Refugium: Here's the corals. The Acanthastrea on the left was feeling hungry, as you can see the little feeder tentacles emerging around the mouth: Same corals under the blue lights:
Hope you enjoyed!
Those corals under blue lights are absolutely stunning! In fact, looking at them is hard to distinguish from looking at the safe shallows at night!
Thanks guys! I've just added a few more pieces to the refugium. The dark blue zoanthids with red tentacles are called lunar eclipses, I snapped a bit of rock off the main colony to see if I can grow them on. On the same rock are a few reverse space monster palythoas, which are golden. Next to the Blastomussa is a nuclear green palythoa polyp which has been growing very slowly so far (There's a single baby behind the parent). And yes, people give very dramatic, strange names to zoa/paly species. Here's where you can find a lot of the more unusual ones.
The shell at the bottom right contains a kenya tree cutting which will soon attach to the shell and grow rapidly.
Found this little guy on the lunar eclipse rock last night: a vermetid snail.
Their shells, which are more like tubes, are cemented in place so the vermetid snail spends its time in one place. You can see it peeking out from under a little trapdoor which it will shut if there's a predator. The snail feeds by sending out a long line of mucus which floats around in the current and catches bits of food, which the snail then reels in. Pretty interesting to watch.
The downside is that vermetid snails can be pests in large numbers as their mucus nets can irritate corals. They also found in a study a few years ago that grazing fish tend to avoid areas that the snails colonise.
Fortunately, this is the only vermetid snail I've seen in the tank for years and they're harmless enough if there's just a few of them. The worst thing about an infestation from personal experience isn't the mucus nets (Which can look ugly) but trying to lift rocks that're covered in their sharp, pointy tubes. I've been cut a few times from it before. I'll keep an eye out anyway!
I registered on the forums just to say that your reef tank is amazing. I could stare at that thing all day if I wanted to.
Sorry for the late reply, but thanks for that! I'm really flattered.
Got an update today. I've just done a thorough cleaning and done a water change and unfortunately my clumsiness resulted in me having to make a few changes.
Firstly, whilst cleaning the smaller powerhead I somehow lost the magnet holding it behind the tank...so I won't be able to recover it for years. I improvised by using one side of the magnet cleaner to hold it in place and positioned it on the opposite corner to the larger powerhead. This results in a nice, turbulent flow which the corals seem to be liking.
Secondly, I managed to drop one of the little suction cups holding the larger powerhead in place behind all the rocks in one corner. This meant having to move rocks around to recover it, so I figured I'd make a few adjustments. I'm happy with it so far, I made a shelf at the top which puts the crocea and blue maxima clams right below the water surface. More light for them!
A special guest revealed himself for the first time in over a year: Ringo the starfish. Like I said before, you normally only see the tips of his arms poking from under the rocks so to see the rest of him was a surprise. I gave him some pellets for that!
Speaking of starfish, my tank is colonised by many small brittle starfish similar in appearance to Ringo but dark red. They're also a lot smaller. When I turned off the white lights they suddenly surged forth from their hiding spaces and climbed high up the rocks...then they spawned. It was pretty awesome! Spawning events such as these are linked to the phases of the moon. I guess the blue lights are a sort of substitute for them? On other occasions I've spotted the bristle worms spawning in the same manner.
Got a quick photo of the mandarin since she was at the front earlier. She darted out of sight as soon as it was taken so I got lucky this time.
A fellow hobbyist nearby has been selling coral phenomenally cheap and they're fairly uncommon kinds as well. He's also going to be getting a few more for me that I've been after for a long time (Including the super awesome looking rainbow Acanthastrea).
Here's my new Zoanthids I got from him! The top one is a sunny delight and the bottom left is a rasta (One of my favourite species). Not sure what kind the bottom right is but it has three baby polyps sprouting from the base of the adult.
And here's the others, which you've seen before.
Huh. That was a longer post than I thought it would be...enjoy it regardless!
Comments
Those corals under blue lights are absolutely stunning! In fact, looking at them is hard to distinguish from looking at the safe shallows at night!
The shell at the bottom right contains a kenya tree cutting which will soon attach to the shell and grow rapidly.
Their shells, which are more like tubes, are cemented in place so the vermetid snail spends its time in one place. You can see it peeking out from under a little trapdoor which it will shut if there's a predator. The snail feeds by sending out a long line of mucus which floats around in the current and catches bits of food, which the snail then reels in. Pretty interesting to watch.
The downside is that vermetid snails can be pests in large numbers as their mucus nets can irritate corals. They also found in a study a few years ago that grazing fish tend to avoid areas that the snails colonise.
Fortunately, this is the only vermetid snail I've seen in the tank for years and they're harmless enough if there's just a few of them. The worst thing about an infestation from personal experience isn't the mucus nets (Which can look ugly) but trying to lift rocks that're covered in their sharp, pointy tubes. I've been cut a few times from it before. I'll keep an eye out anyway!
Just thought I'd share that.
Sorry for the late reply, but thanks for that! I'm really flattered.
Got an update today. I've just done a thorough cleaning and done a water change and unfortunately my clumsiness resulted in me having to make a few changes.
Firstly, whilst cleaning the smaller powerhead I somehow lost the magnet holding it behind the tank...so I won't be able to recover it for years. I improvised by using one side of the magnet cleaner to hold it in place and positioned it on the opposite corner to the larger powerhead. This results in a nice, turbulent flow which the corals seem to be liking.
Secondly, I managed to drop one of the little suction cups holding the larger powerhead in place behind all the rocks in one corner. This meant having to move rocks around to recover it, so I figured I'd make a few adjustments. I'm happy with it so far, I made a shelf at the top which puts the crocea and blue maxima clams right below the water surface. More light for them!
A special guest revealed himself for the first time in over a year: Ringo the starfish. Like I said before, you normally only see the tips of his arms poking from under the rocks so to see the rest of him was a surprise. I gave him some pellets for that!
Speaking of starfish, my tank is colonised by many small brittle starfish similar in appearance to Ringo but dark red. They're also a lot smaller. When I turned off the white lights they suddenly surged forth from their hiding spaces and climbed high up the rocks...then they spawned. It was pretty awesome! Spawning events such as these are linked to the phases of the moon. I guess the blue lights are a sort of substitute for them? On other occasions I've spotted the bristle worms spawning in the same manner.
Got a quick photo of the mandarin since she was at the front earlier. She darted out of sight as soon as it was taken so I got lucky this time.
A fellow hobbyist nearby has been selling coral phenomenally cheap and they're fairly uncommon kinds as well. He's also going to be getting a few more for me that I've been after for a long time (Including the super awesome looking rainbow Acanthastrea).
Here's my new Zoanthids I got from him! The top one is a sunny delight and the bottom left is a rasta (One of my favourite species). Not sure what kind the bottom right is but it has three baby polyps sprouting from the base of the adult.
And here's the others, which you've seen before.
Huh. That was a longer post than I thought it would be...enjoy it regardless!