Well, in this case the oyster is the world. At least it is for the many epibionts associated with one of these American Thorny oysters, Spondylus americanus. Thanks to my recent success in acquiring the Spiral corals (and a Rhizotrochus!) my wish list has been looking a bit shorter recently, however it is by no means complete. Another animal that I have always wanted to keep is the Thorny oyster, I have never seen any for sale nor have I been able to source any online. I decided to ask the local shop (the one that found the spiral corals) to look for one for me. Lo and behold one week later they had some. Now I know that oysters are difficult to keep, even a small one may be a stretch too far for my mixed reef tank but I have always wanted to try. I have been able to keep the hitchhiking mussel (Septifer bilocularis?) alive for over 4 years now but it is tiny in comparison and probably also an indiscriminate filter feeder. Still I feed a lot more particulate food and phytoplankton these days so I feel I'm in a better position to give one a go (famous last words!). They had two available, one was smaller and almost certainly the better choice but the bigger one was oh so fabulous, I found it impossible to choose between the two and all form of rational thought flew right out the window. I ended up buying both of them. I have named them 'Syd' Little and 'Eddie' Large (after the British comedy double act). Eddie is covered with so much fascinating life! So far I have discovered 4 addtional bivalves, 2 hoof snails, 2 tunicates, at least 4 species of sponge and a feather worm attached to him! I'm not confident on the IDs but the bivalve on top is possibly a Frond oyster (Dendostrea frons) and the one at the back is possibly a jewel box clam, Chama sp. Of the two remaining bivalves one is an Ark clam and the other is too tiny for me to have any sort of clue what it is other than it being a bivalve. The hoof snails, Hipponix sp.?, were initially intriguing but after doing a bit of research and watching them I came to the conclusion that they were possibly bad for the oyster. I found an article online that stated Hipponix conicus eats the mucus, faeces and mantle tissue of its host plus micro algae growing on the hosts shell. I observed both of mine, on occasion, extend their feeding proboscis right inside the oyster. Perhaps they were simply feeding on mucus and faeces but eating mantle tissue absolutely cannot be tolerated. The oysters don't need that kind of extra pressure to survive, they are hard enough to keep healthy as it is. I don't like killing things but the hoof snails had to go. Apart from the two on Eddie I found another one attached to Syd. The smaller ones popped off relatively easily but the large one took a bit more effort. Each one left a black 'mark' on the oysters shell. To begin with I thought the 'marks' were actually holes in the shell. I feared that the hoof snails had bored right through the shell and by removing them had I made the oysters vulnerable to predation/infection. Fortunately closer investigation showed that the shell was still intact, the snail's foot must have ground away the outer layer of the oysters shell. It's been just over 5 weeks since Eddie and Syd were introduced and the CUC have been checking them out most thoroughly. Unsurprisingly the cowries have been eating some of the sponges, most particularly the pink one on top. I'll be sad to lose it but there's not much I can do about it other than remove the cowries and I quite like having those around too. The Ark clam that was attached bottom right has vanished so must have moved on to pastures new. Both oysters are quite reactive but Syd, the smaller one is really twitchy. He can 'see' me approaching the tank and closes up in response. I don't know if this will harm him in the long run as it must use energy to close/open up all the time, also being closed means less feeding. I will have to wait and see how they both fare. I'll sign off this post with some time-lapse fun of Eddie & friends.
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I've been really pleased with the progression of the tank recently, the fish seem settled with no argy-bargy between them, coral colouration continues to improve with each week and things are generally looking healthy. I hope by saying that I've not just jinxed everything now. As a consequence I have been on the look out for a few more corals to add a bit of extra interest to the tank. It's proven hard to source the last few bits from my wish list as they don't seem to be readily available or the pieces I've come across in the shops are just too big to squeeze in my tank. Regular readers (if there are any out there? Ha ha!) will know that I've been trying to stick to small frags so that I can enjoy watching them 'grow in', plus buying aquacultured corals has always got to be a good thing, right? After 7 months of keeping my eye out I resorted to shopping online (my second favourite pastime). I never thought I would actually take the chance of buying corals online but so far my experience of it has been all great with no losses to date. Yesterday the postman brought me not one, but two packages, it was a very exciting day. The first package contained 3 corals. A Balanophyllia sp., possibly my new favourite coral. This is non-photosynthetic and will require feeding by hand but it is so very, very pretty. I had originally wanted to source a small colony of sun coral (Tubastrea sp.), as I've kept those in the past and found them easy to care for but have not seen any for sale, They used to be regularly available but not any more it seems. Anyway this species is very similar (and fits in the small size theme) so I decided to give it a go. My research has suggested that they only extend their feeding tentacles at night but this one seems happy to open up no matter whatever the time of day which is wonderful, more time for me to admire it! As a bonus there is a mussel attached at the base, although I haven't ascertained if it's still living or not. I do hope so but keeping it that way may prove difficult as it's a filter feeder. Check out all those nematocysts! Then came a baby plate coral, now I knew that I wanted an LPS coral with swaying tentacles and had originally considered a Euphyllia sp. but I know these can get very large over time so I finally settled on a plate coral. When I saw this baby one available I knew that I wouldn't have a better opportunity to purchase one, it really is tiny measuring just 2cm across when the tentacles are expanded. Normally these corals are free living on sandy or muddy substrates but this one presently has a 'stalk' and when it arrived was glued to a flat frag plug. Unfortunately the frag plug was covered in tiny Aiptasia so it just had to go. The base was duely chopped off along with as much of the original superglue as I dared (and there was a LOT!), then it was fixed it onto a spare piece of rock I had in the sump (I just knew that I'd find a use for that rock eventually, lol!). Now I am hoping that this coral is indeed a long tentacle plate coral, Heliofungia actiniformis and not a very small branch of a torch coral, Euphyllia glabrescens. They do look rather similar when small. I guess time will tell, if it grows and detaches from the base to become free living then it'll be a plate coral, if it develops new branches then it's not! The final part of this order was a Sunny D zoanthid (plus a baby bud), during transit the polyp had worked itself free of the frag plug so clearly it had been fragged very recently. My first response was one of annoyance but as I hate the look of frag plugs in general it proved fortuitous, it was a simple matter to dab a bit of glue to the base of the polyp and fix it to my live rock. It opened up within a few hours of introduction and is still there today so hopefully it'll survive. I think it's fair to say I'm now a fan of zoanthids, I'm up to 7 different types now, how did that happen?! ;o) My second online order came all the way from France, how brave was that!! Ever since I added my first gorgonian I knew that I wanted to introduce at least one other species. I had been waiting to purchase the purple frilly gorgonian that Reefworks supply but as it hasn't been available for months I started searching elsewhere. Sadly gorgonians seem to be a bit of an afterthought at most LFS I have visited. The SPS corals are lined up neatly in tanks but the gorgonians seem to be plonked in without any care to their wellbeing at all, most ending up lying on their sides and being stung by something more aggressive resulting in stripped branches or worse. Fortunately for me I discovered Eco-Gorgs, sustainably-produced aquarium sized Carribbean gorgonians, perfect for me and only a few clicks away. OK, admittedly a bit of a journey was required to get them to my tank but worth the chance i thought. First in my basket was a small frag of Plexaurella sp. and very fluffy looking it is too. This was followed swiftly by Isis hippuris, though I have to say it doesn't look anything like images of this species online but what do I know? ...and lastly Muricea elongata because it seemed a shame to only order just 2 corals when they were coming so far. This is the only one that has not fully extended all it's polyps yet. I had to leave all 3 gorgonians on the sand for a few hours after acclimation whilst I went out and when I got back this one had been knocked over, typical! There seems to be a bubbling issue with the two branches that had been in contact with the sand. Fingers crossed it will recover in a few days time. That's it for the time being, I'll try for some better shots of the new corals later on in the week when they've fully settled in and maybe even a new FTS. If you've managed to read all the way to the bottom of this post then top marks, you must be a sucker for punishment!
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AuthorHi, my name is Lisa and I live in Derby, UK. I am a self-confessed reefaholic! Archives
July 2022
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