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!

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