I’d planned on doing a water change and the cyano treatment yesterday, but when I got up there was a fresh shrimp molt in the tank and I didn’t think it’d be good to add anything so soon after a molt. I’m assuming it was Kalimba who molted because I’d assumed it was Tam last week. Either way, they’ve both done their thing now.

I added microvert last night and the night before to the picoreef where the sun coral still languishes in quarantine. This afternoon I did a half-gallon water change, double the usual and sucked out a lot of the film on the substrate. It’ll be back tomorrow, no doubt. The snails did not put in an appearance. Usually if I’m disturbing the substrate (which they live in and love to have stirred up) they pop out. The amphipods are more conspicuous now that I’ve removed a mass of bristleworms from the tank. (I lifted the barnacle shell when I did the first big cleaning and found about a half dozen fat bristleworms in a ball under it. And removed them.) Again, I really believe that the amphipods suffer from a competition for food with the bristleworms in such a tiny tank. OTOH, now that the tank is getting both light and nutrient, the hair algae is sprouting on top of the barnacle shell, so they should all have plenty to eat. I’m not feeding bits of sheet algae to the amphipods any more.

In the mini-reef, aside from the rapid recurrence of the cyano, things seem to be OK. Cortez and Calypso have been climbing through that nearly floating cloud of algae at the back, picking out the debris trapped in it (as the amphipods, do, too). The snails have been very active, but most the new snails, MissPriss and Baldy. I’ve only seen Drew once this week.

Tam continues to be shy about taking food from my fingers, but I make sure to drop pellets near him if he’s reluctant. Kalimba is not shy and will still “elbow” him aside occasionally. Friends visiting us from out of town last weekend were amazed at me hand-feeding shrimp. Most non-aquarist think of shrimp as wild things in the ocean, soon to become food on their plate. The idea of having shrimp in the living room and feeding them pellets of food is quite a novel idea to those who’ve never had a marine aquarium.

Before doing the water change I “smoked” Elle with microvert, which she seemed to appreciate since she opened her “feather” even more. Maybe I should feed her more. I’m also considering repositioning her in the substrate instead of rock because substrate is the natural habitat and would also protect her tube from cyano and algae (I think).

I did the standard 1 gal water change, sponge filter cleaning and hair algae removal in the mini-reef this afternoon. Then I added the cyano remover. (sigh) The skimmer is now producing microbubbles, as it did the last time, but didn’t do the first time I used it. So, I’m going to have to readjust it and probably turn the skimming function off periodically. I wonder if the skimmer (which the product says can be kept running, but may need to be adjusted) is the reason the treatment didn’t work magically as it did the first time? I wonder if the skimmer is the reason I’m having this problem, if maybe it’s not pulling its weight.

Ah, I caught movement near the glass in the picoreef—both snails are out and about! I haven’t seen one of the snails for a couple of days now. They are both foraging on the substrate (instead of under it). When I got them they were both the same size, but one snail is definitely bigger than the other one now. I wonder if that reflects the fact that one has been more conspicuously active than the other? They’re still tiny. If they were in the 29 gal mini-reef they’d vanish completely. Even in the 2.5 gal picoreef, they are still so tiny and well camophalaged that I have to really look for them. Eventually, when they are “all grown up” they’ll go in the mini-reef.

Eventually the sun coral will go in the mini-reef. I didn’t want to put them in with the cyano reappearing, especially with it so near the area where I want to put it. So far the sun coral base is showing no signs of Aiptasia. It appears that the outbreak was confined to the small rock chip that was stuck to the base. I will, of course, examine very carefully before putting it into the main tank—which will be, at the soonest, in another week.

My Aiptasia-in-a-bottle experiment is interesting, but that will be another post.