Tropical Fish Hobbyist is offering a nice deal on a subscription to their print magazine this holiday season. For $15.99, you get 10 issues of their magazine and access to their digital archive so you can read articles dating back to September 2007 (which is nice for those planted tank enthusiasts who want to the full array Takashi Amano’s Nature Aquarium articles!)

TFH is one of the best magazines for aquarium hobbyists, featuring articles from the freshwater, saltwater, and planted aquarium realms. There’s really a lot of neat stuff in every issue. I have a pile of older issues at home I really need to read through during my holiday vacation.

You can check out the full details and subscribe here. It’s good now through December 31st, 2011 on new subscriptions.

I remember fondly the days of High School science class – eyes glazing over in lecture son plant anatomy, or trying in vein to memorize the periodic table for that next test. Not a moment went by where I didn’t hope the monotony would be broken by getting to watch something explode or getting to go outside.

Ecoxotic and one of their dealers, Aquarium Adventure of Columbus, have teamed up to make former high school me very jealous by donating 40 EcoPicos to Peter Dewitt’s Metro High School science class. The project is anticipated to reach 160 students in Grades 9-12, and their goal is to replicate a real-life sustainable environment based on an already existing one, such as a saltwater reef or a blackwater pool.

Not only is this a great science lesson, it’s a fantastic way to get students involved in the aquarium hobby. They have a blog setup where you can follow individual team’s progress. While it seems like most of the groups mentioned thus far joined the dark side of saltwater tanks (just kidding! saltwater is cool too), we here at Aquaspire have high hopes for the freshwater groups, Team Guppy, or Team Cranberry Fluffy Fish (whom by far have the coolest name).  We’ll keep an eye on developments and maybe post a few updates as things move along.

Amazon has entered the online pet store industry by starting their new site Wag.com. As you may have guessed, they also sell aquarium merchandise, making yet another online retailer that sells aquarium goods.

It’s hard to predict just how successful their store will be with the abundance of other online retailers out there. Shipping costs and pricing will probably have a lot to do with it.

We decided to compare Wag.com’s product pricing and availability with some other online retailers by selecting the random product Seachem Purigen (random being whatever was on the top of my ‘need to buy’ list at the time).

Purigen Pricing (for 100ml bag)
Big Al’s $8.09
Wag.com: $8.29 (100ml was the only quantity they sold as far as I could tell)
Foster and Smith Aquatics: $8.29
PetSolutions: N/A (only sell the 250 ml quantity and higher)

Based on our random product, it looks like Wag.com’s pricing falls inline with the rest of the online stores. However, only offering one specific quantity was a bit of a bummer. The other retailers offered larger quantity jars. Given Wag.com is just starting out, some limited product availabilty is to be expected. We’ll have to see how things pan out as wag.com establishes itself.

[via Reefbuilders]

It’s one thing we don’t talk much about in the hobby – what kind of evil things are lurking in our fish tank that could make us sick. It’s important to keep a healthy environment with disease-free fish, but in some cases, maybe it’s not enough?

Enter Hannele Cox, a 13-year old girl with the dream of becoming an Olympic gymnast. While not your typical aquarist, Practical Fishkeeping reports that Cox was cleaning her fish tank, when she scraped her hand up against the rim. Cox thought little of it until it become infected and her dermatologist prescribed antibiotics, which weren’t effective. It was then that they identified the bacteria causing it as Mycobacterium marinum, or fish tuberculosis.

Now after three surgeries and five years of antibiotic treatments, Hannele Cox may have to have her hand amputated.

The family said the only fish contained in the tank were some neon tetras that didn’t show any signs of disease. While it may not have been beneficial in this case, us aquarium keepers need to keep an eye on the health of our fish and take precautions.

Personally, I try not to work on my tank if I have an obvious open cut on my hand. Of course I have scratches and knicks where bacteria can breed (If I tried to wait until all those healed, I’d never get to work on my tanks). I also make sure to wash my hands after aquarium work, and try to use some of that alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Even with precautions, I’m sure it’s still possible to get sick from your tanks. With anything, there’s risks associated with it – my goal of writing this isn’t to scare people away (there’s of course risks with any hobby or activity. Aquarium keeping probably isn’t any worse than most), but to inform them that this is out there and hopefully get treatment early if they run into this.

We’re wishing Hannele Cox the best of luck in her treatment, and hoping she makes a full recovery soon and can pursue her dreams.

UPDATE: Aquaspire coverage featured on Newsy.

For those of you who are fans of Tropical Fish Hobbyist (TFH) but have let your subscription lapse, they’re offering a year subscription to TFH Digital for only $1. Their digital subscription is “…searchable, accessible from your Web-enabled tablets and mobile devices, and even allows you to share articles with your friends!”.

So if you’re interested in TFH and don’t mind not getting a physical print copy, check it out.  There’s definitely some interesting articles in their publication, spanning freshwater, saltwater, and planted aquaria.

I received some information from Aquarium Design Group (ADG) today that there was even more news to add to yesterday’s Aquasoil deal. In addition to the reduced shipping and Aquasoil pre-order prices, they’re also introducing a loyalty program where for every $20 you spend, you get $1 of store credit to use on a future purchase (essentially 5% cash back in the form of store credit).

Other retailers do similar things; those familiar with Best Buy know they have something similar, when I go to lunch at Subway I earn points for a free sub. With the recent price cut on Aquasoil, as well as this new rewards program from ADG, ADA products (which started as a luxury, owned by only the elite few, but I’ve noticed they have already gained quite a bit of momentum in the last year or two in the hobby) are becoming less expensive for the average hobbyist to own. As I say, almost anything which attracts more participants in our hobby is a good thing.

Fair Disclosure: I just started setting up my ADA 60P last night with some aquascaping rocks and aquasoil, so I might still be coming off the high of clear, rimless tanks and a very natural-looking substrate. Either that or they might’ve slipped some sort of happy gas into my aquasoil bag.

As I touched on in the Aquasoil Wars article, it’s really interesting to see ADG break away from the typical quiet set-price no-sale strategy typical of higher end retailers and start this week with price cuts, sales, and a rewards program. I’ve really enjoyed seeing the high-caliber aquascapes people come up with in the ADA-style tanks, and I hope programs like these will encourage more people to give the art of aquascaping a shot.

From the ADG press release:

This new program instantly adds and accrues points to customers and clients of ADA through ADGShop for money spent on product as a way to reward those who choose Aqua Design Amano products. Whether a customer purchases a bag of AP-1 Fish Food or a complete ADA 120-P Aquarium setup, they are rewarded for their loyalty, patronage and appreciation.

….

The new Buyer Reward Program is effective immediately on all purchases, and while the system is brand new to ADGShop and ADA offerings, it allows for much greater integration and development as time progresses. This enables possibilities such as:
Bonus Points awarded for special purchases
Pre-Order Bonuses
Double Point weekends

When you make a purchase, you can check the amount of points accrued by your account at ADGShop.com by simply clicking on “My Account” then under “Other Features” select “My Rewards”

Your accrued Rewards will then show and you can Redeem these at any time to apply to your order!