It's been seven months since I introduced a pair of thorny oysters to my tank and I am sad to report that they just didn't last. The larger one died after a couple of months and the smaller one followed suit a week later. I must assume I wasn't supplying enough of the right kinds of food to sustain them or they just didn't acclimate well to my tank. It's not all doom and gloom however, some of the organisms that came attached to the outside of the larger oyster's shell are still alive. The Frond oyster, Dendostrea frons, on the top of the shell is still opening and closing, which is very cool. As is the jewel box clam (Chama sp?) at the back. This is the only photo of the clam I have taken so far, it looks the same now as it did back in July, well it's covered with a bit more coralline algae and vermatid snails now. The vermatid snails are everywhere now and they are becoming rather annoying. The other smaller bivalves have survived too along with some of sponges etc. The sponge coverage is a lot less that it was at the beginning but some bits are holding out on the more shaded areas of the shell. The grey 'blob' growing to the right of the Frond oyster has definitely grown since introduction, I assume it's a type of sponge also. Up until recently I had assumed the small tunicate originally located to the left of the grey sponge had long since perished but no, it's still hanging on in there amazingly. It looks like it's seriously getting squeezed out by the sponge though. Last but not least the small fan worm attached to the bottom of the shell is still alive and looking lovely. I think it may be Bispira brunnea however these worms generally appear in clusters (hence the common name cluster dusters). They secrete soft non-calcareous tubes but I can't tell what kind of tube this worm is living in, when the feathery head retracts you wouldn't know anything was there at all. Some of the livestock has adopted the empty oyster shell as a favoured sleeping location. The cowries like to hang out under the top shell during the day as does the Black Sea cucumber occasionally (but he's getting too big to fit into the space now). Since it was clear the oyster shell was going to be staying in my tank for the foreseeable future I decided to put it to good use. I needed a spot to fix down a new spiral coral that I picked up in October. I had tried fixing the coral to a rock in front of the yellow spiral but the two didn't appear to get along very well. The yellow one stopped extending its polyps and the flesh looked oddly puffy so I opted to pull the new spiral away as a safety precaution. This left me with a bit of a dilemma, where to place the new one. That's when I came up with the idea of making use of the oyster shell, actually there was really no where else to place the spiral to be honest. This new spiral coral is super curly and has a thicker stem than the other two I have, it is a different species being a Stichopathes sp. rather than Cirrhipathes sp. As you can see this species has polyps on one side of the stem only whereas Cirrhipathes sp. have them arranged all the way round.
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I had read that in order to keep a spiral corals growing in a spiral shape they needed excellent water flow so I chose the best spot I could find for flow and visibility. I wanted to be able to admire them all the time rather than have them hidden at the back. I fixed both to the rockwork in the middle of the tank, the yellow one seemed fine but the after 3 days the orange one had lost some flesh revealing the black skeleton underneath. It was really getting blasted by the flow and maybe it was just getting too much. I feared that it was going to strip and die so I immediately pulled it off the rockwork and placed it back on the sand again. Another day later and it was like the flesh had never been missing, it had completely regrown. Thank goodness! It does seem that spiral corals are fast growers. In just under 2 months they have both extended their length by quite a bit. I love these curly wurlys!
Some new corals, yesss! I had been searching for a spiral coral for years, hoping that I'd come across one for sale in a shop one day. As the months/years ticked on I decided a more direct approach was probably needed. Last year I noticed De Jong Marinelife had some in stock but they sold out before an order could be placed. I also tried the 'order now' request via TMC when I noticed they had some available at the beginning of March but I never heard anything back from them. Then at the beginning of April I spotted a photo of a spiral/wire coral (Chirripathes sp.) listed on Facebook by a relatively local shop I immediately messaged them but it had already sold. I asked if they ever had any more in could they please, please let me know. Incredibly on Sunday 18th April I received a message to say that they had some more available, I immediately said yessss and jumped in the car. It would be my first visit to a fish shop since the pandemic started over a year ago. On my arrival I discovered that they actually had 4 spiral corals available, I wanted them all but settled for just two because I didn't want to seem too greedy, lol. This is how they looked the day after introduction: I think spiral corals are just so cool! I hope that I can feed them enough to keep them happy and healthy. Whilst I was in the shop my eyes couldn't help wandering over the rest of the fabulous coral stock, I just couldn't help myself it had been sooo long. I came across another unusual coral something I'd never seen in a shop before. Honestly my eyes were practically popping out of my head. Since I love the odd stuff, the corals most people ignore on their way to the SPS trays, I bought it too. I wasn't 100% sure but it looked a lot like a Rhizotrochus to me. The shop owner didn't know what it was but he did think that it was likely non-photosynthetic. Having asked around it does seem likely that this coral is indeed a Rhizotrochus sp. This is a coral I never, ever expected to see available in UK. The reefing gods must have been smiling down on me on that day.
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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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