles would be cool).

Click the picture to enlarge!

So a few more pictures from my Long Beach Aquarium trip a few weeks ago. I’ve always wanted to see a sea turtle and was excited to finally see one..except that when I saw it, it was laying on the floor facing away. Came back an hour later and he was finally facing me! And to make up for it, he started to wake up and swim around. I’ve posted pictures and then I was actually able to get a video of it also! Check it out!

Wiki says: Giant sea bass were once a relatively common inhabitant of Southern California waters, yet in the 1980s it was facing the threat of local extinction off the California coast. Beginning in the late 1800s, the species supported both a commercial fishery taking hundreds of thousands of kg annually, and a sport fishery that also landed hundreds of fish each year. Spear fishermen also exploited the giant sea bass, first as free divers, and then after the mid 1950s using scuba gear. Often the divers would target the species when they moved into shallow water during the summer months to spawn. By the late 1970s, biologists with the California State Department of Fish and Game, recognized that the local population of giant sea bass was in serious trouble. Actions were taken, resulting in protection from commercial and sport fishing that went into effect in 1982. Yet for almost two decades encounters with giant sea bass were scarce. The giant sea bass reproduces slowly with a population doubling time of more than 14 years and is still listed as critically endangered.

So at the Long Beach Aquarium they had this one super tall tank so tall that you had to go on the 2nd level to view the top level of fishes. Inside were some YellowTail Tunas and 2 fishes that caught my eye right away. They were Giant Sea Bass! They just sorta lumbered around and looked like they belonged in the dinosaur ages. Luckily one was male and one was female so the aquarium have been trying to raise them to breed and etc to help the dwindling numbers in the ocean.

Here are the pictures of the giant tall tank and the giant sea basses.

From Wikipedia…

“The Japanese spider crab, Macrocheira kaempferi, is the largest living arthropod; fully grown it can reach a leg span of almost 4 m (13 feet), a body size of up to 37 cm (15 inches) and a weight of up to 20 kg (44 pounds). The crab’s natural habitat is on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean (some 300–400 m deep) around Japan, where it feeds on dead animals and shellfish. It is believed to have a life expectancy of up to 100 years”.

One of the more impressive displays I saw while at the aquarium was the Spider Crab. They had a tank with a handful of them and it was amazing the size of these crabs. The pictures below don’t capture the enormous sizes of these crabs compare to the ones we usually see. I kept on thinking “Deadliest Catch” from the Discovery Channel for some reason. haha.

They were somewhat active as one tried to climb the front part of the tank giving everyone a great look at how wide it can expand. The tank itself was pretty dark with a blue actinic light so I touched up the pictures a bit to bring out the colors of these spider crabs. I was so mesmorized by this tank that after I went through the aquarium, I came back to look at them again.

I went to the Long Beach Aquarium this weekend. What a great place. I took over 300 pictures that I’ll be sharing for awhile. haha. Also, going on the weekend is complete chaos. so many kids running around and it was like a stroller convention there. more pictures to come soon….