Feather Duster

The other night I posted some pictures of the reef aquarium, but when I tried to upload a video, it didn't work. All my edits that I had done to the entire post were gone, too.

So instead of trying to go edit that post, I'm adding the video of the feather duster here. Because I had so much trouble getting the video to upload, I had to learn to edit videos.

You can see the feather duster open up, or come out, I should say, and then he immediately closes back up, or goes back inside. See, the feather duster had been startled by the Chocolate Tang (who will startle it again after you see it come out), and the feather duster disappeared into his tube.

The Tang is a pain in the butt. Just as the feather duster is coming out, the Tang comes by, hoping for food.

Old Pool Pictures of the Student and Aspie Boy; Aquarium Pics

After seeing the pictures that OCD posted of the Student and Aspie Boy, I was reminded of some pool pictures taken just about 3 years ago today.









The pictures didn't come out too well because I took them with an old cell phone whose quality wasn't that good.

The Student and Aspie Boy sure have grown.

In looking for those pictures, I came across one of the very first pictures of the aquarium. (OCD: Create a link to one of my blogs about the aquarium that has recent pictures, k?)



The first step was to put in the sand and water and live rock, and then we had to wait a few days for the dust to settle. At first, the dust in the water was so thick we couldn't see anything at all. This picture shows that the dust is almost settled. We could finally see the rock, which had been invisible up to this point, because of the dust.

This next picture is how it looked after we added more rock and a couple of corals:



I'm going to see if I can find some other pictures to show how the tank has evolved over the last year and a half.

It's interesting the things you learn along the way, and the things you discover growing in the tank that you didn't know were there. We have seen some interesting creatures.

For instance, the little things that look like roly poly bugs that come out at night. Or the things that look like underwater centipedes or millipedes.

Or the tiny little white things that almost look like starfish that I have found in several locations:



Can you see the little white star-like things?

And here is something else that is always entertaining to find:



See the body parts? Turns out that crabs and shrimp shed their exo-skeleton. I remember the first time Houston and I went to the office and found poor Mr. Shrimp's carcass. I was so sad that he passed. Except that later, we found him hanging under a rock.

This time, it's Mr. Crab shedding his skeleton.

And just for fun, here's a feather duster:

Lazy crabs, Sneaky fish, Moody coral

I bought a new fish a while back who is supposed to eat the detritus off the rocks. I forgot that I bought him until today, when I caught him on a rock, looking like he was snoozing.




He kind of blends in with the rocks so he's hard to see, but today, there he is out in front, taking in the light, I guess.

Today's lesson, from Wikipedia:

There are an extremely large number of detritus feeders in water. After all, a large quantity of material is carried in by water currents. Even if an organism stays in a fixed position, as long as it has a system for filtering water, it will be able to obtain enough food to get by. Many rooted organisms survive in this way, using developed gills or tentacles to filter the water to take in food, a process known as filter feeding.

Another more widely used method of feeding, which also incorporates filter feeding, is a system where an organism secretes mucus to catch the detritus in lumps, and then carries these to its mouth using an area of cilia. This is called mucus feeding.

Many organisms, including sea slugs and serpent's starfish, scoop up the detritus which has settled on the water bed. Bivalves which live inside the water bed do not simply suck in water through their tubes, but also extend them to fish for detritus on the surface of the bed.

I hope this new guy is doing his job. We bought an emerald crab last year that is supposed to eat this slimy green mossy stuff and he didn't do his job. It grew all over the tank. We thought the little crab died because we never saw it again after we put it in the tank, but then a few weeks ago we saw him. He's 4 times the original size, and he's white. It's as if he has become albino because he's been hiding under rocks.

Here's someone else who is supposed to eat the green mossy stuff but doesn't do his job:



He's under the rock around the center of the picture, hanging to the underside of the rock. That's all he does. He just hangs under the rock until I put some fish in the tank, and then he runs out and grabs some to eat. He doesn't eat the green mossy stuff like he's supposed to. He's a moocher.

Here's a very happy coral:



He used to be half that size. It's interesting how he grows. He doesn't attach to the rocks and grow. He divides and gets larger. One arm because two, then four, etc. I'll have to post a picture of what he looks like when he retracts.

Here's a not-so-happy guy:



In the top right corner of the picture, you can see the elegance coral, all closed up and not doing anything. He's usually open and sprawled out, but he's all closed up looking like he has a stomach ache or something. I'm still trying to figure out what's bothering him.

In the left side of the picture, you can see another coral. He was given to me by a client who makes new corals. I forget the name of the process, but basically you slice off a part of the coral and it makes a new coral. The piece he gave to me is doing well.

Since I scrubbed the tank out a few weeks ago, the green stuff hasn't grown back. That's a good thing because I'd hate to see any of these guys have to work for a living.

Better pictures of the reef tank

I took pictures today with the lights on, so the pictures came out better.

My Reef Aquarium: Major Overhaul

My reef tank had recently had some serious problems. Well, at least one serious problem: Green slime algae, or whatever it's called. It was this green slimy growth that basically took over every open space of rock, glass, sand, etc. I would suck it up with a water change, but it would grow back quickly.

I have learned that we needed to move the lights higher, reduce the water temperature, reduce the phosphates, and reduce the amount of light that the tank is exposed to during the day. Hopefully this works.

I think the primary cause of the problem was "over-feeding." I was gone for 4 days over Thanksgiving last year. I asked my son, Fairy Boy, to feed the fish while I was gone. I had run out of the regular food I feed the fish (mysis shrimp) and told him to just put some of the pellets in the tank that the Chocolate Tang likes to eat. I figured if the smaller fish were hungry enough, they would eat the pellets, too.

When I came back from the trip at about 11 p.m. on Sunday night after Thanksgiving, I stopped in at my office to see how the fish were doing, and found that Fairy Boy had dumped so many pellets in the tank that the pellets covered almost every inch of space that was exposed. The water was orange. The fish looked sick. (He told me that he was afraid he would forget to feed the fish again so he dumped "a whole lot" into the tank.)

I had to go to the local fish store which, fortunately, has an outside salt water dispenser (at 75 cents per gallon) for emergencies such as this. I made three trips, because I only had two 5-gallon jugs, in order to obtain water to do water changes and in order to suck up the pellets that were polluting the tank.

For the first year (started it in January of 2007), there were no problems. Things went amazingly well, considering the horror stories we had heard about the problems one can encounter during even the first 6 months. My tank was always so clean-looking.

It was after that over-dose of pellets that the green slime started growing everywhere.

Unfortunately, I didn't do "before" and "after" pictures, but here's what the tank looks like now, in three parts, from left to right:







We originally had put an anemone in the tank with a clown fish, and then I mistakenly put another clown fish in the tank. The two clown fish vied for the one anemone, and then one day the original clown fish was found dead. Well, we found his head, decapitated. The remaining clown fish took over the anemone.

However, the anemone died recently. I don't know if he actually DIED, but he was no longer present. The poor clown fish looked so lost for a few months. Today I bought a new anemone. The clown fish is so happy!!





In the second picture, you can see him (barely!) nestled in the anemone. (You can also catch a glimpse of the Tang moving in front of the tank, hoping that I am going to drop some food in.)

We did end up losing one of the blue fish (I think it was a damsel) as a result of the water-change/spring cleaning, but some of the "clean-up crew" took care of him. We have these creatures in the tank that we call the "grim reapers." They are white snails and they live under the sand. They are part of the "clean up crew" and only emerge when something dies. At least one of them happily took care of the carcass left behind by the blue fish that died.





There are several corals that you might be able to see. (Unfortunately, I can tell that the pictures I have taken didn't come out too clearly. I'll try to take better pictures in the future.)

The corals are not fully extended. They haven't been very happy since the spring cleaning. In fact, in the top left of the second picture posted, you can see the Elegance. This is a very nice and very difficult coral to have in a reef tank. It's all closed up, tight. We have had it for over a year and it has done well, but it's not happy at all these days. I'm hoping he will eventually lighten up.

Since the spring cleaning, I have had to take a small toothbrush and scrub some green algae that we found growing. I'm hoping that with all the measures we have taken (moving the lights, reducing the lighting period, reducing feeding, reducing the water temperature), that "we shall overcome."