Not a great day in Lisa's Reef today. I discovered that my new clam not only has a second tiny Aiptasia attached to it's shell (I noticed and removed the first larger one before the clam was even placed into the tank) but is ALSO infested with Pyramid snails. Noooo! These tiny snails are no bigger than a grain of rice are parasitic, they suck out the body fluid of the clam (and sometimes also other snails depending on the species), they can quite easily weaken and kill the clam given enough time and numbers. Operation Pyramid removal will commence 1hr after lights out today.
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As promised here are some photos of the new additions. The beautiful T. crocea clam, a tiny frag of Favia sp. (?) and some green zoanthus sp. I still have to find a spot for the zoanthids, somewhere down on the left-hand side of the tank I think.
Last week we had our first power cut since this tank has been set up, argh! I was so wishing at that point that I hadn't sold my old generator, it was a big unit (bought for my 7ft monster tank) and could have easily run everything on this little tank. *sigh!* Fortunately the power came back on after 8 (very long) minutes and everything restarted without any intervention from myself which is good to know as I'm sure that there will be more cuts in the future. I suppose I'd better start saving up for another generator or maybe a UPS this time round. If only I didn't keep spending my money on livestock....
That leads me on to today, we just happened to be in the nearish vicinity of two marine shops in Birmingham and of course I just had to pop in and check them out. Ahh so many lovely corals on offer, most were fortunately too big (and expensive) for my tank but there were some tiny frags just the perfect size. I limited myself to a very small bit of what I believe to be Favia sp. (or something similar) and a tiny piece of rock covered with some green zoanthids. Additionally I couldn't resist coming home with a beautiful small Tridacna crocea clam. I had initially planned on buying a T. maxima clam but as I've not come across any I've liked I decided to try a Crocea instead. They are reported to be the hardest of the giant clam family to care for so I hope I've not made a mistake here. I did avoid choosing the very tiny specimens as I know they have a poorer survival rate. Of course I could have gone with the hardier T. derasa but I've kept one of those in my last tank and it grew into a calcium sucking monster, lol! At least Crocea are slow growing and stay small. I will take pictures tomorrow when they've settled in a bit. I always love to check out what's happening is the sump/refugium areas. The refugium whilst not particularly successful at growing lush macro algae, is at least good for cultivating amphipods and has a healthy number of spirorbid worms growing on the glass (as does the back wall of the DT to be honest). I was pleased to discover last week that at least one of the three mini brittlestars that I introduced as part of a refugium pack in December is still alive and and much bigger too. It's the first time I've seen one since the week of introduction (8th December 2016). Interestingly I discovered a sycon sponge has settled in the sump on one of the siporax rings, I think this is a good thing rather than bad.
It's four months since this little tank was set up and all seems to be going really well. Almost a bit too well actually, I'm expecting something to go wrong at any moment, it's usually the way. I'm keeping a close eye on the water parameters now that I have added a few more corals. In the past I have really struggled to keep the alkalinity and calcium levels at appropriate levels even with the use of a calcium reactor and kalkstirrer. As soon as it was pumped in it was sucked up by the corals and clams. This time round I'm hoping to maintain good levels with careful dosing. The parameters today were:
SG 1.026 Alkalinity 7dKH Ca 408ppm Mg 1275ppm Nitrate undetectable Phosphate undetectable The above were tested using a refractometer, Salifert test kits and a Hanna pocket checker for the phosphate. I'm fairly sure that my phosphate level is not really zero but it must be pretty low and there is very little in the way of nuisance algae growth in the tank apart from a bit of furriness on the rocks. I do not know what the furriness is but it doesn't look too unsightly and stays short. In any case there seems to be less of it now. The macro algae growth in the refugium has been disappointing to date, considering the lack of nutrients I suppose it's not entirely surprising. As long as the reason is not down to a lack of flow or lighting, time will tell, I can't imagine this situation will last for long. I've started dosing a small amount of Reef Roids and KZ Sponge Power recently so they may affect the levels in the future. You'd think that over 4 months I'd de familiar with all the livestock in my tank, well no actually. A couple of days ago I noticed that the Seriatopora had retracted its polyps and on closer inspection I discovered a small crab sitting at it's base. Where on earth had he suddenly popped up from?? I highly doubt that he came in on any of the SPS frags as they are too small to conceal a crab, I suppose it could have hitched a ride in on the zoanthid rock but the most likely explanation was that it was hidden in the live rock when it was first added. It doesn't look like it's chowing down on coral flesh (at the moment, heh!) so I'll leave it be for the time being and watch and wait. I hope it behaves itself or we'll be having some fun and games with extrication later on. The new corals have been fixed in place and are looking great, I just hope I can keep them looking as good. I had to move the Lobophyllia as Lurch the conch kept barging past it and knocking it over, it's well away from the Acanthastrea now so there'll definitely be no coral warfare between those two.
Also, and try not to laugh too much, but I managed to take a quick video of Gordon the Whitecap goby and Al, his pistol shrimp partner. Al had decided to rework the 'wall' yet again giving me the best chance of capturing them on camera. Unfortunately I had to position the camera downwards to see into the hole so there is some glass distortion and I've never taken a video in my life so there's that, lol! Still you can see that they are alive and doing their thing. Whitecap goby & Pistol shrimp Today we discovered something new and pretty awesome in the tank, a teeny tiny bivalve attached to the side of the Lobophyllia. It measures just 3mm across and opens and closes so it's still living. Up close you can clearly see the inhalant and exhalant siphons suggesting that it's a harmless filter feeder. I just hope that it can find enough to sustain itself in my tank. I've no idea of an ID any further than it may be a cockle of some sorts. So cool, I love finding new inhabitants in my tank.
Up till now I have avoided ordering corals through the post but this week after seeing one of my 'wishlist' corals available online and checking the shop reviews I decided I should give it a whirl. Boy am I glad that I did, the frags arrived yesterday from Reefworks and they look great, easily as good as those that I have driven to the LFS and picked up myself. The colouration was excellent right out of the bag. The coral that I really wanted was the plating Acropora hyacinthus (red planet), this growth shape really speaks to me of reef. Naturally I couldn't just order one coral so frags of A. gomezi and A. loripes were also added to my basket along with a gorgonian for some movement. I'm not sure that they would necessarily be found together in the wild but my tank is quite static looking at the moment and they apparently can take a blasting in regards to flow so hopefully it should fit in quite nicely with my set up.
I'm pretty much set up for SPS corals now, maybe I could squeeze one more in along with something encrusting perhaps. I am happy to say that the corals that I have all appear to be doing well either basing out or growing at the tips, I expect that I'll need to keep a close eye on the KH levels etc now, the extra corals are bound to suck it up quicker. Now I just need to find that perfect clam... Nothing much to report really, there were no new additions last weekend. The tank is ticking along nicely and the fish have settled back into their fishy routines. For the gobies this is sit on the sand and wait for food to float by and for the wrasse it's cruise the rockwork searching for tasty morsels.
I am getting to see the the pistol shrimp (Al) and Whitecap goby (Gordon) everyday now which is excellent (well the heads of them anyway). On Friday Al decided that the 'wall' needed some modifying/rebuilding. I must have sat and watched him for at least 2 hours shovelling sand up and over the top. True to nature Gordon the goby hovered nearby and I was treated to the best views of him so far, I saw not only his head but his anterior dorsal fin too! OK that doesn't sound like much but it's more than I've seen since, well, introduction really. I could have taken photos but I was so entranced by all the activity that I didn't want to risk scaring them off. I am still hoping for whole body views sometime in the future. I must say it's almost tempting to destroy the wall so that I can watch Al rebuilding it again, lol! I won't of course, that would be too cruel. Since I still have no pictures of Gordon or Al I thought I'd show you Lurch the conch instead, he's grown amazingly since he was introduced on the 14th November 2016. His day typically consists of waking up midmorning eating algae off the sand and rocks all day long and then at some point at night he buries himself back in the sand for a nap. He's a lot more agile than I expected a conch to be, he can climb on to the lower rocks and has even made it all the way up to the top of the left-hand rock pile on a couple of occasions. Getting back down again is somewhat problematic and basically involves him falling off, at least the sand bed is there to cushion his fall. I think his eyes are really beautiful! Just a couple of fish shots that I took yesterday following the blog update, if only they could all sit still for the camera like Candy the Red Striped goby does (now!).
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AuthorHi, my name is Lisa and I live in Derby, UK. I am a self-confessed reefaholic! Archives
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