Rich Ross

Correlation does not equal causation

MACNA 2018 Talk – dig through reef BS and come out clean

October 31, 2018 No Comments

Local copy of the video here:

There is a lot of BS in the world, and reef keeping is no exception. This talk will go over the different flavors of reef BS and how not to get it all over you.

Richard Ross is known for his “Skeptical Reefkeeping” article series, his groundbreaking work with cephalopod husbandry, coral spawning & restoration, entertaining and informative talks, his ultra high nutrient home reef, for managing the ambitious 212,000 gallon reef tank and the Coral Spawning Lab at the Steinhart Aquarium in the California Academy of Sciences. Richard was presented with the MASNA Aquarist of the Year award in 2015, and his work has been covered by Scientific American, National Geographic, Penn’s Sunday School, NPR’sScience Friday, Animal Planet, Discovery News and Fox News

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A Love Letter to the Hobby, Trade, and Industry

July 31, 2018 No Comments

From Reefs Magazine

By Rich Ross

Honest conversation about contentious issues has always been a mainstay in my personal and professional life. I have prided myself on hitting those conversations head on…until about 2 years ago when some people involved in the marine aquarium world tried to hurt me professionally and personally over something that had nothing to do with aquarium keeping. As a result, I pulled back from head-on kinds of conversations. I am not going to go into the details here because they aren’t important – though I did, in the process, watch a few bridges burn, which is something I normally avoid, but which felt surprisingly good in this context.

The entire experience made me keenly aware of the fact that, though I pride myself on direct communication, I was vulnerable to the potential repercussions of honesty. So I pulled back a bit, all the while wondering, what I would say if I really wasn’t worried about repercussions? What would I say if I was truly free to say what I really wanted to say? What I would write to the reef keeping world if I were dying and had nothing to lose? (more…)

ReefThreads video MACNA 2016

September 18, 2016 No Comments

Rich talks to Gary and Christine about dealing with a reef tank when you travel a lot for work

https://vimeo.com/183196008

Click this ReefThreads link to see the entire show

 

The Reef Table: Ret Talbot and Rich Ross on Sustainability and Conservation

April 5, 2015 No Comments

From http://www.reefs.com/blog/2015/01/19/reef-table-ret-talbot-rich-ross-sustainability-conservation/

WAIT! Don’t tune out – this will be interesting. Is it a glamorous topic? Not at all. I sat down (giddily) with one Ret Talbot and one Richard Ross to talk about sustainability, conservation and what it means to the hobby. We talked about just how sexy it is (spoiler alert: it’s not even the tiniest bit sexy).

Dr Seuss eats Nemo

September 15, 2014 No Comments

From Advanced Aquarist

The answer to the struggle of what to feed marine predators that require live foods is right under our noses. Fish might be friends, but in the real world the may also be food.
Richard Ross' pair of Dr. Seuss fish, Belonoperca pylei
Richard Ross’ pair of Dr. Seuss fish, Belonoperca pylei

Back in March, I wrote about Chad Vossen feeding a platinum clownfish that was to be culled to juvenile Dwarf Cuttlefish, Sepia bandnesis, and talked about how clownfish destined to be culled might be a great source of marine feeders for predatory marine animals. As a follow up I present to you the below video: Dr. Seuss eats Nemo. In the video I feed my pair of Dr. Seuss Fish, Belonoperca pylei, some captive bred designer clownfish that were raised in quarantine conditions, and were destined for the culling block. These clownfish were provided to me by Bay Area Reefers President, Steinhart Aquarium Volunteer (Thanks David!) and clownfish breeder extraordinaire, David Sheh.

Feeding marine predatory animals can be difficult because finding appropriate live foods can come with all kinds of problems. Availability can be challenging, as finding the right size prey items, in the quantity you need them, when you need them can be problematic. Disease and parasites from wild caught prey items can infect your predatory fish, and quarantine of such animals is and added expense, as well as taking up time and resources.  Worse, the ethical issues surrounding wild caught feeder animals are significant; using animals flown halfway around the world as feeders seems exceedingly wasteful.  Furthermore, with some aquarium fish potentially to be listed as threatened or endangered in the endangered species act, the practice of feeding out wild caught animals can become even more inflammatory. Cultured freshwater prey items don’t offer a great alternative as they can have a different nutritional profile from saltwater prey items, and can present sub optimal results – for example, in my experience Dwarf Cuttles fed solely freshwater ghost shrimp tend to lay much fewer eggs, and fewer viable eggs than cuttles fed saltwater shrimp.

If only there were a whole bunch of captive bred, saltwater animals that nobody wanted, weren’t sellable, and were often culled as a matter of course. Oh wait. There are.

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CEPHALOPOD BREEDING

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