I did the usual weekly maintainance in all tanks. Fed Kyo before doing the water change because he only ate half the usual amount for breakfast, so a snack was in order. Speaking of snacking, the snails MissPriss and Baldy have surfaced, grazing on the areas where I’d pulled algae earlier, though MissPriss has been on ledge rock for quite a while knocking back the microalgae among the macro. Drew hasn’t surfaced in a while. He used to be my most cryptic snail but the two baby snails in the picoreef now are competing for that place. Lately I’ve only seen one at a time. Since a noticeable difference in size developed (though they are still really small) I can tell that I’ve been seeing the larger one the past couple of weeks and the smaller one a couple of times this week. The picoreef still doesn’t have filtration back on it yet, but I’ll do that some time this weekend.

Calypso and Cortez have been hanging around palace rock a lot lately. It has always been a favorite spot for Calypso anyway. It has some tiny light colored spots on it right now. Not sure what it is, but I’m keeping an eye on it.

I’m also keeping an eye on the cyano. I removed the remaining patch this afternoon because it looked like it was getting worse instead of better and I didn’t want to blast the tank with cyano remover again.

The sun coral is looking fat and happy. I’m feeding it mysis 3-4 times a week. Oddly, the shrimp haven’t been hanging around the cave trying to snatch any bits up this week. A pleasing, unexpected development. They do not need mysis: they get plenty of Kyo’s cast off food pellets. Which reminds me…a couple of times a pellet has fallen onto a sun coral polyp and I’d swear it ate it. I wonder if that’s a good thing or a bad thing? It’s only happened twice and I’ve seen no ill effects, but I wouldn’t want them to have a steady diet of it.

Elle is looking very, very good, her crown bigger than ever. I’ve been giving her a bit of mysis and mysis juice, too.

The lights have already turned to twilight now that daylight savings time is over.  I hate resetting them. It should be easy, but it never turns out that way. Time to log off and feed Kyo supper. (I usually wait a bit later for the corals, when they’re more fully open.)

Sometimes it’s necessary to spend some real time maintaining the reef tank. This morning I had the time so I caught up with algae removal, both micro and macro. Also, the cyano covering the Fiji rock appeared dead and I removed it as best I could. There’s only a few small thin patches on the other side of the tank. If it continues to fade maybe I won’t have to reapply the treatment.

I put two strands of the new algae in the picoreef. I did a 3/4 qt water change this morning because it currently doesn’t have filtration. Removed a small bristleworm under the barnacle shell in the picoreef, too.

While gently pulling the thread of the new algae in the mini-reef (on the Tonga rock) I dislodged the rock chip the red-green Discosoma came on. As I’d been expecting the main disk had finally migrated off the chip and, as I’d hoped, the small disks that had popped up remained on the chip! The chip is now resting on the substrate at the front of the tank until I decide where to relocated it.

I also cleaned the sponge filters today, but I did it a bit differently than usual. Usually I’m doing a water change so I pull the filters first because they shed a bit of “stuff” which goes into water about to be changed. Today I did my algae removal and probably stirred up a bit of stuff suspended in the water column while the pumps were off. I turned everything back on and let it run for a hour or so to clear the water. Then I pulled the sponge filters and thoroughly rinsed them. My thinking was that they’d sucked up a lot of the stuff released into the water by my activities, bits of free-floating algae I’d missed, now caught in the sponges. They rinsed out very dirty for mid-week, so I think it was a good call.

I didn’t do a water change because I didn’t want to dilute the cyano treatment, give it a few more days to work on what little is left. I emptied the skimmer cup because it’d gotten pretty full of nasty water after the cyano treatment. (It’s still skimming, but also still producing microbubbles, too.)

Having my arm in and out of the tank all morning freaked Kyo out so he hid deeply in his Neomaris nest. He was a bit off his feed this evening, but had come out by then.

I enjoyed just messing with the tanks this morning. Removing algae was tedious, but satisfying. There were little delightful bonuses like separating the Discosoma offsets, pulling off a lovely strand of algae and transferring it to the picoreef, watching the amphipods scurrying around. They still have plenty to eat; I can’t get the tank algae-free—and I wouldn’t want to. Algae is necessary for my little ecosystem. I just need to do a bit of gardening now and then.

I had to repeat the slime treatment 48 hours after initial treatment of the red slime remover. It still doesn’t look like it’s fading away very well, so I may have to do the week-after repeat. On the good news front, the sun corals are opening again and I’ve fed them every night for the past three nights. I’ve also fed Elle a bit of their leftovers. Speaking of feeding: Kyo was hiding in the algae Saturday morning and was really buried deep and wouldn’t come out for breakfast. I wasn’t able to get him out until evening, after running the skimmer with the valve closed to eliminate the microbubbles. I’m assuming that’s what’s bothering him. Oddly, this time around with the cyano treatment, the microbubbles only appear when the skimmer is set normally, but when I close the valve (as I have done about half the time) the flow is fast and normal. Last time I did the treatment, I had trouble finding any setting that did not spit out microbubbles. Kyo is now eating normally again: I just have to close the valve and let the bubbles clear for a while before attempting to feed him. I was really worried Saturday morning because he was buried deep in there and even though he saw the food and reacted by moving a bit, he wouldn’t come out. He is acting more normally now, but unfortunately the micorbubble situation is going to continue because it lasts about a week after I do the treatment—two weeks if I have to repeat it, which I’ve had to do every time except the first time.

In other not-so-good news: the pump went out suddenly on the picoreef over the weekend . I wasn’t able to get a new pump or replace the disposable filter because the pet store was all out, so I’m using the pump and airstone I usually use to aerate the water when I make a new batch of salt water. I’m hoping to replace the small pump and get filtration back on it later this week.

There was just too darn much happening in the tanks the past few days and with the exception of the sun corals feeding again, none of it was particularly good. OTOH, snail, hermit crabs, shrimp and Discosoma are all doing well, as near as I can tell. The red Discosoma has sprouted a baby adjacent to the main disk, so it’s pretty happy, I guess.

The sun corals haven’t been opening up the past few days. I’m wondering if it’s because I really stuffed them with mysis before, or if there is something wrong. One thing that I know is wrong is that the cyano has spread a lot in the tank in the past week. It’s covered the Fiji rock (which is on the other side of the tank from the sun coral) and is also on the substrate, left side, front of the tank, which isn’t too far from the coral.

Early yesterday evening I did a 1.5 gal water change and the usual weekly maintanence.  I wanted to wait and see if the coral opened up before hitting the tank with the slime remover. The polyps showed a few tentacles and I hit it with zooplex, but didn’t get any feeding response. So around midnight last night I added the slime remover. The skimmer is putting out microbubbles as usual, but isn’t over-foaming (so far).

If it weren’t for the slime the tank would look pretty good. I’ve got a new macroalgae that’s popped up which I like the look of and the Neomaris is doing a second regrowth on the ledge rock where it had thinned out. I’m sure this makes Kyo happy since he lives there. BTW, it seems to me that Kyo’s color is improving, that he’s a more saturated pink than when I first got him.  Lookin’ good! …..But camera shy!

I haven’t been hand-feeding the shrimp for a while now because so many food pellets escape Kyo that they have plenty to scavenge—not to mention stray bits of mysis when I feed the coral. They’ve been molting a bit more often (see previous post), though I suspect it’s probably Tam rather than Kalimba because he’s the younger shrimp and isn’t yet full-size. Though he should be hitting full-grown real soon if he hasn’t with this last molt. I’d thought that the differences I’d observed between the two shrimp might be because he was younger, but as he’s grown the differences in appearance I’ve observed are still there, so I’ve fairly confident in my assessment that I’ve got two different species. Oh, well….

I have a number of things I’ve been thinking about writing here on this blog, but just haven’t had the time. I’ve got time to watch my little reef tanks, take care of them, etc. but just don’t have a lot of time right now to sit down and write about what I’m seeing. This should real change soon.

Ghostly-looking Shrimp Molt

One of the shrimp has molted again. This is what greeted me in the tank first thing this morning. Kind of a late Halloween decoration in the tank.

I think I’ve finally gotten the hang of feeding the sun corals. Because I’m still nursing a gravely ill rescue dog I have plenty of syringe-type applicators which I’m now using to target feed the sun coral. I can hit each polyp with mysis, rather than hit the whole colony using a turkey baster. I’m still feeding with zooplex alternately with mysis. Have done some daytime feeding, too because they’ve been open for short periods, some days.

The only problem is the shrimp, Kalimba and Tam, who attempt to steal the mysis. I hold them off waving the syringe. I’d read about shrimp stealing food from corals, but I thought, no prob: I don’t have any corals! Now I do and where is the most algae-free area, low light, the place they open and seem happiest? Right on the doorstep of the shrimp’s condo cave!

So, mealtimes are interesting. In the wild this would never work, but I’m the coral’s advocate and food source, so it works. Also, the shrimp have plenty of shots at food pellets Kyo let’s go by, so it’s not like they have to have mysis. I haven’t been hand-feeding them lately because there’s enough to scavenge.

Elle gets a bit of zooplex and microvert now and then when I’m feeding the coral, so she seems to be doing well. She closed the one type I tried to feed her mysis.

Cortez was against the front glass and I was surprised at how big he looks. Calypso seems to have stopped growing. I may need to find some slightly bigger shells for Cortez.

Yesterday I did about a 1 1/2 gal water change and the usual clean-up. The cyano is back, but I want to remove it by hand for now instead of using chemicals. I did a 1 qt water change in the picoreef. It’s got what look like a slight rusty diatom thing a bit on the glass and a little on substrate—until I cleaned it up. Looks much better with the glass clean, but the barnacle shell is really covered with algae now. Good for the amphipods, but not terribly attractive. Only 1 snail popped out that I could see. Stealth snails.

Made up a fresh batch of water. I seem to be going through it a bit faster lately.

Kyo was skittish during feeding both morning and evening today, darting into the macroalgae mid-feed, as if startled, but coming back out after a minute or so. I have no idea what spooked him. Maybe I moved my hand or arm differently? He still has a healthy appetite and doesn’t stay freaked out for very long, which shows that he’s pretty secure with his habitat. [end]

I did the usual tank maintenance today, except it was more like a 1.5 gallon water change in the main tank. I rinsed sponges, removed algae, even happily removed a couple of small patches of cyano and a shrimp exoskeleton (molt) was seems appropriate on the eve of Halloween, all ghostly-looking, white and translucent. I also removed a strand of that new macroalgae that popped up a while back which which had attached itself to Elle’s tube (to her obvious dismay, she’s been “in” more the past couple of days). All is well and happy in the tank. After a two day sulk when I moved the sun corals back to their original position in the tank, they started feeding again. I gave them a cube of mysis a few days back and was fascinated to see them “snap” at the mysis and suck them in. Kalimba and Tam also snapped up some, but the corals got most because they can eat more at a time than the two well-fed shrimp. Speaking of eating, I’ve noticed that Kyo is eating more. Gradually his food intake has increased so that he now eats about double what he ate when I first got him. He started at 9 food pellets, twice a day. He’s now eating 18-20+ pellets twice a day. He still occasionally has “off” meals when he only eats 10-12 pellets, but by and large his intake has roughly doubled. I’m still feeding him with the pump off since he’s developed a preference for that. When the current drops he knows it’s meantime (though if he is begging he gets fed no matter what time it is).

Why did I enjoy cleaning the tank today? I’ve spent the week nursing a new very sick dog and our elderly dog then caught what the new dog had, so I’ve had two sick dogs—the weakest, sickest one (new) with practically no appetite. I’ve spent a lot of time at the vet. Both dogs seem better today, though the new dog had a relapse Monday so I’m trying not to get my hopes up too much. But all signs are positive. Suddenly I’m not all bent out of shape about a couple of small patches of cyano. I’m appreciating that everything in the tank from the sun corals to the snails are sucking down food with a healthy appetite. I’m appreciating the abundant healthy life in the tank. I’m enjoying how easy it is to just feed and clean and go through the routine with no worries or over-analyzing, no wondering if some poor little creature is going to starve itself to death while ill. I’m appreciating the placidity of the aquariums, the vigor of everything.

I didn’t get around to that 1 qt water change I should have done in the picoreef last week, so I did 2 qts (half gal) today. There was a slight bit of film on glass and areas of substrate which I sucked off/out. Both the little snails popped up to scavenge after I’d cleaned it. I’ve noticed more amphipod activity, too. I’m still a little worried about my “aiptasia in a jar”, it doesn’t seem to be handling the hair algae very well, but that’s another day, another post.

Happy Halloween, everyone! Have a great weekend!