Ladies and Gentlemen,
I was reading the Reefkeeping magazine online and noticed that Paul Whitby was a feature article in it. I've caught a couple of his articles, including his featured tank. I still remember seeing his posts trying to get the acrylic to work out just right and Gary Walker helping him out. All the articles and accomplishments were very impressive.
I read these articles from my home in Okinawa, Japan. So for those of you wondering what kind of impact COMAS is having, it's in the aquarium community as a whole!
I used to be a member of COMAS when I lived in OKC, and had to drop membership cause of my move. I don't know if I'll ever move back to that part of the world, but it's good to hear that COMAS is doing good things and going strong.
They started a new thread here on the island for Okinawa. It caters those who speak English, but it also offers a lot of good answers for tough issues hitting those with aquariums.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?daysprune=&forumid=389
Since you are able to share the things going on in OKC, here are some cool things in the aquarium community going on in my corner of the world:
First of all, Okinawa is a reef island with lots of interesting dive locations all around the 60 mile island. So much of the things we see in aquarium stores, I can see in the wild when I go snorkeling. I have seen unicorn tangs, pairs of Moorish idol, various kinds of butterfly fish, sea snakes, lanke starfish, lionfish, and 100's of kinds of corals. And that's just snorkeling--lots more out where the divers go. A co-worker told me that he was diving the other day and saw an 8ft shark in 100ft of water.
The Churaumi Aquarium on Okinawa is one of the largest in the world. The youtube link below shows their feature aquarium. It has the largest single piece of plexi-glass in the world. It is about two stories tall about I would estimate about a 100ft long. Inside they showcase lots of skates, rays, tuna, and two whale sharks. It's very impressive to go there and see these docile animals swimming around.
There is a trick to their aquarium, they are located along the coast where they actually have a steady stream of new salt water pumped in.
Yes there are some perks to living on the island here. As you can imagine, it's illegal to collect these animals without a commercial fishing license. I have found it much cheaper and easier to go to the Japanese aquarium store down the road. The man that owns it also catches his own fish with a net. As far as prices go, here is a rough hack of what I have paid, or what they charge:
$9 Racoon Butterfly fish
$7 Sailfin Tang
$9 Moorish Idol
$30 Emperior Angel
$8 Clown fish
Keep in mind, Japan is not a poor country as lots of people think is typical of Asian countries. They are something like #5 in the world economy. When I told the owner about how much we pay for our fish in Oklahoma he laughed and was floored. Of course those in Oklahoma have to pay for an airline ticket for their fish to OKC.
Please let me know if anyone needs actual ocean water measurements for their aqurium or if you have any other questions I can research. It's Sunday morning time for church here--Saturday evening back in OKC. We'll keep the day starting for you on this side of the world.
Cheers,
Don Baker
http://www.kaiyouhaku.com/en/index.html
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=VFrPoe8LwnU
http://www.chample.tv/churaumi/index_en.html
I was reading the Reefkeeping magazine online and noticed that Paul Whitby was a feature article in it. I've caught a couple of his articles, including his featured tank. I still remember seeing his posts trying to get the acrylic to work out just right and Gary Walker helping him out. All the articles and accomplishments were very impressive.
I read these articles from my home in Okinawa, Japan. So for those of you wondering what kind of impact COMAS is having, it's in the aquarium community as a whole!
I used to be a member of COMAS when I lived in OKC, and had to drop membership cause of my move. I don't know if I'll ever move back to that part of the world, but it's good to hear that COMAS is doing good things and going strong.
They started a new thread here on the island for Okinawa. It caters those who speak English, but it also offers a lot of good answers for tough issues hitting those with aquariums.
http://reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?daysprune=&forumid=389
Since you are able to share the things going on in OKC, here are some cool things in the aquarium community going on in my corner of the world:
First of all, Okinawa is a reef island with lots of interesting dive locations all around the 60 mile island. So much of the things we see in aquarium stores, I can see in the wild when I go snorkeling. I have seen unicorn tangs, pairs of Moorish idol, various kinds of butterfly fish, sea snakes, lanke starfish, lionfish, and 100's of kinds of corals. And that's just snorkeling--lots more out where the divers go. A co-worker told me that he was diving the other day and saw an 8ft shark in 100ft of water.
The Churaumi Aquarium on Okinawa is one of the largest in the world. The youtube link below shows their feature aquarium. It has the largest single piece of plexi-glass in the world. It is about two stories tall about I would estimate about a 100ft long. Inside they showcase lots of skates, rays, tuna, and two whale sharks. It's very impressive to go there and see these docile animals swimming around.
There is a trick to their aquarium, they are located along the coast where they actually have a steady stream of new salt water pumped in.
Yes there are some perks to living on the island here. As you can imagine, it's illegal to collect these animals without a commercial fishing license. I have found it much cheaper and easier to go to the Japanese aquarium store down the road. The man that owns it also catches his own fish with a net. As far as prices go, here is a rough hack of what I have paid, or what they charge:
$9 Racoon Butterfly fish
$7 Sailfin Tang
$9 Moorish Idol
$30 Emperior Angel
$8 Clown fish
Keep in mind, Japan is not a poor country as lots of people think is typical of Asian countries. They are something like #5 in the world economy. When I told the owner about how much we pay for our fish in Oklahoma he laughed and was floored. Of course those in Oklahoma have to pay for an airline ticket for their fish to OKC.
Please let me know if anyone needs actual ocean water measurements for their aqurium or if you have any other questions I can research. It's Sunday morning time for church here--Saturday evening back in OKC. We'll keep the day starting for you on this side of the world.
Cheers,
Don Baker
http://www.kaiyouhaku.com/en/index.html
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=VFrPoe8LwnU
http://www.chample.tv/churaumi/index_en.html
