It's been 5 years since I introduced this crocea clam to my tank. During that time he's survived pyramid snails and a stressful tank upgrade that caused him to spawn. I hope to be able to celebrate another 5 years with him but with electricity prices set to soar who knows if I'll even be able to afford to run a reef tank in the future....
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I have tentatively identified the hitchhiking large vermatid snail as Dendropoma sp. I recorded this video of the large vermatid snail feeding at the end of December 2021, I had stirred up the sand and noticed it hauling in its mucus web. Generally I'm not keen on vermatid snails (I have an army of the smaller species already and they annoy me intensely) but I find this one kind of cool. It's unlikely to reproduce since (as far as I am aware) I have only one. Unfortunately, a week ago, when feeding the fish their breakfast I noticed a mass of purple coloured mucus like substance covering the bottom right corner of the Christmas tree worm rock. My first thought was I'd lost another one of the Christmas worms but then I realised the mass was centred around the vermatid snail tube. I siphoned away the mucus to discover a dead area of Cyphastrea and no sign of the vermatid snail. Later on the snail showed signs of life, with the operculum again visible at the top of the tube so I wasn't sure what to think. Had another coral released mucus that landed on the Cyphastrea causing the snail to retreat deep down into its tube and suffocated the coral? The next day I discovered one of the Nassarius snails sat right on top of the vermatid snail tube, with another two prowling close by. Clean up crew in action! The vermatid snail was definitely dead then.
I do feel a little sad to lose that snail. Did it starve or was it old, did the mucus kill it or was the mucus a result of it dying? Looking at the video above the snail appeared to be happy enough, eating and producing waste. I assumed it would do just fine without any particular intervention from me, sadly not. Luckily I haven't lost any more Cyphastrea, the immediate area looked a bit unhappy for a few days but seems to have bounced back now. Prior to this the coral was spreading quite nicely so hopefully the dead area will be recovered soon. I haven't lost any of the Christmas tree worms even those that were right next to the vermatid snail and were covered by mucus, I am thankful for that. This is how the area looks a week after the mucus event. It's been a while since I posted an update on the gorgonians, time to fix that I think. The Pinnigorgia sp. has grown into a monster and has to be fragged on a regular basis to keep it from taking over the tank, it also sticks out of the water whenever I perform a water change. I don't do anything special to maintain it, it just grows and grows. The Plexaurella sp. is somewhat frustrating. When I first transferred it to this tank it looked fantastic, as fluffy and healthy looking as I had ever seen it. But then a while ago, a year ago maybe, it started spending a fair chunk of time each month with the polyps retracted. It would stay like this for 4 or 5 days before sloughing off a layer of mucus/algae and springing back to life once again. I know this is all pretty normal for gorgonians but it never did it this much when it was first added or even much at all in my old tank. More worrying is that every time it goes through this cycle it loses flesh at some of the branch tips. I suspect it's probably flow related and or silicate related. As far back as I can remember the diatom growth has been abundant in this tank, (another gift from the TMC Ecoreef rock perhaps?). It seems better controlled since I started being more aggressive with Rowaphos but still closes up on a regular basis. I would like to ramp up the flow but the Crocea clam sits right in front of it and I unwilling to muck around with it any more than I already have. This gorgonian will just have to muddle through, recently it has another issue to contend with aswell. The Oxypora sp. growing in front does not play nicely. I whipped out the coral cutters right after I took the photo below. This is how the Plexaurella looks after the most recent round of mucus/algae shedding, note the couple of stripped branches at the top. I don't talk about the Muricea sp. very much, it's tucked away at the back of the tank and is quite hard to photograph. It grows slowly but steadily, again I don't do anything special to maintain it. Moving on to the non-photosynthetic gorgonians, growth has been a mixed bag with these to say the least which is not exactly unexpected. The Menella sp. is my favourite, the yellow polyps contrasting against the red base is just gorgeous. It has grown but considering I've had it for over 2 years it's not that much really, still growth is growth so I'll take that. At this rate though it's going to be 20 or so more years before I have a colony really worth looking at. The small red and white gorgonian frag I picked up from a fellow reefer is still with me. It extends its polyps almost all of the time but has done nothing much to speak of in the last 16 months. It's shown no recession but no growth either, well maybe there was a little growth at one point but that seems to have since stopped. I guess there's not enough of the right kind of food to be able to grow. The purple polyp gorgonian has been the most disappointing to date. After a really encouraging start where some stripped areas regrew it's been pretty much downhill ever since. The branches began receding at the tips and some flesh was lost at the base too. I tried adding more particulate food but still the recession continued. As the polyps slowly vanished the remaining stalk became a magnet for algae, to be honest after a while the whole thing looked a bit of a state. At 9 months I decided to take action and frag it, I kept a single branch so that I could really focus on target feeding it more. I'd love to be able to report that I've been successful but sadly that's not been the case. The frag is still hanging on in there after 16 months and although the recession has slowed it's still happening all be it very slowly, this is all I have left of it now. Clearly this is one species that I cannot make happy in my current set up.
After the peppermint shrimp fiasco and the removal of the yellow wrasse I've been really focussing on getting the sun corals to open more during the day. I want to enjoy them more when the lights are on and it's easier to feed them during the day when I can actually see what I'm doing. For a while I had been struggling to feed the black sun coral heads that came attached to the orange sun colony. The orange polyps obscure the black heads when they open up. If I didn't take action then I would lose them and I really didn't want that to happen. I pulled the entire colony out of the tank and chopped the black heads off. I also removed the single head marked with the arrow because that wasn't opening too and I thought why not save that too. It took a fair while to coax the fragged heads to open up once more but they are all doing great now.
I try to encourage sponge growth in my tank because I quite like them and are also fascinated by them, however there's one particular sponge that's been giving me cause for concern recently. It hitchhiked into the tank on the shell of the large thorny oyster 9 months ago. When it first arrived it was a tiny white blob but as time has gone by it's turned grey and grown bigger. By the end of January 2022 it had completely obscured (killed?) the purple tunicate that had been growing behind it and was spreading over the thorny oyster shell as well as in front of the right side of the Frond oyster. I was beginning to wonder about the identity of this sponge, could it be the dreaded chicken liver sponge? Apparently chicken liver sponge can be invasive, growing over/killing corals and it should be removed as soon as seen. This is what the sponge looked like as of last week. I scoured my books and the internet for information on grey sponges and came across Chondrosia reniformis (aka kidney sponge). This species can be mottled brown to grey in colour *check*. Grows into smooth, irregular kidney-shaped encrustations, *also check*. What particularly caught my eye though is that colouration depends on light intensity, the brighter the illumination the darker the sponge and that is exactly what I have seen with this one. It started off white and over time has turned dark grey. I assume in the wild the sponge/Thorny oyster came from a shaded location and now in my tank is pretty much under full lighting. There is a similar species named Chondrilla nucula (chicken liver sponge, uh oh!) which is also a possibility but I'm leaning more towards the first species at this point.
I'm quite fond of bivalves as well as sponges, if things continued as they were the sponge would probably grow over the Frond oyster preventing it from feeding most likely resulting in its demise. Given the choice between the two I'd rather keep the former and loose the latter. Also if this sponge really is invasive then much more would be at stake eventually. C. reniformis is described as leathery and uses collagen fibres for support instead of calcareous spicules etc so I rather naively assumed that I could simply peel it off the shell. I tried this with a pair of tweezers but all I did was puncture the sponge in several places causing the release of some unknown grey liquid. Clearly removal was not going to be quite so simple. Also the following day I noticed that the coralline algae growing in the vicinity of the sponge was now dying off. Coincidence? I think not! Some sponges are said to be toxic to keep from being eaten so perhaps this was one of those. Also the sponge seemed not to be bothered by multiple stabbings with a pointy pair of tweezers. Plan B was to perform surgery outside of the tank in case there was a chance of any more toxins being released. I detached the spiral coral, no point in risking that too, and moved the oyster shell over to a bowl containing some tank water. I then proceeded to pick off the sponge bit by bit, when most of it was gone I scrubbed the entire area with a stiff brush. After rinsing off with some additional saltwater I plopped the shell back into the tank and crossed my fingers. A quick check with the magnifying glass did show some tiny bits of sponge still remaining on the shell, hopefully they will die off in a couple of days. The Frond oyster survived the scrubbing ordeal and was opening up again not long after being back in the tank, the Jewel Box clam however took a couple more days to feel comfortable again. It seems to be fine now thankfully. I am yet to see the feather duster reemerge, I hope I didn't squash its tube. Fingers crossed I have dealt with the sponge, either that or I've spread it around the tank. Eeek!
My Balanophyllia coral spawned again on Saturday, 29th January 2022. This is the second time I've witnessed it release gametes, the first time was 30th October 2020. It's not exactly the same time of year, or even phase of the moon for that matter, but it did happen at the same time of day i.e. first thing in the morning. I really wish that I had more of this species, it would be so cool if one was female and released eggs at the same time. I have been looking to add more but they are not commonly available here unfortunately.
I posted a short video to Instagram, the spawning event went on for quite a few minutes.
Coincidentally I took a couple of photos of the coral the night before it spawned, it looked the same as it normally does.
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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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