Leafy Sea Dragons are shown in both of the videos to the left.
Kristy Forsgren, an Aquarist at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, talks about keeping and breeding the
closely related Weedy Sea Dragons from Kangaroo Island, Australia.
Click
here
now
to listen to the entire interview with Kristy Forsgren about the "Sea Dragons of Kangaroo Island".
Click here for information about Sea Dragons.
In this show Kristy Forsgren, an Aquarist at the Aquarium of the Pacific, in Long Beach, California,
talks with Tom and Nevin about
her experiences keeping and
breeding the Sea Dragons of
Kangaroo Island.
Click here to read the notes at the bottom of this page about how to follow the links in the Listening Guide.
Listening Guide
Click
here now
to
listen to the
entire
interview, which
is about one
hour long.
Sea
Dragons !!
Today during the
first three
segments of this
show
Kristy Forsgren, an aquarist at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, California, talks about the Sea Dragons of Kangaroo Island, which is south of Australia.
Kristy describes the Aquarium of the Pacific which has Jelly Fish, Sharks, and many other very interesting exhibits.
Kristy talks about the camouflage of the Sea Dragons, which makes them look like a clump of seaweed. The videos above on this page are both Leafy Sea Dragons.
Kristy explains that Sea Dragons are delicate and require very gentle handling. Next she describes their natural habitat 20 to 30 below the surface of the ocean under huge rafts of sargasso kelp.
Sea Dragons were first kept in aquariums in the late 1980s, say 1989 or so. At first aquarists kept them in water at 55 to 57 degrees F, but now ...
The Aquarium of the Pacific
Kristy varies the temperature of the water from 55 degrees F. for part of the year up to about 66 degrees in another part of the year, and as the water warms, the Sea Dragons begin to spawn. In 2001 the Sea Dragons at the Aquarium of the Pacific bred and produced baby Sea Dragons for the first time in captivity.
Kristy explains that the female transfers her bright pink eggs and fuses them on the underside of the male's tail. The eggs are pear shaped, 4 to 7 millimeters long, and easy to see developing on the male. Kristy gives lots of details about breeding and caring for Sea Dragons, including feeding them mysid shrimp.
Sea Dragons are protected by the governments in Australia, where it is illegal to collect them. A few Sea Dragons are exported to public aquariums around the world.
Kristy
discusses her
Education
She has a B.S. degree in Marine Biology, and she has gone back to school to work on a Master's Degree. Kristy recommends young people consider an exciting career in biology.
Kristy describes the separate breeding aquariums for the Sea Dragons.
Kristy recommends that young people volunteer to work in public aquariums. Kristy talks about her own Betta Fish in a bowl, her a 2-gallon aquarium, her 50-gallon freshwater aquarium, and she is responsible for about 10 exhibits at work.
Kristy says she is very happy with her job, that she is following her heart, and she loves her job helping people learn more about animals and the environment. She recommends young students in school study biology, chemistry, and other science courses.
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