BACKGROUND Multiple distraction strategies have been proposed to reduce the incidence of anxiety and pain in children. Animal-assisted therapy is acknowledged and used in children as an adjunctive treatment with cognitive, physical, psychosocial and spiritual benefits. OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of fish aquarium animal-assisted therapy (FA-AAT) on pain perception in a cohort of healthy...

The bluntnose sixgill shark, Hexanchus griseus, is a widely distributed but poorly understood large, apex predator. Anecdotal reports of diver-shark encounters in the late 1990's and early 2000's in the Pacific Northwest stimulated interest in the normally deep-dwelling shark and its presence in the shallow waters of Puget Sound. Analysis of underwater video documenting sharks at the Seattle Aq...

The invasion of the aquarium strain of the green alga Caulerpa taxifolia and subsequent alteration of community structure in the Mediterranean Sea raised awareness of the potential for non-native seaweeds to impact coastal communities. An introduction of C. taxifolia in southern California in 2000, presumably from the release of aquarium specimens, cost ~$7 million for eradication efforts. Besi...

This study examined the effects of the supplementation of China rose powder of Hibiscus rosasiensis towards blue gourami with different stocking densities.China rose (1.5%) was used on two different stocking densities (20 and 30 fishes per aquarium). The group that contain a total of 20 (individual/aquarium) and 30 (individual/aquarium) densities of fishes, are referred as CH1 and CH2 respectiv...

Nitrifying biofilters are used in aquaria and aquaculture systems to prevent accumulation of ammonia by promoting rapid conversion to nitrate via nitrite. Ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA), as opposed to ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB), were recently identified as the dominant ammonia oxidizers in most freshwater aquaria. This study investigated biofilms from fixed-bed aquarium biofilters to ass...

In this study, the epiphytic algae of Lemna minor collected from its natural habitat or grown in aquarium were analyzed for a period of six months from April 2016 to September 2016. While a total of 15 taxa, 1 belonging to Cyanophyta and 14 belonging to Bacillariophyta, were recorded for L. minor grown in aquarium, a total of 36 taxa, 3 belonging to Cyanophyta, 5 belonging to Chlorophyta, 1 bel...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the source and risk factors associated with Australia's largest outbreak of Legionnaires' disease. DESIGN AND SETTING Epidemiological and environmental investigation of cases of Legionnaires' disease associated with visits to the Melbourne Aquarium; two case-control studies to confirm the outbreak source and to investigate risk factors for infection, respectively. P...