Seeing my first 'pod crawling around on the glass oh so many months ago was an exciting moment. Eventually coralline algae started spreading all over the rock and walls of the tank. Pink, violet, purple, and maroon colored splotches that cover everything but the corals and sand. My tank is still far from being "mature", but it has certainly gotten part of the way there.
Over time I have discovered many more interesting creatures in my tank, none of which I purchased or acquired on purpose. Stomatella snails, vermetid snails, spirorbid worms, hair worms, bristle worms, miniature sea stars, miniature brittle stars, unidentifiable polychaete worms, sponges, sea squirts, and tiny white snails to name a few. Most of these "hitchhikers" are either beneficial or at worst, harmless. In just 29 gallons of water and about 570 square inches of sand, a whole teeming ecosystem has formed and is reaching a careful balance. The coralline algae is encrusting all of my rocks, and water parameters are within range and steady.
I thought it would be interesting to do a before and after post, where I compare my earliest photos of some of these corals with the latest ones to compare size and coloration. I've also gotten quite a bit better with the camera, so forgive some of the early blurry shots. :)
Green Star Polyps
The first corals I bought, I've been careful to segregate this colony of GSP (Green Star Polyps) from the rest of my main rock structure. It grows so quickly and overwhelmingly that once it is on a rock, it is difficult to remove and will literally take over. This colony quickly covered the small rock that it came on. I later broke up this colony for project that I will hopefully post about sometime next week. There are some spoilers in some of the pics later...
Zoas
My Zoanthid colonies have taken off. There are already polyps budding off of the main colonies and spreading around the adjacent rock surface. I want to angle this rock to give the front face more light; you can tell a huge difference in the growth rate of the polyps on the top of the rock (facing the light) than on the face that only receives glancing, limited lighting.
Dendros
The Dendrophyllia are extremely slow to grow and reproduce, especially with a more relaxed feeding regimen. They are not photosynthetic and rely on food for all of their nutrients, so feeding more often will spur growth. The two babies near the base of the main polyp are significantly larger than when I got them, but I recently saw a couple Dendros the size of a golf ball in another person's tank. I'm wondering how long it takes for them to get to that size. Years, I would imagine.
Hyacinth Bird's Nest
Don't ever let anyone tell you that you can't grow SPS under the stock lighting on a Biocube 29! It may not be ideal PAR and/or spectrum, but this colony is flourishing and has branched out quite a bit from the small twig that I first introduced. You can see the Neon Bird's Nest in some of these shots.
Neon Bird's Nest
These two frags are from different colonies and at first had a different appearance, but they have more or less converged in coloration and polyp extension. They have almost tripled in size.
Acanthastrea
This coral looked nice when I bought it, and then had some sort of (possibly shrimp-related) problem and began to deteriorate. After a couple of weeks I thought I'd lose the whole thing, but the tissue death stopped and it has since regrown with many more young polyps growing where the original had some tissue necrosis.
Montipora Capricornis
At first it isn't obvious but the Monti has grown about a centimeter in radius. I found a nudibranch in my tank that was munching on the Montipora digitata, and I'm hoping that the little bastard didn't lay eggs or something. They can wreak havoc on Monti corals and usually start at the base where they are difficult to find.
Torch
My Euphyllia glabrescens appears to love its perch high up on the glass. It's much closer to the light and receives far more photosynthetically active radiation at that position than it would near the sand. The flow appears to be ideal as well. It has grown a LOT since I got it. Tentacles on one of the polyps extend four inches or more, waving around in the current. Easily one of the more beautiful corals in the tank right now.
Duncan
The Duncanopsammia axifuga was originally three main polyps with a few babies at the base. It's now grown into a colony of several polyps, each facing a different direction. This colony will continue to grow and eventually will need to be fragged.
Meteor Shower
A very fast grower, this Cyphastrea (aka Meteor Shower) has grown over the glue fastening it to a rock and is already spreading rapidly with new polyps appearing both along the edge of growth as well as within the existing tissue of the coral. It is easily out competing the small purple cloves. This is one of my favorite corals in the tank because of it's unique look and the rock it is growing on really showcases its texture and color.
Purple Cloves
These "cheap" coral are small and easy to take care of. They've already spread in one place in the tank (next to the Cyphastrea) and I moved the originating rock to the other side of the tank to have them grow there as well. You can see how much they've spread over the rock in the picture above. They'll soon be overgrown by the Cyphastrea.
Christmas Favia
There was a portion of the skeleton that had been stung in the previous owner's tank, and the colony had receded from that area. Within the time that it has been in my tank, the two or three nearest polyps split and spread into this area, repopulating the preexisting skeleton. There are some pictures below, both before and after. It's really cool to see this process unfold over time, and a sign that the coral is healthy and happy. I left it in the same place in my tank for so long that it has begun to grow on to the adjacent rock.
Green Palythoas
I got this rock on a bargain and wanted to see how quickly this coral grew. It's an extremely hungry coral and can put away quite a bit of food- it's especially good at catching particles because of the way the nematocysts are positioned and sized. The polyps have shrunk a bit in size and increased greatly in number.
Neon Green Toadstool
This isn't actually my coral; I am "borrowing" it from my friend to let it grow out in my tank. They're slow growers, but in the time that has passed since I added it it has more than tripled in overall size. These can get quite large and look really nice under ideal lighting- the tips of each tentacle fluoresce bright green.
There are many other corals in the tank that have grown and change but this is already too many pictures. My Lobophyllia open brain coral in particular is much larger than it used to be and has a couple of new mouths.
This hobby can very rewarding with time, patience, and diligence. It can be equally devastating (and costly) if you don't keep at least minimal tabs on what is going on within the closed system of the aquarium. Parameters can spiral out of control within hours, heaters can fail, poor plumbing can suddenly leak, and it all crashes down. Here's hoping these essentially immortal creatures don't come to some unlucky fate on my watch. :)
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