The Budding Surfquarium

Frag Swap

2008-02-03T23:04:00.001-05:00

Well, the swap is complete... Over the weekend my friend delivered some new inhabitants for Surfquarium in exchange for all of the Xenia and Mushrooms I've been exporting to his tank. I've been wanting to try more scleractinians (stony corals) in Surfquarium, but didn't want to spend money on things I'm not sure will do well. Apparently some of the frags I received weren't doing as well as hoped in my friends tanks, so we both agreed to try them in Surfquarium, where at least we know that Xenia and Corallimorpharia do well. As a result Surfquarium is now home to a variety of Scleractinian frags (Echinopora sp.; 3 different Acropora sp.; Pocillopora damicornis; and some Ricordia sp. - All pictured above). Hopefully they all do well, though I'm not sure if my lights are powerful enough for the Acroporas and possibly the Pocillopora. This will be the source of continuous monitoring over the coming days and weeks, and I'll provide updates as they come - I'm hoping for all the best.

House Cleaning

2008-02-01T22:05:00.001-05:00

In January I decided that my tank was becoming too overgrown with too few things. The Xenia and the mushroom corallimorphs have been multiplying like crazy, out competing just about everything and generally taking over Surfquarium (See 'The New Look of Surfquarium" Post from December 2007). Last week I invited a friend over and gave him salvage rights to as many Xenia as he could fit into a bag. After a good 30 minutes of scraping bases off of live rock, my tank has now been thinned out and this is a good thing. My yellow Sarcophyton now has room to grow and looks better than it has in months. I also added a new scleractinian coral frag (Its a species in the family Faviidae, but I haven't fully I.D'd it yet), and will be receiving some other new frags from my friend in exchange for all the Xenia (And some mushrooms) that I gave him. In this post I submit the before (above) and after (below) photos...

I'll post again soon with pics of the new frags. I also solved my burned out Actinic lightbulb this week... amazing how much better things look when the have the proper lighting to get them through their day.

Sorry Folks, but Happy New Year!

2008-01-29T17:29:00.000-05:00

Hi there Cyberspace,
sorry again about the lack of updates - but i have a good excuse this time. 6 days after the new year I broke my thumb whilst tripping over the ball in a highly contested indoor soccer match.
Thumb required surgery and I am only able to type again this week. No typing, plus no tinkering or photography on Surfquarium = lack of updates. I've got a burned out actinic bulb that needs dealing with, and I've made arrangements with a friend to swap some Xenia (which is overgrowing everything) for some Ricordia. Changes will come soon, which means updates should come soon as well... until then, Happy New Year!.

The new look of Surfquarium

2007-12-11T11:59:00.001-05:00

Hi again cyberspace...
Sorry for the long delay in posts - I've been busy with real world stuff which leaves little time for blogging. Thanks for all of the recent comments I have been receiving despite my long absence from the blogosphere. Keep reading and keep commenting, I really appreciate the feedback.

Anyway, since the last update many changes have occurred in Surfquarium. I exported a few mushrooms, a few Xenia's, and the larger of my two yellow toadstool leathers. My research lab gained a new member who was looking for some life to add to his new 80 gallon tank, and these guys were either getting too large for (leather) or overpopulating (mushrooms and Xenia) Surfquarium, so off they went into a new home. I've been bugging him for photos of their new lair, but so far no photos.

On a natural coral reef, space is usually the ultimate limiting resource. This also holds true in Surfquarium, where mushrooms and Xenia were quick to colonize the empty space left by the exported creatures. I now seem to have a mushroom side (left) and a Xenia side (right) in surfquarium, with my anemone (E. quadricolor) holding down the middle. The photo at the top of this post represents the new look of Surfquarium.

Coral See

2007-09-11T11:02:00.000-04:00

For those of you who are into keeping Acroporids (more commonly called Staghorn corals), the following message and accompanying website may be of interest:

>Carden Wallace and myself are trialling an on-line Acropora >identification program and an introductory guide to the Acropora >corals. The address is: www.coralsee.org If you have any problems >using the site or suggestions we would appreciate feedback.
>
>thanks
>
>Dr. Paul Muir
>Museum of Tropical Queensland

For those of you who may not recognize the names of those involved, Drs. Wallace and Muir are two of the foremost coral taxonomists in the world. In addition, Dr. Wallace is an Acroporid specialist and has published a series of books, CD-ROMS, and scientific papers chronicling and describing "Staghorn Corals of the World".

In just playing around with the website briefly, it helps to know a little bit about the terminology associated with coral identification and taxonomy in order to get a proper I.D. - but it's not absolutely necessary. Since the website is set up by geographic location, it also helps to know a little about the natural history of the animal (i.e. where it would live in nature). As with all visual guides, mis-identification by untrained users is highly possible, but the website will get you within about 6 reasonable choices as to the identification of the Acroporid you are trying to identify.

The website seems to only include members of the genus Acropora, and not those of Montipora, even though both genera fall within the Family Acroporidae. However, I did not extensively explore the site yet, so Montipora sp. may be represented somewhere within the huge data base.

Overall, this website seems like it would be of great interest to reef keepers out there. Although I don't keep any Acroporids in Surfquarium at the moment (nor do I plan to), I thought I'd pass this along to my faithful readers (if you do in fact exist).

How the Mighty Have Fallen

2007-09-03T23:23:00.001-04:00

The Mushroom Corallimorphs are currently running the asylum in Surfquarium. There is just no other way to put it. First they take down my Euphyllia divisia colony (which is still just barely holding on), then they tried the same thing with a Briarium sp. colony (with some success), and now they are going after my oldest and largest Leather coral (Sarcophyton sp.). A few weeks ago I noticed that the Corallimorphs had begun to colonize up the trunk of the standing Sarcophyton (Left Photo). For the past few days, the Sarcophyton has "fallen" over and the Corallimorphs continue their advance (Right Photo). The good news is that the polyps are still coming out on the Sarcophyton and the color and appearance look 'normal'. I'm not sure if the slumping of the Sarcophyton is actually related to the encroachment and overgrowth of the Corallimorphs, but seeing as how they have out-competed nearly everything else in the tank (my Bubble Tipped Anemone seems to be the only thing that can withstand them), I wouldn't be surprised if the Sarcophyton's behaviour isn't related to the behaviour of the Corallimorphs. For me, these are interesting events that are always unfolding in Surfquarium... I'm sure a lot of other people would consider them outright crises, but I tend to enjoy watching how "nature" runs the course.

(Note: Left and Right photos are not taken form the same angle, nor at the same scale)

Bioerosion: The Great Destroyer

2007-08-29T19:06:00.000-04:00

One of the first hitch-hikers I noticed in Surfquarium after the initial addition of live rock was a rock-boring Urchin (Echinometra sp.). The urchins are so named because it is what they do best. After living in Surfquarium for 1.5 years, my little urchin has grown quite a bit. While I do appreciate the benefits of keeping algae under control... I'm growing less and less fond of the rock-boring activities. On a reef in nature, this is a well documented process known as bioerosion. So long as calcification and reef accretion equal or exceed the rate of bioerosion, it is not so much of a problem in a natural reef environment. In a microreef environment such as Surfquarium however, bioerosion can be more of a problem. I provide you with photo-documentation above of my little Echinometra hard at work (left photo), and the "results" of all that hard work (right photo). Also evident on both photos is the sediment being produced as a byproduct of the bioerosion (yellow arrows). This is how sediment is accumulated both on a natural reef, and in a home aquarium (although parrotfish are responsible for the majority of sediment production in a "healthy" natural reef environment). Despite the fact that the urchin is making minced meat of my not-so-cheap live rock, it is pretty neat to watch one of the natural reef processes unfold within Surfquarium. Alas, if the urchin continues to grow (which undoubtedly will happen) and the bioerosion becomes a huge problem (also quite likely), I suppose I'll have to find a new home for my urchin (someone with a larger tank & more munchable live rock than surfquarium contains).

(note: the left & right photos above are not quite the same scale)

Filtration Blues

2007-08-25T00:17:00.000-04:00

In the almost 1.5 year existence of Surfquarium, I have had very little filtration trouble nor did I need to fuss with the filter or protein skimmer very much except for the odd cleaning. In the past week, however, I've had all kinds of difficulties. We've been having some pretty good thunderstorms and lots of humid weather. This makes for not-so-good electricity/curcuit breaker weather. Sometime overnight within the last two days, the power must have gone out and come back on whilst Surfquarium and I were both sleeping. I failed to notice that the filter pump had lost its prime and was running dry, and so today when I came home and checked on Surfquarium I was displeased to find that I had a burned-out filter pump. Quickly I ran to the local aquarium shop and was forced to buy a whole new filter set-up since they don't just sell the power heads that go with my filter. Since Surfquarium is a small tank, I can get away with running an AquaClear 50, which seems to do the trick. Fortunately these are not expensive to replace. I'm sure had I had time to shop around on-line I could have found a replacement pump, however I'm guessing I've already gone 1 day without filtration and I didn't want to stretch it much further. Anyway, I've now installed a new filter and everything on the mechanical filtration end is back up to speed.

The protein skimming side, however, is another story altogether. Ever since the last big cleaning (about 3 or 4 weeks ago), I haven't been able to get the skimming rate "dialed in". I'm either skimming nothing (which negates the point of having a protein skimmer) or I'm skimming too much and filling the collection cup within an hour (which defeats the design of the skimmer). I've set the thing to where it normally has been set, but something must have changed because this no longer seems to be a valid reference point. I don't know what I need to do to find the right balance, but I hope I find that balance quick... I can't handle all these filtration issues.

Just so this post isn't all whining, complaining and general bad news about my filtration woes, I leave you with a pretty cool picture of the Camel Srhimp that resides in Surfquarium... check out those eyes and their shiny green glow.

Update on the Bi-Oral Mushroom

2007-08-20T21:18:00.001-04:00

Just wanted to give a quick update on the "two-headed monster":
Well, I take back what I said about asexual reproduction happening rather quickly in corallimorphs. After a week of observation, two mouths persist but no other visible signs of splitting are apparent. Sometimes it appears as if there is some cleavage at the edge of the colony between the two mouths, but this does not present itself every time I look.
I don't know how long its going to take for this thing to divide, but I'll keep monitoring the progress (or lack thereof) and continue to provide updates.

The Big Snails Make the Little Ones

2007-08-18T17:04:00.000-04:00

Over the last few weeks I have noticed an abundance of baby snails crawling their way around Surfquarium. Most times I see them on the glass, where it is hard to get good photos. Today, I managed to find at least two crawling around a piece of live-rock near the front of the tank. I've highlighted them on the photo above for easier viewing. I don't profess to know much about the mating and reproduction of gastropods, but I am inclined to believe that "summer" must be the season for these types of activities. I received word from some friends of mine who keeps a tank, and they have the same "problem" of many baby snails crawling around. I'm sure they have been there for weeks, if not months, but they are finally getting big enough where they are now conspicuous. From some simple counts I would estimate that there are about 12 - 20 little ones crawling around in Surfquarium right now. They range in size from about 1 mm diameter to the largest one which is already about 6 mm in diameter!!

Caught in the Act

2007-08-13T23:05:00.000-04:00

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I've been traveling which means I haven't been able to observe, photograph, and blog about surfquarium as much as I'd like. Anyway, if you've been reading and you're still with me, I appreciate it... now on to the happenings.

The tank was getting pretty crappy upon my return, and needed a huge water change over the weekend. Today everybody is perking up and seem happy about the new water.

While watching the tank, I noticed that one of my mushroom corallimorphs looked a bit odd. Much to my delight I found one with two mouths (which means its in the process of reproducing). I didn't notice this yesterday, so it either developed since then, or I just wasn't very observant yesterday (Although the thing is right in the front of the tank, so you think I would have noticed). Anyway you can clearly see the two mouths from the photo above. Like everything else, I'll be watching this closely to see how it plays out. Hopefully I'll be able to answer that age-old question that keeps us all awake at night: "How long does it take for a corallimorph to asexually reproduce?". My guess is pretty quickly, but I'll look again tomorrow (and everyday thereafter if need be), and we'll find out for sure.

The other fun happening that I noticed in surfquarium was the "puffing" of my small Fungia sp. coral. Normally there is little to no extension of the tissue while the lights are one, and it only swells a little at night (associated with the tentacles coming out). Today, I noticed that the little guy was swollen tremendously. Not sure if this is due to the over-shading produced by the mushrooms, or something else... but a cool sight none-the-less. You can see the difference for yourself with the photos below: The one on the top is "normal", the one on the bottom reflects the puffiness which greeted me this evening.

Thats it from surfquarium for now... check back soon. I'm not going anywhere in the near future, so the updates should come a bit more frequently for a while.

Bleaching & Competition Updates

2007-07-20T11:43:00.000-04:00

Just wanted to make a quick post with updates on the two most exciting situations happening in Surfquarium right now. The series of photos above shows the continued progress of bleaching recovery in one of my mushroom corallimorphs. The pictures don't quite do it justice, but I can tell you that the polyp was nearly completely white with no color on 13 May 2007 (left) and has now regained almost all color, save for the very left margin of the polyp (20 July 2007, right). I am quite pleased with this recovery and will keep monitoring the situation. Also, last time I reported that the bleached polyp had apparently budded off a second bleached polyp. Although I couldn't get a good photo of that little guy, I can assure you that it is still there. It also remains small and largely bleached. There is another corallimorph partially blocking my view of the little thing so I can't asses the recovery, but from what I can see it is there, it is still small, and still bleached.

I also recently reported about moving my Euphyllia divisia colony to (potentially) avoid competition from some other unruly mushroom corallimorphs. After almost two weeks in a new spot, I don't notice any further decline. There are no real signs of recovery yet, but the fact that the coral is not losing any more tissue is good enough for me right now. Hopefully I can get a good series of photos similar to that posted above and I'll make another post in a few months that shows the decline and (keeping my fingers crossed) recovery of the colony.

The new look of Surfquarium.

2007-07-15T13:12:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned in my previous post, I did some slight rearranging in Surfquarium last week. I was out of town for the last week and didn't have time to show the full tank view of Surfquarium's new configuration... now that I'm back, I'll let you all in on the new look of Surfquarium. Largely nothing has changed except that the Euphyllia divisia colony is now completely hidden from view when looking at the front of the tank. In its place is a small colony of Briareum stechei (green star polyps), which has gotten kicked around the tank by all of the inhabitants since its introduction. I think I've finally got it in a stable location where it won't continuously get dumped in the sand by a clambering hermit crab or the burrowing activity of my pistol shrimp/shrimpgoby duo. Also you might notice that the mushroom corallimorphs and the pulsing Xenia's are just growing like wildfire. While I'm certainly happy about the return on my investment (I started with 4 mushrooms, and 3 Xenia's - I've now got nearly 40 mushrooms and almost 20 Xenia stalks), they're rapid growth leaves little room for other things to grow or the addition of any other sessile benthic invertebrates. As always, I've included pictures for your enjoyment, just click on the small ones in the post to see the full size versions.

The Mighty Rearranger

2007-07-07T22:01:00.000-04:00

Another post in the continuing saga of my declining Euphyllia divisia coral. Seeing as how I'm attributing the sudden decline of the Euphyllia colony to competition by some nearby mushroom corallimorphs (which have been growing out of control lately) , I decided to take matters into my own hands and perform a small "experiment". Normally in Surfquarium, I prefer to let ecology run its course, as this is what would happen in a natural reef setting. However, because I do have some dollars invested in my microreef ecosystem, I decided to move the Euphyllia to a location in the tank where competition from corallimorphs would not be as much of a problem. The only thing growing close to Euphyllia colony in its new location is a few Xenia sp. branches, which are supposed to be fairly benign in the realm of coral competition. I will continue to monitor the Euphyllia colony and look for any further decline. I am hoping for recovery, but I'd be happy with at least no further decline. Obviously losing the colony completely is the last thing I want to happen. Check back soon, I'll keep updating this situation as it unfolds.

Trouble in Paradise

2007-07-04T11:50:00.001-04:00

I just returned to Surfquarium from a week on holiday...
The good news is that the autofeeder worked and I didn't lose any of the fishies.
The bad news is that the Protein skimmer is apparently not working well (I think it needs dismantling and a good cleaning). I've got "gunk" on the surface of the tank water and its never been there before. I'm running a Red Sea Prizm in the tank and it has worked like a champ for most of its short history in Surfquarium, I normally give it a mild cleaning about once every other month, but I think now it is time for a full teardown and proper cleaning...
hopefully this solves my problem.
In other bad news, the Euphyllia continues its decline... 2 of the 3 polyps are looking like they are on the way out. Interestingly, i think the decline is due to competition but a frequent visitor to surfquarium who has studied coral growth & competition in Acroporids thinks that something else (temperature) is driving the decline. I keep good temp records and the tank stays within the range of the natural variability that would be experienced on the reef. I'm not so convinced that temperature is causing the decline... but something sure is.
Everything else is doing fine after a week of neglect... once I get the protein skimmer resolved, Surfquarium will be back in business.

Seeing Septa

2007-06-15T13:03:00.000-04:00

In the last few weeks I've noticed the decline of one of the polyps on my colony of Frogspawn coral (Euphyllia divisia). The frag has been in Surfquarium for about 10 months, and up until about 3 weeks ago was doing very well. It started as a single stalk with one polyp, and within the first two months had divided to form 3 polyps. One of those three polyps now appears to be on the way out. In the photo you can this troubled polyps theca and septa at the upper left side of the colony. There does appear to be some live & healthy tissue still in the polyp, but the entire upper third of the polyp seems to have died or is about to die. The remaining two polyps seem to be doing very well as evidenced by the photo. The suspected culprit in causing this decline is once again competition. During the day, a neighboring mushroom coralimorph encroaches very close to the Euphyllia colony. There is largely a cnidoblastic (stinging cell) war going on here between these two animals. My guess would have been for the coral to win that battle, but so far it looks like the corallimorph is having the last laugh. Technically, the corallimorphs are further along in the evolutionary line of cnidarians, so I guess from a survival-of-the-fittest standpoint, a winning coralimorph makes sense. Needless to say, this activity has piqued my curiosity and I will be sure to monitor and update the situation should anything else interesting happen.

Bleach begets bleach but recovers

2007-06-13T23:23:00.000-04:00

About a month ago I reported on a bleached mushroom corallimorph (see Bleach from 5/13/07). As promised I have been watching the progress of this individual polyp to see how the situation unfolds. Since then, two interesting things have happened. 1) The bleached corallimorph seems to be slowly acquiring zooxanthellae and regaining color (we call this 'recovery' in the coral bleaching world). You'll notice in the picture above that the corallimorph to the right is beginning to look "purply" - not nearly as purple as the healthy (slightly out-of-focus) corallimorph at the left of the photo, but having much more color than when I first noticed the bleaching back in May.
The second interesting observation is that the bleached coralimorph was able to bud off another individual, which is also bleached (that would be the small white thing immediately left of the recovering corallimorph at the right of the photo). When corals bleach, they usually lack enough energy to do anything and die. Apparently though, the corallimorphs are able to reproduce while "stressed" (bleaching is usually associated as a stress response in corals). It is also apparent that the corallimorphs get their zooxanthellae from the parent colony from which they came. Although this makes sense biologically, I have never observed it with my own two eyes before. This is what I like most about Surfquarium, every day is a new learning experience - even for someone who has spent the last 8 years studying these things in a natural setting.

Pulse

2007-06-04T19:39:00.000-04:00

When I first introduced some pulsing Xenia's into surfquarium, I thought it would be the coolest thing to have a video of them doing what they do best (pulsing)... Oh how embarrassing it would have been to post that video. I shot footage of one little stalk of polyps pulsing so slowly that it made watching paint dry look fun. I'm glad I waited a few months to finally try to get a better video of my Xenia's doing their thing. You'll also notice that my Fire Dartfish (Nemateleotris magnifica) always wants to be the center of attention. He burst into the frame during the Sexy Dance video I posted last week, and if you watch this video you can't miss him trying to steal the show in this video as well. Such is life in Surfquarium I guess....

Lights, Camera, Shrimpgoby!

2007-06-03T13:20:00.000-04:00

Well, I've been trying to get better photos of the new pair (that would be the Shrimp & Shrimpgoby) in Surfquarium, but today I managed to get a nice video of the Pistol Shrimp (Alpheus randalli) hard at work, and the Black-Rayed Shrimpgoby (Stonogobiops nematodes) standing guard and keeping a watchful eye out for sharks. In case it is not clear from the video, the shrimp is doing some excavation work on one of the tunnels the pair occupies and the shrimpgoby is standing guard in case trouble should arise. From what I've read, the shrimps are nearly blind so the shrimpgoby needs to be the watchman and acts as the first line of defense despite the menacing claws on the shrimp. In return for security services, the shrimp gives the shrimpgoby a house to live in and does all the maintenance work. Not a bad trade-off.

Carrying Capacity

2007-05-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

Long ago when I was trying to do best at "planning" my tank (deciding what kind of tank I wanted, and who I wanted to live in it), I figured that if I kept the fish small & simple, I could keep about 6 fish without overcrowding the tank terribly bad. For the first year of Surfquarium, I kept 5 fish with pretty good success. As Surfquarium approached it's one year anniversary, I decided it was time to start thinking about adding the final piece to the fish equation. Again I was looking for something small. Low and behold, as I went to a local shop to get my bi-weekly supply of water for water changes - I found it!! The final piece was a Ｂｌａｃｋ－Ｒａｙｅｄ Shrimp Goby (Stonogobiops nematodes) with a commensal Pistol shrimp (Alpheus randalli). As per usual with Surfquarium, I don't blog about major additions such as this without first taking the time to let the new inhabitant settle in & allow me time to watch for signs of danger. So I introduced the pair to the tank last week, and within a day, I noticed construction activities within my tank (pictured at right). A new pile of well-sorted shell hash & sand developed in the front of the tank, spilling out from a crevice in the live-rock. For a few days, this was the only evidence I had that the pair were doing O.K. Finally on day 4, during a normal feeding, I got my first glimpse of the shrimp-goby popping out for a quick snack. It was very timid and didn't get much to eat. By day 6 however, it was coming out & staying out to gobble up food during feedings. After 1 week and a few days, I discovered that the new pair have constructed what seems to be a network of tunnels under the reef. I have seen them use a hide-away in the back of the tank, and today they came out one in the front. So, today was the first time I actually got a glimpse of the Pistol shrimp since it left the acclimation bag. I'm posting the only photo I managed to snap, though I must apologize as the photo is slightly out of focus (I was a little trigger happy & the shrimp didn't expose itself for long). Hopefully they continue using their front-side cave so that I can try and snap some better photos in the future. Without further ado, here is the world premiere of my new shrimp-goby and its companion shrimp:

Sexy Dance

2007-05-27T09:21:00.001-04:00

Ok, so I'm completely enamoured by the Sexy Anemone Shrimp (Thor amboinensis) (in case you couldn't tell by all the posting I've done about it). I'm always looking for it, and always to checking to see what its doing. Many times, I'll catch it doing the "Sexy Dance". After a quick visit to YouTube, I uploaded a video for the whole world to see my little shrimp do the Sexy Dance (including a brief cameo from the Fire Dartfish as well). Enjoy.

Hitchhiker

2007-05-26T23:21:00.001-04:00

In some of my first posts, and again in May 2006, I made some posts about some of the "incidental fauna" that came to inhabit surfquarium as hitchhikers on my live rock. One of the coolest things I've found so far is a little white crab. I first noticed it a little less than a year ago, although it's rare that the little guy is out roaming the reef, so I've not been able to get a photo until now. Since it usually hides in crevices and only shows its claws and face, I've not been able to get an I.D. on it either. This weekend I was lucky enough to catch the little guy out and about. Fortunately, I've been keeping the camera right next to the tank just for such occasions. I now present the world premiere photo of my "mystery crab". Now that I have a decent photo in hand, I'll work on getting an I.D. on the little guy. If I remember, I'll provide an update with the I.D. when I get it.
I've also been taking photos of the Sexy shrimp (Thor amboinensis) since the addition last week. I snapped a good one while it was hanging out amongst my yellow Sarcophyton sp. and another one while it was hanging out around the Euphyllia divisia. I present them here for the world to see:

Caught the Stocking Bug Again

2007-05-20T00:20:00.000-04:00

Well, even though my tank is rapidly running out of space... I visited a newish local "coral farm" and caught the tank-stocking bug again. My intention was only to go and look and just check out the facility and so on... instead, I came home with a shiny new colony of Yellow Sinularia sp. I must say that not only is the coral farm nice, but so is my new addition. After only one day, it seems "healthier" than most other things I've added to the tank. No two weeks of shriveling and sliming like most of the other Alcyonaceans I've ever added... instead, this thing perked right up and showed it's polyps. Not sure how I manage to capture such a stunning photo of the new Sinularia, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Now, onto the further adventures of the stocking bug. After getting the Sinularia, I decided I wanted to have another go at keeping some shrimp. I haven't posted much about my trials and tribulations with shrimp, but let's just say... it's been difficult. Over the last 8 months I've added & "lost" two Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdenmanni) and a sexy anemone shrimp (Thor amboinensis). I say "lost" because I've never seen their dead carapaces or any remains, however none of these 3 shrimps have been seen in over 2 months. Prior to their disappearance, they were at least a daily sight, and anytime I stuck my fingers in the tank, the Peppermints would make themselves conspicuous by trying to clean me. I happened to also find another T. amboinensis while out and about, and I thought I'd give it another go at keeping shrimp. I'm hoping this shrimp doesn't disappear as well, but if it does I'll know who to blame. Upon adding the little guy today, my largest Anemonefish (Amphiprion sanderacinos) took great interest in the new potential food item and nearly gobbled him up before he even had a chance to explore the new tank. I'm going to have to keep a watchful eye, but it may be that my Anemonefish is the prime suspect in the case of the disappearing shrimp. Let's hope this Sexy sticks around a lot longer, here is a photo for good luck...

Bleach

2007-05-13T18:07:00.000-04:00

So one of the thing that I've been involved in studying recently is the phenomenon of coral bleaching (see "The Takeover" series of posts from October 06 for a slight description of that research endeavour) . So imagine my surprise and interest when I found that one of my mushroom corallimorphs had bleached. For those of you wondering what I'm talking about "Bleaching" is the scientific term for when a coral (or relative) loses its color due to the loss of a symbiotic algae (dinoflagellates collectively known as zooxanthellae) which lives inside the tissues of the animal and can provide the "host" with up to 90% of its total daily food. So today, I noticed a bleached corallimorph in my tank, which looks like its being overshaded and outcompeted by two larger corallimorphs growing near it. Needless to say, I'll be watching what happens with this situation with sharp interest.

On the Rebound

2007-05-05T19:22:00.000-04:00

So back in November, I was worried about this new Favia sp. coral that I added to the tank.
6 months later, I'm not nearly as worried as I was. While I did originally have 9 live polyps, I now only have 7. However, the tissue has regained color, the bleaching has stopped, and the polyps are expanding and multiplying: In January (not pictured) I only had 5 live polyps...
I hoping within a few more months, I'll be back to the original 9 polyps again. Keep your fingers crossed.

Surfquarium: Year 1

2007-04-20T17:57:00.000-04:00

The photo above... that was then. 20 April 2006. Water, sand, live rock all added and the budding of Surfquarium had begun.

This blog post marks Surfquarium's 1st birthday, and my has it come a long way...

The photo below... this in now. 20 April 2007. 5 fish, tons of motile invertebrates, tons of sessile inverts, a bit more live rock, and whole lot more crustose corraline algae. I've got a fully functioning, still-budding reef that I've worked fairly hard on, and I'm very proud of.

Urchin Spawning

2007-03-30T21:47:00.000-04:00

Staying with the reproduction theme while trying to play catch-up with the goings on in Surfquarium. I was lucky enough to catch my sea urchin (Echinometra sp.) in the act of spawning. Being in the business, I've made many a captive urchin spawn using a little KCl cocktail - however, I've never caught a captive or wild urchin "in the act" au natural before.
Fortunately for me, I've got no other urchins (that I know of) in the tank and you need a boy & girl to make babies with this species. Although he's cool enough, this one is getting quite large, and I certainly don't need any more bioeroders cruising around my tank. This little breeder is quite enough for now.

Split anemone

2007-03-13T17:37:00.000-04:00

So I know I haven't been posting in a while, but I've been busy... you'll just have to trust me.
When last I posted, I was reporting on my bubble tipped anemone (E. quadricolor) moving about the aquarium... Well after about 3 months of moving all over the tank (and once close call with the filter intake) the thing decided to split. I now had two E. quadricolor's in my tank. Seeing as how the tank is only a 29, and all of my other sessile reef inverts are multiplying like mad, I thought it best to not try and keep two anemones. After about two weeks of observation & feeding, I gave my good friend Betsy Witherspoon a new anemone for her tank (she had a "homeless clown, I felt bad). Never-the-less, this was the first export from my tank and was so worried about the health and well-being of my reared anemone. Much to my pleasure I got a note and the photo above from Betsy about 4 days later:

"Dear Sclerodactyl,
My clown has ALREADY taken up camp!!!

Anemone on the move

2006-11-27T20:46:00.000-05:00

I went out the other day for a little post-thanksgiving shopping & when I returned home I was greeted with a big surprise. After over 4 months of happiness living in the same spot on the reef, my bubble tip anemone (E. quadricolor, at left) decided to move to the lower left corner of the tank. The first thing that ran through my mind was "uh-oh, whats wrong?" but then after a water test (everything was spot-on), a feeding, and a few days of observation... everything seems ok. The anemone isn't bouncing around, the clown fish which used to host inside the anemone is still hosting despite the new neighborhood, and save for some mushroom corallimorphs who don't welcome the competition, all of the other critters seem generally unaffected by the move.
All I can do now is sit back and watch. I kind of wish he'd move back... I now have a huge hole in the center of my tank where the anemone used to live and I'm not about to put anything else in its place... oh well, I guess I should give him the freedom to at least move around since he no longer calls the vast ocean his home. Below is a photo that documents the move.

Progress & Decline

2006-11-26T17:06:00.000-05:00

Just thought i'd give an updated progress on the frag of Favia which is in my tank... after the mild bleaching (no doubt stress related due to what I have deemed as insufficient acclimation time), the live tissue has all rebounded. All the picture above doesn't show, the color is much stronger and the polyp mouth is visible and no longer sunken deep into the calyx. There was some loss of live tissue around the edges, but the central polyps appear to generally be on the rebound. This is my first foray into a non-fungiid scleractinian, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. If the worst should happen, I'll use this as a learning experience and hope to not make the same mistakes twice. The rebound of the mouth tissue & regaining of tissue color is a very positive sign, but its such a small colony and so much tissue loss has already occurred. I'm gonna pull for the little guy & I'll keep updating progress as the story continues.

Growing, growing, growing

2006-11-15T22:20:00.000-05:00

So, aside from my Favia frag, all of the coral relatives I have in the tank are growing like wildfire. As you can see above the yellow leather has grown quite a bit since it was introduced two months ago. On the other side of the tank, my mushroom corallimorphs have just gone crazy. Way back in May I started with 4 mushrooms in the whole tank. I now have 12 polyps on one rock alone (photo below), and a total of 24 polyps in the whole tank. For anyone who is interested in the evolution of these things, there was a recent study published with genetic data which suggests that corallimorphs evolved from corals several 10's of millions of years ago. So in other words, some corals decided to lose the bulk of their heavy skeletons and go the soft & solitary route... interesting stuff.

Took a chance...

2006-11-11T22:14:00.000-05:00

so this weekend I took a chance on a scleractinian frag (Favia danae) when I got some water for my water change. As you can see from the photo... I'm not so sure if it's going to make it. In my last posts, I was talking about a coral bleaching study I am working on. Now it appears as if I've got a bleaching case-study in my own tank. This is not ideal, but since everything else I'm keeping is doing so well (Including some scleractinians & alcyonaceans; post to follow), I thought I'd try my hand with this little frag. Perhaps he was too damaged from the fragging, or I didn't provide a good enough acclimation, but I'm worried by next week I won't have a living frag anymore. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

If only Surfquarium Looked Like This

2006-10-06T03:45:00.000-04:00

Went snorkeling today around the island. The place where I am really only has about 4 or 5 species of scleractinians on its fringing reef. While not the most diverse in the world, the percent live coral cover is quite high (roughly 90%) in most places. The photo at left shows the two most dominant reef builders Montipora capitata (center, brown) and Porites compressa (left, yellow). Conveniently, these are the two species we are using in our bleaching experiment.

On the dry side of things, our food for the corals arrived yesterday so we were busy preparing for our first isotope spike which will happen tomorrow. Labelling sample bottles, assembling field supplies, organizing corals into bleached and non-bleached aquaria (photos here - non bleached, bottom left; bleached, top right),

scrubbing aquaria and coral tiles to remove algae & detritus, and cleaning filters were the main jobs of the day. Even though we run a flow through system with our tanks, we don't want the corals to feed on the zooplankton which is naturally in sea water. There for we need to use filters to remove the zooplankton, so that we can add our plankton (rotifers) which have been labelled to a carefully calculated isotope value. We use two filament canisters, and two mesh cloth media canisters in our filter and given that our stock water is the Pacific Ocean, they can get quite dirty even over night. Here is a photo of our filtration system (note the nasty brown stuff in the mesh filaments - photo was taken prior to cleaning).

The Takeover

2006-10-05T22:18:00.000-04:00

We interrupt the regularly scheduled blog to bring updates about another aquarium-related endeavour. I'm currently in Hawaii working on a coral bleaching study. A large part of the study requires corals to be kept in tanks and alot of what I do for research translates to good ideas in surfquarium. Today we organized the corals into treatment groups in preparation for isotope spiking. We then trace the isotope pulse through both bleached and non-bleached corals in an attempt to understand what happens metabolically when a coral bleaches.

We have a total of 24 tank stations set up, and up to 16 are used simultaneously for the experiment. Since this is an aquarium related blog, here are some photos of potential interest to the reef keeping community.

The holding tanks in groups of 4:
All aquaria flow through systems. Tanks covered with black mesh to prevent excessive UV exposure to corals. Insulated pipes are hot water pipes. Water is heated to induce bleaching in some coral fragments. The water heating system is coupled with a cooled heat exchanger (modified freezer) in order to keep a controlled and constant elevated temperature with which to induce coral bleaching. here are photos of the heating (left) and cooling (systems).

we're bringing sexy back

2006-08-25T23:04:00.000-04:00

Our little sexy anemone shrimp (a.k.a. Thor amboinensis, or just plain 'sexy' for short) seems to have taken to liking a new symbiont. Last week I added a single frogspawn coral (Euphyllia divisia) polyp. Since that time, sexy has moved all the way across the tank and only hangs out with the new frogspawn.
I also added a few other frags this week.
I'll post about all the new life soon... right now I'm busy carefully monitoring everyone & the tank water to make sure everything is going well.
I'll have words and pictures next week.

the case of the shrinking anemone (before N after)

2006-08-24T22:36:00.000-04:00

nearly a week after the move, my prize anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) decided to act 'funny'.
I'm not talking like comedy central ha-ha funny... i'm talking like scaring me into thinking he was in trouble funny.

I would hate to lose anything in my tank... but I would have been super sad if I lost the home for one of my two clown fish.

Anyway, the poor bugger was just looking all small and contracted-like. At first I though he was maybe splitting. But alas, he was small again the next day too and no second anemone floating around the tank anywhere.
So then I watched him shrink & shrivel some more as I tested the water. Perfect. everything was super low and salinity was right on the mark. Temperature was a bit hight, but nothing that would immediately put any tropical reef inhabitant into shock, and certainly no higher than what they would be experiencing in late summer in the tropical ocean.

So I decided the only thing left to do was feed it and hope for the best.
I dethawed a small piece of frozen formula one and inserted it into the center of the shrunken polyp & viola! 2 hours later & for all of the next day (that would be today) he re-expanded to normal size (about 3x the diameter of the shrunkeness exhibited in today's photo).

I'm gonna keep my eye on him, but I must say seeing him back to 'normal' puts my mind at ease.

I can see clearly now...

2006-08-15T22:25:00.000-04:00

Well, two days after the move and the fish and motile inverts all seem to be behaving normally.
everyone is eating & no one is acting shy or behaving abnormally. The tank water has cleared (see photo above - sorry about the lousy photo quality, the normal tank picture set up is still packed in boxes) & most of the sessile inverts also seem to be adjusting. My BTA anemone is the only one who hasn't yet completely perked back up to "normal", though considering all of the sedimentation stress it recieved over the weekend, I can understand why. I'm actually surprised everyone is doing so well.
The water is testing normally as well, but I still need to be careful about monitoring it this week.
I'm also likely going to do a water change soon...
So far so good, after the move - but I'm not out of the woods yet.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the next two weeks.

Its always cloudy on moving day

2006-08-12T17:05:00.000-04:00

so today was the big day. I had a plan, I had the supplies, and cleared my schedule.
Although I originally thought it would take 2 hrs, it took 3 to get everything moved and set up.
- Taking the tank down was no problem... and I tried my best to minimize stress to the animals.
- Physically moving the tank went off fairly well... thought the short drive was a bit scary just cause I was driving super slow and trying to avoid shaking, rolling, sliding, and bumping of hardware & creatures.
- Setting the tank back up proved a bit more challenging than I had budgeted for. I was striving to keep as much original tank water as possible so as to minimize stress and prevent the need for re-cycling the tank. I also wanted to eliminate or minimize the live rocks exposure to air. Both of these things proved mildly complicated. I stirred up way more sediment than I hoped to (see photo above - taken immediately after move was finished)
The final complication was that re-building the reef to the exact design prior to disassembling proved to be frustratingly impossible. Although with the help of some photos posted on this blog, i managed to come very close... the present configuration is slightly different than the old one. Overall this may be a good thing, because I think the reef has much more stability, however it will take me ( & likely the critters) a while to get used to the new look.
Now its just a week of careful water quality monitoring, and hopefully I can report back with good news at a later date.

Moving the Tank

2006-08-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

So, much to my dismay (and completely unforseen) I am forced to move the tank to a new location. I was hoping for stability and to keep the tank in the same place for as long as possible...
funny how some things don't go as planned. Fortunately I have been reading up on how to move a tank & have developed a strategy for moving. The big day is set for Saturday 12 August. I'm using the rest of the week to plan and buy the appropriate supplies.
Wish me luck.

An Urchin Found.

2006-07-26T22:02:00.000-04:00

So today was a day like many other: Came home from a hard day at the mill and did a bit of tank watching. I was checking the progress of a new patch of coralline which is springing up when what to my wondering eyes did appear but a creature which I didn't place in the tank & has escaped my watchful eye for over 4 months!!!
The creature in question appears to be a rock boring urchin of some kind. I'm assuming it was smaller and hitch-hiked its way into the tank with one of the batches of live rock which were added way back in April. If it were a Caribbean urchin, I would put it into the genus Echinometra, however my live rock purportedly is of Indo-Pacific origin & therefore I'm forced to research the exact I.D. of my new friend.

While at its current size, the little guy is a welcome surprise and a cool addition to my biodiversity, my fear is that he will grow too big for his small surroundings. I'll keep you posted on his growth & progress.

I'd like to be a clown

2006-07-19T21:54:00.000-04:00

When I got the Sarcophyton sp. my thinking was that I wasn't sure if I would get an anemone (which I got) and the Sarcophyton would serve as a good host for my clown fish (which I knew I was getting). It turned out that I did get talked into an anemone (which is doing GREAT, by the way) and the clowns host to that. So who to my surprise does "host" (or at least regularly lounge in) to my Sarcophyton?
Well I guess the photo gives it away, but my Yellow coral goby (Gobiodon okinawae) seems to be an aspiring clown fish. He regularly perches himself atop the Sarcophyton and lounges amidst the extended polyps which seem to do him no harm. This is certainly unexpected, but a welcome surprise in Surfquarium.

Just how i left it

2006-07-10T21:52:00.000-04:00

So I went on vacation for 10 days and entrusted my tank and its biological contents to a battery operated auto feeder. Fortunately for me (& my critters) everyone survived and the auto-feeder seems to have worked. I've heard mixed reviews about those things, but it seems to have gotten the job done in this particular case. It was such a relief to come home and find everyone happy and healthy.

The budding aquarium

2006-06-26T20:57:00.000-04:00

Haven't shown the full tank since back in the days of reefscaping. It's come a long way since then... Thought I'd share it with the internet world.

Before (Let it grow) After

2006-06-25T17:31:00.000-04:00

Here are some before (lefts) and afters (rights) of the growth i've noticed in the tank. The top two have had about a 1 month growth period. the anemone about 3 weeks.Everything looks bigger underwater. Sorry about the different photo angles. I've not set up a "scienctific" reef monitoring protocol for my tank yet.

Super Sexy Shrimp.

2006-06-24T20:51:00.000-04:00

This is my anemone shrimp (most likely Thor amboinensis). We call him 'Sexy'.
Although he is an anemone shrimp, he doesn't seem to favor my anemone so much. Instead, this guy prefers to hang out with my mushroom polyp coralimorphs. Sometimes at night he climbs to the top of the reef and performs the sexy dance: shaking his tailfeathers up over his head in a wooful manner. Ah to be a super sexy anemone shrimp.... could there be any more to life?

Conch fritters

2006-06-18T19:36:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm sorry to report my first major death in surfquarium.
A while back the local shop had a "conch" on special. I though this would be a nice addition, so I bought it... even though my marine biologist instinct was telling me that the "conch" was actually a cone shell. Anyway, after about 3 weeks in the tank I noticed the shell flipped upside down. Strombids and Conids both have the ability to right themselves if flipped, so I knew this was trouble. Upon further inspection, no mollusk visible and the shell hasn't moved after about 4 days of being righted. So in my mind, it was either a cone and didn't have enough to eat (typically they eat small fish) or it was really a conch and one of my large Calcinus sp. hermits decided they wanted his shell and treated themselves to some conch fritters. I'm gonna miss that little bugger, but just as on a real reef, mortality and faunal turnover is a continuous process which contributes to, and is an integral part of a properly functioning reef ecosystem. Not a popular view in the aquarium hobby, but a harsh reality of reef life.

I've got worms

2006-06-06T21:55:00.000-04:00

Here is a nice photo of the radiole crown of a couple of serpulid worms in my tank.

Heated competition.

2006-06-06T21:49:00.000-04:00

As I previously reported in this blog, some of the small anemones which came along with the zoanthid pieces have decided to move about the reef. Since I study corals & coral reefs for my day job, I am really interested in the competetion for space between anthozoans (corals, anemones, coralimorphs, etc.) .
I noticed over the weekend that such a display was happening in my tank, where a small anemone took residence in the day-time spread of a mushroom coralimorph. It appears to me as if the anemone won, as the coralimorph disk is retracted in the area of the anemone. Its cool to be able to see this interaction and competition first hand.

How do you spell A-N-E-M-O-N-E ?

2006-06-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

I spell it BTA. Here is a pic of my pretty new anemone which was added last weekend.

Clown College

2006-05-29T21:34:00.000-04:00

To celebrate the holdiay weekend I added the final pieces of the fish puzzle to my tank.
This came in the form of two orange anemonefishes (Amphiprion sandaracinos) . To be kind, I also added a home for them in the form of a green bubble tip anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor) . With this addition i've decided that the tank has reached its maximum carrying capacity, and the only further addition will be reef invertebrates (corals & the like). Certainly no more fish, and likely no more hermits, snails, crabs, etc. ).
Now I just sit back and watch everything grow - with an occassional water change here and there to keep everyone happy & healthy).

I'm into Leather

2006-05-24T20:30:00.000-04:00

So I've had a leather coral (Sarcophyton sp.) in my tank since way back when I went to the book signing by Mike Paletta. I was nervous to show it to the blogging world because for the last two weeks the thing has just been fairly shriveled and never extended its polyps. Of course, I thought I was unable to keep yet another species which is supposedly able to be kept by idiots. Fortunately for all parties involved, it has decided to join the world of photosynthesizers and extend its polyps and bask in the natural glow of the artificial sun which shines from atop my tank. This make me feel much better - and now I'm passing that joy along to all of you (my faithful readers - even if there aren't large volumes of you) in cyberland.

Increasing Biodiversity (a.k.a. I'm a sucker)

2006-05-19T22:14:00.000-04:00

I'm a sucker.
Everytime I go to the aquarium shop to pick up some RO/DI water (a.k.a good water) for water changes, I get roped into some additional reef inhabitants. Tonight it was a small colony of Pulsing Xenia's (Xenia sp. - Red Sea origin) and a small colony of whats known in the aquarium hobby as green star polyps (we science types like to call that one Briareum stechei)
Both seemed well suited for moderate lighting and could be cared for by an idiot.
So along with my water, I came home with some more biomass for my reef.

Lets have a war

2006-05-16T23:16:00.000-04:00

Turns out my new(ish) electric blue hermit crab (Calcinus elegans) is an aggressive little bugger.

He's constantly terrorizing the other large hermit crab in the tank (the orangeclaw - Calcinus tibicen) and sometime this week made him switch shells and drop a claw.

Even after this, today I've watched ol' blue chase mr. orangeclaw around the tank like it was nobodys business.

He seems to leave everyone else alone, but he really doesn't like the orangeclaw at all.

Hopefully this is just a show to establish dominance and all this chasing and fighting will end. I've got an otherwise peaceful tank, if only I could get these two to see eye to eye (or maybe claw to claw)

Anemones on the move

2006-05-15T18:12:00.000-04:00

some of the smaller anemones which were attached to the zooanthid mats have decided they would rather be other places on the reef.

So, two of the more adventurous ones have picked themselves up and moved away from home to a new location on the reef.

I love it when nature takes its course in my tank.

The budding mushroom

2006-05-14T23:08:00.000-04:00

This little guy split away from the main mushroom polyp from which it was attached.
So far it is quite small, but has managed to attach itself solidly to the reef and seems to be quite happy.

I'm happy to have a new polyp to make the reef look fuller.

Meeting Mike Paletta

2006-05-13T22:35:00.000-04:00

Went back to the same shop as Wednesday and got my copy of 'The New Marine Aquarium' signed by the Author Mike Paletta.

I was also talked into buying some more stuff for the tank.

To futher help with algae & clean-up, I got 2 more Astrea snails, a Mithrax crab, and an Electic Blue Hermit.

I'm also posting the pic above because its much better than the one of posts ago (The reef springs to life) which was a poor attempt at showcasing my mushroom and fungiid.

Here is a pic of my new Electric Blue next to a much smaller Blue-legged Hermit:

Changes in (L)atitude

2006-05-13T10:49:00.000-04:00

I thought I should update the continuing saga of my Gobiodon okinawae (a.k.a. 'Yellow Guy').

In just the past few days he has gone from being ultra-shy, non-eating, make-me-worry-all-day-long-fish, to super cool personality, star of the tank.
I've gotten him to eat everything (live & frozen brine shrimp, frozen & flake formula 1) and he now perches right out on a ledge in the very front of the tank.
He also actively swims and doesn't run and hide everytime I check in on the tank.

I can't tell you how happy this makes me because I was so worried that he wasn't doing well.
In the last three days he's really come around, and he's devoping a pretty cool personality within the tank.

Pics of Peppermint

2006-05-12T22:43:00.000-04:00

so the weather outside was frightful this weekend which cancelled my camping trip.
that means I'm spending time working on that photo set up I talked about previously.
Still no underwater shots, but my new method is working better.

Here is a pic of one of my peppermint shrimps clamoring over a $15 cluster of zoanthids.

Also since the weather is bad... tomorrow I will be going back to the shop which sold me my first such polyps to partake in a book signing by Mike Paletta. At the same time I'm sure I'll be picking up some new treats to futher build my low-light reef.

The reef springs to life.

2006-05-10T22:21:00.000-04:00

Went to visit the newest local marine aquarium hobby shop (only been open 10 days) today.
They've got a really nice setup and seem to cater towards the rare/big/expensive market.
However they also sell cast-aways at affordable prices.

After some questions and overstaying closing time, the clerk was able to convince me that the reef needed to start its population.

I'm wary of starting corals and the like in such a new tank.
Never-the-less, the clerk was effective into talking me into some mushroom polyps (I think these are corallimorphs, but have yet to do the taxonomy) and a very tiny (1.5 cm diameter) fungia coral.
They were selling these rogue polyps for $5 each, which was a risk I was willing to take.

$25 later my tank is now populated by one small purple fungiid, and 4 musroom polyps.
I'm hoping these guys will flourish, reproduce and grow into the large colonies which they were charging $40 for.

For now, they really give additional color to my live rock.
Keeping my fingers crossed.

Long Live Rock

2006-05-09T17:57:00.000-04:00

Well, one reader of this blog (I don't know how many of you there actually are, but I sure appreciate those of you who are reading) inquired about what i've found crawling on my live rock since its been introduced to my tank. I'm a bit of a marine biology nerd, so I've been trying to catalog and identify all of the life in my tank. While this chore is turning exhaustive, I thought I'd mention a few of the cooler finds on my live rock.
I've got numerous serpulid worms, some small white ophiuroids (brittle stars), the dreaded bristle worms, of course coralline algae, but perhaps my favorite find to date has been a rock chiton (pictured) - these guys have always fascinated me in the wild and by stroke of luck, I aquired a six-plated one through the live rock.

I've only mentioned a few of the more 'sexy' critters I've found emerging from the live rock, but there are also tons of isopods, amphipods, worms, and other assorted micro-inverts combing my live rock.

True tales of the undead

2006-05-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

So I had a bit of panic over the weekend.
On the bottom of the tank between a crevice in the live rock I noticed what looked like the body of one of my two treasured scarlet hermit crabs.
I was very distraught, but quickly removed the sadness from my tank.
Without careful inspection, I gave the thing a proper burial in the backyard and moped around feeling sorry for my inadequate reef keeping abilities.

The very next morning as I'm giving the morning feed, I begin to inventory the tank and notice that I'm still counting two scarlett reef hermits.
How could this be? I buried one last night.
Turns out the little guy must have just molted as I also notice that he was wearing a new house.

I have no other way to explain this 'resurrection' other than thinking now that what I buried was actually the discarded molt of my crab. Hopefully this is the case - otherwise I've got some magic happening.

Fire in de hole

2006-05-07T15:07:00.000-04:00

I'd like to report the latest vertebrate addition to the tank:
a small fire dartfish (Nemateleotris magnifica). I didn't think I would be adding things so fast, but I was kind of hoping to get this guy along with the coral gobies, however the only one the store had that day was too big.
So now the purchased animal tally is:

3 fish
6 hermits
9 snails

There must be something about multiples of 3.

Let there be brine

2006-05-06T20:07:00.000-04:00

In the continuing effort to showcase the wildlife in my tank, here is a photo of my scarlett reef hermit crab (Paguristes cadenati). There are two of these guys in the tank, but I like this one the most because his white shell makes his red body & yellow eyes really stand out.

Went to the fish store today to try and get help with my fishes apparent eating disorder.
They suggested live food, so's I got a massive bag of brine shrimp and am going to give them a whirl. Upon initial feeding I did notice both fish to be a bit more alert & active, but still have yet to actually see one of them eat. Hopefully this situation improves soon - I'm really worried.

Also, since I'm feeding and they aren't eating, I decided to get some shrimps because I noticed the hermits & snails just don't clean up the fish food as well as they take care of my algal growth.
So new to the tank today are a pair of Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdenmanni). I'm starting to get quite a high biodiversity.

Starvation Blues

2006-05-05T20:02:00.000-04:00

Here is a picture of the Clown Coral Goby (Gobiodon histrio).
Pictures aside, I'm worried about my fishies.
They are pretty shy and always hiding amongst the live rock.
I really haven't seen them eating all that much.
I watch them alot, but am not even sure if they've eaten.
I think I've seen the green guy (G. histrio) eat a few times, and I may have seen the yellow man (G. okinawae) eat once.... other than that I'm left to hope that they are in fact eating.
Yellow still has a pretty sunken stomach and I am getting mighty worried about him.
Going to the fish store tomorrow to see if they have any advice.

Pictures of Fishy

2006-05-01T22:41:00.000-04:00

So here is a quick and dirty pick of the Gobiodon okinawae. He likes to spend time perched atop the powerhead, or cruising between the live rock.
His tank mate spends most of the day hiding in the live rock. so its tougher to snap his photo.

Still going with the low quality images till I get my photographizing all straightened out for real.

So, would you join me please in welcoming....

2006-04-28T15:16:00.000-04:00

Took my water to get tested by the "experts" - that would be the aquarium shop with 50+ yrs in da bizzness. They agreed with what I had surmised - namely that my tank was fully cycled and ready for some vertebrate live stock.
so after much hemming and hawing over what lucky beasts were going to be the first fish in surfquarium, I finally picked two cool little clown (sometimes called coral) gobies.
Gobiodon okinawae and Gobiodon histrio (thats the yellow & green clown goby for those of you who don't habla latin) are the latest and greatest additions to the tank.
I'm gonna try to take real good care of them & give 'em a good home.

PS. you may have noticed I haven't posted pics in a while. I'm 'xperimenting with a new tank picture taking setup (including the possibility of underwater shots) and wanna get it right first. I'll post some more pics soon.

And another one.

2006-04-27T22:13:00.000-04:00

Well today my blue legged hermit decided he wanted a larger home.
Good buy old broke down shell, hello new hotness.
I must say that in both shell change scenarios, the crabs made stellar choices.
They were both sporting shells that had been beat up from the feet up, but they done traded in for some spice and are now rocking the flyest shells in the tank.
Pimping ain't easy but my crabs sure do try.

Oh, and by the way... yes I missed this one too.
I'm serious about this tank watching thing.
I just need to figure out how to make money whilst I do it.

Change clothes

2006-04-25T11:09:00.000-04:00

As they are prone to do ('specially in captivity)
My large orangeclaw hermit changed his shell today.
While this is cool, it would have been a whole lot cooler if I were there to see it.
I'm thinking about staying home and just watching my aquarium for the rest of eternity.
Then I won't miss a cool thing ever again (well except for bathroom breaks maybe).
Do you think I could get paid to just stare blankly at a glass box filled with water all day?
Any potential employers hit me up.

I've got crabs

2006-04-22T23:12:00.000-04:00

Well, although it may not be the best idea in the world... (but still better than fish)
I went out and got some hermit crabs to help the tank along with the cycling.
These guys tend to be pretty hardy and should be able to handle whatever the tank throws at them...
plus with all the live rock, the detrimental effects of the cycling process should be reduced (and expedited)
last, crawly things break up the monotony of watching rocks while I wait for the tank to cycle.

So with that, I've got my first non-hitchhiking inhabitants:

1 blue legged hermit crab (Clibinarius tricolor) hailing from somewhere in the Caribbean/Western Atlantic region.
and

1 Orangeclaw hermit crab (Calcinus tribicen) also hailing from somewhere in the Caribbean/W. Atlantic.
He's the guy in the picture.

hopefully these guys pick my new live rock clean and give me hours of entertainment until I get some other interesting creatures in there.

Reefscaping

2006-04-21T23:08:00.000-04:00

Added the final amounts of live rock & created what I hope to be the "final" reefscape for the tank.
I'm pretty geeked out by the arrangement I came up with... stable & fashionable.
But I'm sure everyone else who looks at it just thinks... hey Nice pile of rocks.
anyway, I'm posting the pic.
Also, with another batch of live rock came another hitchhiker.
A med sized Astraea snail was attached to one of the pieces...
my tanks 2nd critter.

let there be life.... sort of.

2006-04-20T00:24:00.000-04:00

spent major amounts of cheddar on some (18 lbs to be exact) live rock today.
got it at a reasonable price considering it was already cured & didnt need much scrubbing or attention when I got it home.
This is the first step towards introducing life to the tank.
hopefully the live rock in addition to the live sand will kick start the cycling process and I can add some real buggers in a week or two.
this is just a modest amount of rock to start with so as to get the tank cylced and not completely kill my wallet. its already been a rather expensive week. I'm planning on adding at least another 10-15 pounds after I get my next lump of cash saved up.

As a bye-product of adding the live rock, my tank got its first official macroinvertebrate inhabitant today in the form of a hitch hiking snail... I'm gonna have to watch him closely to make sure he makes it throught the cycling process.

Just Add Water & Watch it grow!!!

2006-04-16T00:10:00.000-04:00

mixed up an added 29 gallons of the saltiest water you ever did sea...
a 4+ hour job given the equipment i had at my disposal (maybe I wasn't as entirely prepared as I thought)
as you can see (and as expected) water was cloudy at first, but cleared up after a few hours of filtration.
the first big leap in a long & expensive journey.
also added the live sand and made sure the filtration worked today... but thats rather mundane compared to all the salt water mixing going on.

Got the goods

2006-04-15T00:05:00.000-04:00

Went to the local fish store (in aquarium hobby speak they call that an LFS) and got everything I need:
tank to fit my stand (29 gallon oak finish)
filter (aquaclear 200)
30" T5 light fixture w/ full spectrum & actinic bulbs
Rio 200 power head
assorted water chemistry test kits & materials
crushed coral for a base substrate
some salt to make the water just so.
some live aragonite sand for improved natural sediment "filtration"

The thing that started it all.

2006-04-08T23:56:00.000-04:00

So I went shopping to help a new friend/co-worker get some furniture for his new pad.
Whilst driving him around the entire city, I scored a wonderful addition to my own personal furniture collection.
A solid oak aquarium stand in really good shape for a rediculously cheap price at a second hand thrift store in the ghetto.
Of course I purchased the stand... and thereby forcing me to do something I had been meanin to do for the last 1.5 years.
thats right folks, out of little oaks, mighty aquariums grow.