I used to think that my quickie off-the-top water changes were “cheating”. Coming from the freshwater world where I spent years suctioning the bottom of the tank, scooping water quickly off the top didn’t feel like a “real” water change. I’ve changed my mind. Off the top is (for me) the way to go unless I’ve got Something Disgusting on the substrate.

Since getting Kyo, my first little reef fish for my little reef, I’ve been dropping in food pellets. I’ve noticed a thin film on top of the water about mid-week after a Friday water change. Protein, of course. The skimmer takes care of most, but the film on the water gets scooped off with the 1 gal. weekly water change. Kyo dislikes the film and the small bubbles that accumulate in it; it seems to interfer with his sighting and picking off food pellets.

Of course any mis-hits or any pellets that escape him benefit the hermit crabs and Kalimba, the shrimp, so they’re not complaining. They’re fat and happy by week’s end.

I did 1 gal. water change in the mini-reef, rinsed the sponge filters and did a 1qt. water change in the picoreef late this afternoon. Over the past week I’ve been testing and adjusting the Ph, adding 1 tsp superbuffer every other day. Ph this morning was 7.9 and was 8.2 prior to water change this afternoon. I added superbuffer this morning after testing. That was my third dose in a week. As always I’ve seen an increase in amphipods as the Ph is slowly creeping up. Today’s dose will probably keep it up and stable for a while.

About mid-week another egg mass appeared on cave rock, on the left side towards the back, right in the middle of a mass of algae. Presumbly Drew cleaned the spot before laying the eggs, but still, it’s not a good spot. I’m having a difficult time remembering to call “him” her. I really need to find a boyfriend for her; she’s one hot-to-trot snail right now.

One final thing to note is that the algae on cave rock where the eggs are is the same type that I pull off the outflow of the skimmer. It reminds me of the algae I’ve seen on the jettys. Which is pretty there, but I can’t say it has the same effect in my mini-reef.

Because more creatures means more food in the tank I’ve been concerned with water quality. So last night shortly after the lights switched over to the twilight of actinic only light I ran the tests. Ph was a worrisome 7.9 — well below what it should be after a full day of light. Everything else was optimal. Calcium was 440. Since the tank didn’t need topping off I waited until this morning to add the tsp. of superbuffer. Though the Ph is low, it was more stable than expected. When tested under dawn actinic lighting (before adding superbuffer) it was still 7.9 — which is unusual. Usually there’s a significant dip overnight. Will do some morning & evening Ph retesting over the weekend and make additional adjustments if necessary. [end]

I had a great time doing maintenance this week. I’m not being ironic or sarcastic! This was one of those mornings where chores resulting in me learning things and finding things.

First off, the mushroom anemones have had me worried. (Well, not the blue one, it never does anything.) The green mushroom for some time now has been withdrawing. It used to sprawl quite far down the rock, but now it’s not.  I accidentally found out why. It’s gone walkabout! Sort of. I’d placed the small chip of rock it was attached to in a niche near the top of the Tonga rock when I got it. Well, I was brushing some “dust” off the rock in the course of things this morning and dislodged the rock. Not the Discosoma. The rock. Ol’ Greenie has been ever so slowly moving up to the top of the rock and is now perched right on the peak. Not a bit of it was even touching the original rock chip it was on! I didn’t know that they could move like that, just pull up stakes and go. I’m a lot less worried about it now. Obviously it’s moved where it wants to be, and the fact that it wasn’t extended down the side of the rock was because it had moved at least an inch up.  I removed the rock chip and dropped it into the substrate. I may use for something else later.

The other mushroom I’ve been concerned about is the new one. Yesterday morning it was all pale and shrivelled (though not as shrivelled as when I got it). It spread out again later, then shrivelled, then spread out. It was shirvelled and pale when the full light came on this morning. I don’t know what’s disturbing it, but it’s fully extended most of the time and hasn’t done it again today.

Below are two snaps in which you can see the difference (click for bigger pics) between when the stripy one is pale and shrivelled and when it’s fully extended. You can also compare the green mushroom at the top in the first pic with the second pic in which I’ve removed the rock chip from the niche below it. That’s right, it was in that niche, so it’s moved quite a bit!

Striped mushroom pale and shrivelled, green mushroom with original rock in niche below it.

Striped mushroom, fully extended. Green mushroom’s original rock removed from niche below it’s present location.

The other cool thing I found is a new type of red algae that’s just getting started on the
Fiji Rock. Can’t yet get a good pic of it. I spent a long time removing the nuisance algae from Tower Rock (which is turning a nice shade of pink, btw). There’s a trick to removing this algae: it takes patience and a bit of skill to find the delicate holdfast threads and peel them back, anticipating their direction and the rock’s niches. I got almost all off Tower Rock and removed a lot from the Fiji rock, though not as much as I wished. The Fiji rock has become covered with algae and substrate so quite a bit of brushing and turkey-baster blowing was needed. I scared off two amphipods and one baby bristleworm. When I’d gotten most of the algae off or mown down, there were these bright red spots sticking up just a bit. Some kind of red algae. Beautiful color. Can’t wait to see what it turns out to be. Maybe it will muscle out the less attractive green nuisance algae. The Fiji rock was my first piece of live rock which was put in the 2.5 gal tank several years ago. It has had a succesion of varieties of algae come and go on it. The most recent type is my least favorite.

A couple of days ago I stopped smoking Elle with the microvert daily (or rather adding it to the tank in her general area). She’s looking great and the tank is grungy enough to provide plenty of microplankton. I was concerned about overloading the tank. Between the microvert and Kyo’s food pellets enough nutrient was put into the tank to cause an explosion of algae. On one hand I’m happy with the resurgence of the purple algae that I thought had died, on the other hand I really don’t want to do the whole nuisance algae removal thing with every water change. I need to get more snails but right now no one has the variety that Drew is (which is what I want though there are a couple others I might consider).

One final observation: the past 2-3 days Kyo has been going under the ledge rock into Kalimba’s cave to be cleaned. I don’t know if she actually cleans him when he’s in there or if he’s just nagging her because she hadn’t come out and done her cleaning dance yet, but that’s what appears to be happening. Private cleaning sessions. I’ve joked about Kyo having his very own cleaner shrimp. Apparently he’s taken that to heart.

Have a happy Independence Day Weekend everyone!

If you’re on Facebook, become a fan of my Sea Creatures there!

Are you on Facebook? You can become a Fan Of Sea Creatures now! I’ve put up a Facebook Page for this blog. Besides pics, vids, and blog posts, there’ll be periodic status updates — there’s a discussion board so we can all really talk together! If you’re on Facebook, join me!

Pages, btw, are not the same as profiles. Personal profiles are private; they’re people. Facebook Pages are public and may be people, businesses, websites, musicians, etc. They’re indexed by search engines; you can check ‘em out even if you’re not on Facebook. Of course, if you’re on Facebook you can “become a fan of” these Pages, post, get updates, etc. So, either way, check out the Sea Creatures Page.

BTW, I’ve found a couple of Facebook pages for sites I have links to here, that you might also want to become a Fan Of:

• NOAA Coral Reef Ecosystem Division
• Coral Reef Alliance

When the seal broke on the resealable pouch of pellets I feed Kyo shortly after I got it, I rumaged through the cabinets for a container that was a good size. Found this small clean empty Southern Comfort bottle. So Kyo’s been getting bottle-fed Southern Comfort.

In other news: Drew is definitely a girl. Laid eggs on cave rock. I really need to get a mate for her. This is the second unfertilized egg mass I’ve seen. Kalimba molted again. She’s probably splitting her skin from gorging on the pellets Kyo misses.

Did the usual water change and sponge filter rinsing early this morning. Kyo got over it quickly because he was hungry. Also cleaned (boiled) the shells I’d removed and dropped them back into the tank. One landed on top of Calypso and Cortez who were right beside each other. They shrugged it off and checked it out, but did not swap.

I had two headaches when I started the weekly water change and maintenance: my head hurt and my skimmer had stopped skimming. I took two aspirin and began on the tank.  There was just too much I needed to do to worry about Kyo burying himself in fear in the algae. I felt like that too. But as I sit here sipping a cup of tea, both my headaches are gone. I’m a happy camper and Kyo will get over his trauma, as he does every week.

First, let me say that everyone in the tank is doing really, really well and is apparently very happy. The new mushroom curled its edges down and shrank up a bit at the disturbance, but not nearly as dramatically as the green ’shroom which curls up to about the size of my thumbnail when I disturb anything in the tank. I pulled some of the Halimeda that was shading the blue ’shroom, and though I didn’t do it today it looks like I may need to whack back that one growing next to Elle again soon. Elle is looking good! She’s growing some new richly brown banding on her feathers and she not only stayed out while I was doing the water change, she also stayed out for some nuisance algae-ripping extremely near her. I mean I had to be careful not to touch her, and though she knew I was there, she didn’t mind, so she’s feeling more secure these days.

I did scare the hell outta Kalimba though. Though to be frank, we both jumped. I mean she rarely ever goes all the way over to the other side of the tank, so when I was cleaning the inside glass and turned the back corner I met her coming toward me around the rock and we both nearly jumped out of our skins. She vanished backward and I fell back too. Have you ever seen peppermint shrimp jet backward? They are so fast that I don’t even have a clue how they propel themselves.  Kalimba moved so fast that she seemed to just vanish. (She’s back in her cave now. )

The first thing I did was remove the top and rinse out the filters in distilled water. Then I wrestled with the skimmer, praying to God it didn’t open up and evacuate its entire contents onto the carpet in a single second.  I love the skimmer but those “locking” rings are a joke. Just moving it ever so slightly to take the sponge off or anything and they will come loose from the “locked” position. Sure enough, it dripped a bit, but I refastened it. I didn’t have a major leak until went to put the top back on and found that I’d positioned it slightly wrong and of course it sprang a leak at the “lock” when I repositioned it. Thank God I have a cloth backing I used to soak up the water while I refastened it!

But back to the maintenance. All I needed to do was to take the motor out of the water and examine it. I’d just cleaned the whole thing and unclogged it not too long ago. So I was just afraid when it stopped skimming a couple of nights ago that it was a goner. I fiddled with it at that time and got it sounding like it was skimming again and it produced a bit of output, but last night it stopped skimming again. So, I look at everything and it looks fine. Not clogged again. Then I go to put the airline back on it and I notice that appears to be salt creep in the airline.   It was in about an inch of airline where it connected to the skimmer. So I snipped it off, reconnected it with some effort and put the whole thing back together and in the tank. Kyo is buried completely out of sight now because this is near his turf, right above his head, in fact.

I let it run, not skimming, while I rip algae, remove some spare shells for cleaning and change a gallon of water. I’m holding my breath when I open the valve, but it sounds like it’s skimming again and looks like it’s skimming again. So, I close everything up and that’s when I move the skimmer and have the water release. It wasn’t much, the cloth caught it, but geez, everything was going great up to that point.

So, everything worked out fine. I didn’t hurry or worry about Kyo: I just did what I needed to do in a calm deliberate fashion. It took as long as it took. Which wasn’t long, but I just thought there’s no point in me worrying about the fish worrying about me. He’ll just have to get used to the fact that Paradise needs weekly maintenance.

Calypso and Cortez have continued to be acrobatic. Maybe that spare food Kyo misses is making them more energetic (or reckless!). Drew is out foraging on rock. He does that a lot after I rip algae. Not always in the area I rip. I think the scent of it just makes him hungry.

I did a 1qt water change in the picoreef, which I really haven’t been observing lately. I’m not sure how the amphipods are doing. The glass needs cleaning. I did remove two more bristleworms from there this week, though. So they should be getting more of the algae now.

I need to clean (ie rinse and boil in distilled water) the shells I removed from the tank and replace them, but other than that (and I did leave some shells in there), the tank is done for now. It looks pretty good. The rock is coloring up slowly, but nicely with both purple and pink.

Mushroom anemone, probably Discosoma species

Saturday I made an impulse purchase. I’d been thinking about adding some new creatures, but I was thinking more like a couple more snails of the same type as Drew, or maybe another peppermint shrimp so Kalimba would have a companion/mate. What I got instead was another mushroom anemone. It wasn’t in a position in the display tank where I could get a good look at it. It was scrunched up a bit (I now realize) so that it looked sort of deformed. It appeared to be some kind of red and white striped mushroom anemone, with some sort of white area on it, and red polyps randomly scattered. Unusual, but not attractive. The image below of it in the bag gives you some idea what it looked like at the aquarium store.

In the bag, it looked nothing like what it would look like once I got it into my tank. Size, shape, and color were all transformed!

It was rather late in the afternoon when I got it, so by the time I’d acclimated it moonlight was already on. I stuck it into one of the holes in the Tonga rock, took a few hideous blue pics and went to bed.

The next morning I asked my husband how it looked since he had been up for a while when I woke. He hesitated and said tentatively that it was OK. I padded into the living room to see. My mouth dropped open. There was this huge beautiful green and red striped anemone (see pic at top of post) spread out over the rock. I just gaped then started babbling. My husband said that he thought that this was the new mushroom anemone, but he’d been hesitant when I’d asked about it because it looked nothing like what I’d bought, so much so that he wasn’t even sure he was looking at the right thing in the tank! This is easily the best $10 I’ve spent on my little reef project in all the years I’ve had it. It’s upstaging everyone in the tank right now. Though the only one who seems to mind is the green mushroom which was been slightly sulky since I got the new one. It hasn’t spread out fully in the past few days. But it shrinks and stretches so much I’m not sure if this is significant. I do find myself wondering if it knows there’s a new animal on “its” rock. How could it know? Can it “smell” the new mushroom? There’s still a couple of inches between them and Green isn’t exactly taking over, so I think they will be OK even if they grow or multiple a bit. If not I can always move them, as both are just on tiny bits of rocky substrate stuck into holes.

There is an unusual area on the new mushroom, one of the white stripes is fatter in one area. I looked at this as closely as I could at the aquarium store, and am satisfied that this is merely an aberration, not a disease.

I’ve already updated my header image to include the new addition and added it to the Meet The Creature page.