Bioluminescent aquarium

A blacked-out tank of flashlight fish might be cool.

 

I agree completely.

I already painted the back and sides of my display tank black and added 60 lbs of black aragonite sand. I also wired my moonlights seperatly so they can be put on a seperate timer and shut off manually with the press of a button.
I WILL have bioluminescent critters in there eventually.

 

Ah! I was wondering what prompted your quest That tank will look sweet!

 

Well the quest started when I was a kid, many years ago, I was a rockhound, and I collected ( escent ) rocks, I still do too.. fluorescent, opalescent, triboluminescent, radioluminescent, ect... So that eye for collecting things which play tricks with light is looking at the aquarium hobby. There are very cool specimens available.
I will eventually have:
Pulsing xenia, Flashlight fish, Brittle sea stars, Electric flame scallops for starters. Xenia look cool but aren't glow in the dark... Unless they exhibit fluorescence under blue light. And a FEW fluorescent corals spaced out.


I have found a few species of bioluminescent snails I am researching.

 

Planaxis sulcatus, common name the tropical periwinkle, is a species of bioluminescent sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Planaxidae.

 

Comes from the indo-pacific including Fiji where a lot of live rock comes from.

 

Clusterwink snail

 

I have been reading more about the clusterwink snail... It is also found off the coast of Australia and the shell seems to have unusual properties which work like a laser. It seems the shell of this snail actually AMPLIFIES the light produced by the snail resulting in more brighter light than just the light emitted by the snails bioluminescence alone. Also the flashing can be slow and long up to 1.5 seconds or flashed or very rapidly 1/50 of 1 second (faster than the eye can see).

I am very very very very very interested and excited by the prospect of obtaining this creature.

 

just a thought as i really don't know much on the subject (though fascinating it is indeed). take the example of the puffer fish, they are known to be poisonous to the point of being lethal to man. these toxins are believed to come from the diet the puffer has in the wild and captive puffers are almost non poisonous at all. I'm wondering if this would also apply to bioluminescence and what the dietary needs would be to insure a healthy "glow"

 

That is a good point. It would be important to use optimal foods and in the case of pinecone fish and bobtail squid it might be necessary to occasionally dose the aquarium with the bacteria vibrio fischeri which is responsible for the bioluminescent glow, conveniently it can be obtained from Carolina.com.