Wow. I've read about this but didn't think I would be lucky enough to see it in action anytime soon. Stomatella Snails are some of the more common hitchhikers that are introduced to tanks via live rock and coral purchases, and they are one of the few snails that seem to readily and successfully reproduce in an aquarium. Many other snail species will attempt to spawn but have extended planktonic larval stages which cannot survive in such a closed environment.
Stomatellas breed via broadcast- in an organized fashion brought on by some sort of chemical signal, all of the snails in the tank will simultaneously clime up to a high point on the rock and release their eggs and sperm into the water column, and the rest is up to nature. Given that only a few months ago I had two of these snails and now there are twenty or thirty of them in my tank, this must have been going on for some time.
Anyway a few minutes ago I was lucky enough to be sitting in front of the tank and looking at the curious puffs of smoke rising from my rock. I soon realized what was going on... not a minute later the female stomatellas began releasing hundreds of eggs through their breathing siphons. I was too fascinated to pick up the camera, but next time I will definitely try to capture this in images.
Many of these eggs become food for other animals in the tank but judging by the present population there are plenty that make it to adulthood.
I also found my first starfish tonight. Not exactly sure which species it is but it appears to be of the genus Asterina, and is about 5-8mm wide. There are some scattered accounts of these animals eating the base of Acropora hard corals but the general consensus is that they're welcome additions unless they reach plague proportions.
Skimming the Surface
Since back when I was working on the initial planning for this reef system, the use of protein skimming was something of an expensive option in the realm of filtration and water quality. Initially the feeling was that I could get by without using a protein skimmer. Not only are they usually quite expensive but finding one that will fit in the back of my Oceanic Biocube29 limits the selection to only a few models which are designed specifically for nano reefs.
Protein skimmers are designed to remove dissolved organic compounds (DOCs) from water before they decompose by means of a principle called Foam Fractionation. These compounds are hydrophobic or hydrophilic, or both- that is, they repel or are attracted to water, respectively. In a water molecule, the two Hydrogen atoms lend a slightly positive charge while the Oxygen atom slightly negative. The nonlinear arrangement of the water molecule gives it a slight electric dipole moment; we can also say water molecules are dipolar (non-polar molecules tend to be hydrophobic). The dipolar property of water is actually the basis for some of its most important and unique features, but I digress... the point is, many of the undesirable compounds in the tank, due to their hydrophobic character, readily "stick" to a surface between water and air.
Foam Fractionation involves the creation of many tiny bubbles to create a vast amount of surface area between water and air. These bubbles are created by various means (venturi pressure, spinning needle-wheel, airstone, etc) and confined within the body of the skimmer. Tank water passes through the base of the skimmer, and when a hydrophobic or partially hydrophobic molecule (as well as some types of particulate matter) meets this interface between the air and water (a bubble), it gets stuck, becoming bound to the bubble surface. The only way up and out for these bubbles is through the columnar opening of a collection cup which sits on top of the skimmer. As the bubbles collect an increasing amount of material, they become more frothy and disgusting... eventually reaching the top of the column and spilling over into the collection cup. This overflowing gunk is called the "skimmate"; that which was skimmed, I suppose. One may choose to "skim wet" or "skim dry", the difference being the amount of water removed with the skimmate. This is a direct result of the amount of bubble production and water surface height within the column. Skimming dry produces a nasty, stinky sludge in the collection cup but does not remove as much as skimming wet, which produces a steady amount of tea-colored liquid. The latter typically removes more DOCs but at the cost of also removing salt water, complicating top-offs because the water level fluctuation is no longer due to evaporation alone. Maintaining a strictly constant salinity is a little more difficult with aggressive skimming in a small tank like mine.
Two things determine the quality of a skimmer: (1) greater surface area between water and bubbles, and (2) contact time between the water and air. This is why larger, taller skimmers that produce a greater amount of smaller bubbles do the best.
Long story short, I had decided to buy and use a skimmer. Reading the countless reviews, testimonials, and personal experiences out there convinced me that the best one on the market for a Biocube29 is a Tunze Nano 9002 DOC Protein Skimmer. I asked my friend about his experience with them... as it turned out, he had one that was unused and was willing to lend it to me before I made my decision on whether to invest. This was great news... that very night I went home and disassembled, cleaned, studied, and reassembled it. It's actually quite a simple design but is very effective. It uses a venturi pump to produce bubbles; the aperture can be controlled using the small blue screw at the top of the chamber.
As most other Biocube owners have experienced, there is only really one option for placement of this skimmer: chamber 2. This entire chamber formerly served as my refugium, lit on a reverse-day cycle to grow chaetomorpha. I also used the drip tray to support a piece of filter floss which catches particulate in the overflow from chamber 1. Pictures of this are visible a couple of posts prior to this. Placing the Tunze in this chamber seemed problematic with a bunch of loose macroalgae tumbling around in the water. I didn't want the pump intake clogged with loose algae and the skimmer takes up more than half of the chamber, so I temporarily removed all of the algae until coming up with a suitable solution. My chaetomorpha happily lived in a separate bowl of tank water for a few days. The couple of unfortunate amphipods that migrated into the bowl with it were eventually fed to my fish who are still in the hospital tank.
The stock collection cup on the Tunze 9002 is, in my opinion, unnecessarily large for the profile of the skimmer itself. Its diameter exceeds the width of the back opening of my hood and the width of the back chamber. Some modifications to the tank and to the hood were needed so that I could easily remove the cup for periodic emptying. Out came the utility knife, heavy-duty scissors, and wire cutters. There are some alternatives and custom 3rd party accessories for the biocube which are meant to work in conjunction with the Tunze 9002, but I decided to just mod the tank for now. None of my proposed changes affected the outside aesthetic of the tank hood.
I needed a way to get my chaetomorpha back inside chamber 2, protected and confined to a single area where it could be illuminated at night for growth but without risk of being sucked up into the skimmer. Even though the skimmer removes many of the nutrients that would otherwise decompose and be used by the chaetomorpha, it doesn't hurt to have additional means of removing phosphates and nitrates as they inevitably build up (the main method being regular water changes). The chaetomorpha is also handy for providing an environment where pods and other animals can thrive and reproduce. One of my concerns with a skimmer is that using it would suck up many of the pods that had been living and reproducing in chamber two, but judging by the frighteningly overwhelming population in the main tank I don't think they need much help reproducing. I thought about this at length and tried to come up with a home-made solution that would provide the same functionality as some of the pre-built 3rd party modifications.
For $3.99 I bought a clear, cylindrical plastic spray bottle at the supermarket that looked like it would fit next to the skimmer in chamber 2. Using the utility knife, I carefully started three rings of holes around the base of the bottle and progressively opened them until I could punch a small nail through each. I followed up with a much larger nail to open the holes to the desired final diameter, and tested the flow through these holes in my kitchen sink. Even with the water blasting into the opening of the bottle, the water level did not reach a couple inches higher than the top ring of holes- water flowed very quickly through the bottle. This is what I wanted. The mass of chaetomorpha could sit at the bottom of the bottle, lit up from behind the tank by my JBJ Nano Glo, with water flowing down from the top of the bottle to keep the spaghetti-like clump from dispersing and to provide necessary nutrients to the macroalgae. I opened up the top of the bottle so that water could easily pour in. Instead of cutting the top off completely, I carefully snipped a circular hole along the top to retain much of the strength of the thick plastic that the manufacturers used. It turned out really well, at least as an interim solution until I get a custom-fit media basket.
With the skimmer in place, the drip tray that had previously taken up all of the top of chamber two had to be cut down to size. I tried several versions of this reduced form and finally settled on cutting the thing entirely in half, also removing the raised plastic in the middle so that the filter floss would sit lower in the flow of water from chamber 1. As you can see in the pictures below, the glass side of chamber 2 (the back) did not have a support so I used one of the extra sucker pads from my Maxijet 1200 (the pump I use for water changes) to support it.
This set of modifications effectively provides the same mechanical filtration as I had before, keeps my chaetomorpha in one place, more effectively utilizes the light from the nano-glo, and makes room for the skimmer- which is an extremely useful means of removing tank pollutants and waste products before they even begin to decompose. I think a skimmer is probably the single best investment you can make with regards to water quality in a reef tank. Within a few hours it was already producing results:
All said and done, the corals and other livestock will be happier with the improvement in water quality, even though Zoanthids and some other LPS prefer to have some dissolved nutrients in the water; that shouldn't be a problem. The water is a already much clearer after only a few days of skimming and a healthy amount of frothing, bubbling spillover fills the collection cup with a tea colored cup of gunk every few days... gunk that would otherwise be floating around in the tank and yellowing my water.
I mounted two LED-based lights within the tank stand. It's much easier to work in there now, especially on any electrical wiring.
That's all until for now. My fish will be reintroduced to the tank next Friday after a long fallow period to clear the tank of any possible marine ich. Couple of new corals in the next update, a novel placement of my torch, and a tragedy to report.
Protein skimmers are designed to remove dissolved organic compounds (DOCs) from water before they decompose by means of a principle called Foam Fractionation. These compounds are hydrophobic or hydrophilic, or both- that is, they repel or are attracted to water, respectively. In a water molecule, the two Hydrogen atoms lend a slightly positive charge while the Oxygen atom slightly negative. The nonlinear arrangement of the water molecule gives it a slight electric dipole moment; we can also say water molecules are dipolar (non-polar molecules tend to be hydrophobic). The dipolar property of water is actually the basis for some of its most important and unique features, but I digress... the point is, many of the undesirable compounds in the tank, due to their hydrophobic character, readily "stick" to a surface between water and air.
Foam Fractionation involves the creation of many tiny bubbles to create a vast amount of surface area between water and air. These bubbles are created by various means (venturi pressure, spinning needle-wheel, airstone, etc) and confined within the body of the skimmer. Tank water passes through the base of the skimmer, and when a hydrophobic or partially hydrophobic molecule (as well as some types of particulate matter) meets this interface between the air and water (a bubble), it gets stuck, becoming bound to the bubble surface. The only way up and out for these bubbles is through the columnar opening of a collection cup which sits on top of the skimmer. As the bubbles collect an increasing amount of material, they become more frothy and disgusting... eventually reaching the top of the column and spilling over into the collection cup. This overflowing gunk is called the "skimmate"; that which was skimmed, I suppose. One may choose to "skim wet" or "skim dry", the difference being the amount of water removed with the skimmate. This is a direct result of the amount of bubble production and water surface height within the column. Skimming dry produces a nasty, stinky sludge in the collection cup but does not remove as much as skimming wet, which produces a steady amount of tea-colored liquid. The latter typically removes more DOCs but at the cost of also removing salt water, complicating top-offs because the water level fluctuation is no longer due to evaporation alone. Maintaining a strictly constant salinity is a little more difficult with aggressive skimming in a small tank like mine.
Two things determine the quality of a skimmer: (1) greater surface area between water and bubbles, and (2) contact time between the water and air. This is why larger, taller skimmers that produce a greater amount of smaller bubbles do the best.
Long story short, I had decided to buy and use a skimmer. Reading the countless reviews, testimonials, and personal experiences out there convinced me that the best one on the market for a Biocube29 is a Tunze Nano 9002 DOC Protein Skimmer. I asked my friend about his experience with them... as it turned out, he had one that was unused and was willing to lend it to me before I made my decision on whether to invest. This was great news... that very night I went home and disassembled, cleaned, studied, and reassembled it. It's actually quite a simple design but is very effective. It uses a venturi pump to produce bubbles; the aperture can be controlled using the small blue screw at the top of the chamber.
As most other Biocube owners have experienced, there is only really one option for placement of this skimmer: chamber 2. This entire chamber formerly served as my refugium, lit on a reverse-day cycle to grow chaetomorpha. I also used the drip tray to support a piece of filter floss which catches particulate in the overflow from chamber 1. Pictures of this are visible a couple of posts prior to this. Placing the Tunze in this chamber seemed problematic with a bunch of loose macroalgae tumbling around in the water. I didn't want the pump intake clogged with loose algae and the skimmer takes up more than half of the chamber, so I temporarily removed all of the algae until coming up with a suitable solution. My chaetomorpha happily lived in a separate bowl of tank water for a few days. The couple of unfortunate amphipods that migrated into the bowl with it were eventually fed to my fish who are still in the hospital tank.
The stock collection cup on the Tunze 9002 is, in my opinion, unnecessarily large for the profile of the skimmer itself. Its diameter exceeds the width of the back opening of my hood and the width of the back chamber. Some modifications to the tank and to the hood were needed so that I could easily remove the cup for periodic emptying. Out came the utility knife, heavy-duty scissors, and wire cutters. There are some alternatives and custom 3rd party accessories for the biocube which are meant to work in conjunction with the Tunze 9002, but I decided to just mod the tank for now. None of my proposed changes affected the outside aesthetic of the tank hood.
Slots cut out of the hood so that the cup can be removed with ease. They aren't apparent when the lid is closed.
The cord is extremely short. I had to add another power strip in the top shelf and cut a space make a shorter path from the skimmer to the plug.
I needed a way to get my chaetomorpha back inside chamber 2, protected and confined to a single area where it could be illuminated at night for growth but without risk of being sucked up into the skimmer. Even though the skimmer removes many of the nutrients that would otherwise decompose and be used by the chaetomorpha, it doesn't hurt to have additional means of removing phosphates and nitrates as they inevitably build up (the main method being regular water changes). The chaetomorpha is also handy for providing an environment where pods and other animals can thrive and reproduce. One of my concerns with a skimmer is that using it would suck up many of the pods that had been living and reproducing in chamber two, but judging by the frighteningly overwhelming population in the main tank I don't think they need much help reproducing. I thought about this at length and tried to come up with a home-made solution that would provide the same functionality as some of the pre-built 3rd party modifications.
For $3.99 I bought a clear, cylindrical plastic spray bottle at the supermarket that looked like it would fit next to the skimmer in chamber 2. Using the utility knife, I carefully started three rings of holes around the base of the bottle and progressively opened them until I could punch a small nail through each. I followed up with a much larger nail to open the holes to the desired final diameter, and tested the flow through these holes in my kitchen sink. Even with the water blasting into the opening of the bottle, the water level did not reach a couple inches higher than the top ring of holes- water flowed very quickly through the bottle. This is what I wanted. The mass of chaetomorpha could sit at the bottom of the bottle, lit up from behind the tank by my JBJ Nano Glo, with water flowing down from the top of the bottle to keep the spaghetti-like clump from dispersing and to provide necessary nutrients to the macroalgae. I opened up the top of the bottle so that water could easily pour in. Instead of cutting the top off completely, I carefully snipped a circular hole along the top to retain much of the strength of the thick plastic that the manufacturers used. It turned out really well, at least as an interim solution until I get a custom-fit media basket.
Bottle in place.
A view through the window on the back of the tank with the Nano-Glo on. I've since adjusted the height of the light and the bottle so it hits the algae more directly.
With the skimmer in place, the drip tray that had previously taken up all of the top of chamber two had to be cut down to size. I tried several versions of this reduced form and finally settled on cutting the thing entirely in half, also removing the raised plastic in the middle so that the filter floss would sit lower in the flow of water from chamber 1. As you can see in the pictures below, the glass side of chamber 2 (the back) did not have a support so I used one of the extra sucker pads from my Maxijet 1200 (the pump I use for water changes) to support it.
This set of modifications effectively provides the same mechanical filtration as I had before, keeps my chaetomorpha in one place, more effectively utilizes the light from the nano-glo, and makes room for the skimmer- which is an extremely useful means of removing tank pollutants and waste products before they even begin to decompose. I think a skimmer is probably the single best investment you can make with regards to water quality in a reef tank. Within a few hours it was already producing results:
All said and done, the corals and other livestock will be happier with the improvement in water quality, even though Zoanthids and some other LPS prefer to have some dissolved nutrients in the water; that shouldn't be a problem. The water is a already much clearer after only a few days of skimming and a healthy amount of frothing, bubbling spillover fills the collection cup with a tea colored cup of gunk every few days... gunk that would otherwise be floating around in the tank and yellowing my water.
I mounted two LED-based lights within the tank stand. It's much easier to work in there now, especially on any electrical wiring.
Of Snails and Corals
Where to start...
The largest five (out of eight) hermit crabs were turned in to my LFS for store credit, along with five bumblebee Snails which were only in my tank for one day. I was getting tired of the raucous gang of hermits scurrying over corals, picking on each other, harassing snails, and generally being antagonists. The small ones are still handy to have around and they're interesting, but I don't need that many.
The bumblebee snails were a last-resort decision. My LFS had limited snail selection and I wanted to step up the snail population from the two Mexican Turbos and several Stomatella snails, the latter of which came in on my live rock and are now steadily multiplying. Upon further research, though, I read some anecdotal accounts about the Bumblebee snails that I didn't like. They are opportunistic predators (like the hermit crabs, and more so than most other species of reef-safe snails) and can devastate the microfauna in the sand bed with the same gusto that they will consume algae. I felt that I had to watch them carefully and decided to do some serious research on the type of snails available to the modern day reef keeper.
Cerith snails seem to be the most handy snails to have around. Their eating habits revolve around nuisance algae, diatoms, and things you generally want gone. They can usually right themselves when turned over (a big deal compared to other types of snails), are largely peaceful, and come from warmer climates. Unfortunately it takes several of them to eat at the same rate as even one medium sized Turbo, and they are not as good at removing uneaten food and detritus as they are at scraping algae off of the glass and rocks. After finding them at another local fish store, I added six Ceriths to my tank. They're easily distinguishable by their sharply conical shells... you frequently see hermit crabs in these same shells.
My plan in the next couple of weeks, roughly coinciding with the reintroduction of my fish to the tank from quarantine, is to try to obtain the following: (3) Trochus Snails, (2) Nassarius Snails, and (2) Nerite Snails. Each species is slightly different in its habits, diet, capacity to dig/stir the sandbed, etc. My guess is that it's best to have a mix.
Several corals have been added... I am now holding off on getting any more. I just don't have any room to spare in the near future, especially considering the growth potential of the corals I already have. The Euphyllia species are real-estate intensive for a 29 gallon cube; they can grow rather large, taking up roughly the space of a basketball if left to grow. That said, I do have some plans in the works that will open up a lot of space in my tank. At that point there will be some options for new coral and I will be extremely choosy! More on that plan later, but it has been set in motion.
Pulsing Xenia (Xenia umbellata) - My mom gave me a very great Christmas gift this year... she picked out a colony of Pulsing Xenia from and bought it for me to be picked up later. I had noticed this specific colony on prior visits and it was the most active "pulsing" colony in the store. I brought it home (30 minute drive) and immediately started a gentle acclimation process. Since the colony was growing on some egg crate (the shop actually "fragged" the egg crate for me) I bought a bit of live rock to which I glued the Xenia. Since I haven't been able to take a decent picture of this coral, you'll have to wait to see it.
Craiglist has proven to be quite a good source of cheap, quality corals. I met a couple people over the last week who were genuinely passionate about the hobby and talked with me at length about their setups. It's really nice meeting these guys and discussing livestock, hardware, etc. Some of them belong to the Bay Area Reefers (a reef keeping club that meets in Fremont) and have urged me to come along to the next meeting. In any case, on one of my visits I was particularly intrigued by a Christmas Favia (Favia sp.) frag that had many eyes on it for $25. In a store this might cost me double that, and I had the pleasure of dealing with someone who grew, fragged, and cared for the coral himself. This Christmas Favia is a green with red coloration on the polyps. Favia is a strong stinger and can't really be kept in close proximity to anything else. It does readily accept meaty meals and will swallow whole any mysis I can place near its mouths. The bottom part of it, as you can see in the photo, has a couple of skeletal polyps; the previous owner suggested that it had been stung by another coral. Most corals, if healthy, will simply regrow over dead spots like this.
I was lucky enough to obtain frags from two different colonies of Green birds nest (Seriatopora guttatus). I think one of them is the same as the ORA lineage, which looks tremendous under the proper lighting- this one came from another Craigslist contact. The other came gratis from my LFS; another generous gift of several frags from his show tank colony. This colony isn't fully colored up with the fluorescent neon green polyps but a lot of that depends on lighting and health conditions.
The frag that I got from my craigslist contact went through an rigorous iodide (or iodine?) dip which was probably lasted too long; the frag is not thriving and has some dead sections. Iodine dips are common practice; they can potentially irritate the coral but at the proper duration and concentration, they mainly serve to "stun" and dislodge any attached animals from the frag or plug. This includes a lot of beneficial creatures, but it is mainly to knock off any possible parasites or pests that are lodged on the coral. Whenever you get a coral from an unfamiliar source, its a good idea to dip with iodine, just as you would quarantine (or in addition to quarantine).
I added another Euphyllia to the collection, right next to my Frogspawn. The Torch coral (Euphyllia glabrescens) comes in various color morphs- I chose one with translucent white polyps tipped in an opaque white. This colony looked extremely healthy at the LFS over the course of a couple of weeks... I had noticed it on previous visits (another benefit of frequent visits to the fish store) and never saw it with a problem. Buying new arrivals in the Euphyllia species can be problematic; these are stony corals and their skeletons are very sharp. During transport the delicate polyp tissue is almost always damaged. A completely unharmed Torch, Hammer, or Frogspawn coral after shipping is nearly unheard of. Placing the coral illustrates an exception to the usual "don't let corals touch each other" rule- Euphyllia species, much like zoanthids, can come into contact with other corals within the same genus and not sting each one another. That's good, because otherwise I would have to give them both a lot more room. I plan on eventually doing something interesting with this frag. It didn't come with a piece of rock, so it is wedged in a crevice for now. I knocked it over once during maintenance and felt pretty bad. Fortunately it wasn't damaged. The torch is a very dynamic coral that adds a lot of movement to the tank. You can see from these pictures how much it changes from one moment to the next.
Another great craigslist find were several species of Zoanthids that I picked up from a hobbyist who was propagating and fragging them for pretty reasonable prices. At present, I have counted the following "named" zoas in my collection: Fire & Ice, Bam Bam Orange, Eye of Ra, Eagle Eyes, and Tub's Blues. I've also been able to identify some of my existing Zoas- Bird of Prey. Below are the new zoas on their plugs. After a few days of getting used to the new tank they were all fully open and I'll soon begin gluing them to my developing zoa colony garden.
Four colorful, half-inch crustaceans have been perched on various corals for the past few days- when they meet each other or when they are frightened, they wave their butts around in conspicuous circles and make no apparent effort to disguise themselves. These are Sexy Shrimp (Thor amboinensis).
Yes... that is what they are called. They don't grow much larger than their current size at an inch or so. Widely considered reef-safe, they will in fact resort to eating soft corals if they don't get enough food. Sexy shrimp are very peaceful and passive reef inhabitants and do well in groups. Some people swear by "odd numbered groups" but I cant imagine why. In any case, I never see more than two or three of them in any one place. They do definitely benefit from interacting with each other and my feeling is on their own they would not do as well as with others. These are often the first animals in the tank to get Ooohs and (especially) Awwws. Their seductive, gyrating dance is enough to get the attention of even the least observant viewer. Sexy shrimp are also known as Anemone Shrimp because they bond or host with anemones in the wild. In the tank they'll host on anything that resembles an anemone and are highly promiscuous about the various corals on which they will perch. I am going to try keeping them very well fed so that they are never tempted to munch on my zoas or LPS. So far there have been intermittent incidents and the jury is still out on whether I'll let these guys stay for the long term. They're frequently perched on my brain coral and I even saw one audacious individual reaching down into one of the mouths of the coral, hopefully in search of food and not having found a snack of Lobophyllia innards. When the fish are reintroduced there will be more food for them in the tank and this habit may go away.
That's it for livestock, but there is big hardware news coming up.
Here are a few more bonus pics that turned out well:
The largest five (out of eight) hermit crabs were turned in to my LFS for store credit, along with five bumblebee Snails which were only in my tank for one day. I was getting tired of the raucous gang of hermits scurrying over corals, picking on each other, harassing snails, and generally being antagonists. The small ones are still handy to have around and they're interesting, but I don't need that many.
The bumblebee snails were a last-resort decision. My LFS had limited snail selection and I wanted to step up the snail population from the two Mexican Turbos and several Stomatella snails, the latter of which came in on my live rock and are now steadily multiplying. Upon further research, though, I read some anecdotal accounts about the Bumblebee snails that I didn't like. They are opportunistic predators (like the hermit crabs, and more so than most other species of reef-safe snails) and can devastate the microfauna in the sand bed with the same gusto that they will consume algae. I felt that I had to watch them carefully and decided to do some serious research on the type of snails available to the modern day reef keeper.
Cerith snails seem to be the most handy snails to have around. Their eating habits revolve around nuisance algae, diatoms, and things you generally want gone. They can usually right themselves when turned over (a big deal compared to other types of snails), are largely peaceful, and come from warmer climates. Unfortunately it takes several of them to eat at the same rate as even one medium sized Turbo, and they are not as good at removing uneaten food and detritus as they are at scraping algae off of the glass and rocks. After finding them at another local fish store, I added six Ceriths to my tank. They're easily distinguishable by their sharply conical shells... you frequently see hermit crabs in these same shells.
My plan in the next couple of weeks, roughly coinciding with the reintroduction of my fish to the tank from quarantine, is to try to obtain the following: (3) Trochus Snails, (2) Nassarius Snails, and (2) Nerite Snails. Each species is slightly different in its habits, diet, capacity to dig/stir the sandbed, etc. My guess is that it's best to have a mix.
Several corals have been added... I am now holding off on getting any more. I just don't have any room to spare in the near future, especially considering the growth potential of the corals I already have. The Euphyllia species are real-estate intensive for a 29 gallon cube; they can grow rather large, taking up roughly the space of a basketball if left to grow. That said, I do have some plans in the works that will open up a lot of space in my tank. At that point there will be some options for new coral and I will be extremely choosy! More on that plan later, but it has been set in motion.
Pulsing Xenia (Xenia umbellata) - My mom gave me a very great Christmas gift this year... she picked out a colony of Pulsing Xenia from and bought it for me to be picked up later. I had noticed this specific colony on prior visits and it was the most active "pulsing" colony in the store. I brought it home (30 minute drive) and immediately started a gentle acclimation process. Since the colony was growing on some egg crate (the shop actually "fragged" the egg crate for me) I bought a bit of live rock to which I glued the Xenia. Since I haven't been able to take a decent picture of this coral, you'll have to wait to see it.
Craiglist has proven to be quite a good source of cheap, quality corals. I met a couple people over the last week who were genuinely passionate about the hobby and talked with me at length about their setups. It's really nice meeting these guys and discussing livestock, hardware, etc. Some of them belong to the Bay Area Reefers (a reef keeping club that meets in Fremont) and have urged me to come along to the next meeting. In any case, on one of my visits I was particularly intrigued by a Christmas Favia (Favia sp.) frag that had many eyes on it for $25. In a store this might cost me double that, and I had the pleasure of dealing with someone who grew, fragged, and cared for the coral himself. This Christmas Favia is a green with red coloration on the polyps. Favia is a strong stinger and can't really be kept in close proximity to anything else. It does readily accept meaty meals and will swallow whole any mysis I can place near its mouths. The bottom part of it, as you can see in the photo, has a couple of skeletal polyps; the previous owner suggested that it had been stung by another coral. Most corals, if healthy, will simply regrow over dead spots like this.
Christmas Favia eating mysis.
I was lucky enough to obtain frags from two different colonies of Green birds nest (Seriatopora guttatus). I think one of them is the same as the ORA lineage, which looks tremendous under the proper lighting- this one came from another Craigslist contact. The other came gratis from my LFS; another generous gift of several frags from his show tank colony. This colony isn't fully colored up with the fluorescent neon green polyps but a lot of that depends on lighting and health conditions.
The frag that I got from my craigslist contact went through an rigorous iodide (or iodine?) dip which was probably lasted too long; the frag is not thriving and has some dead sections. Iodine dips are common practice; they can potentially irritate the coral but at the proper duration and concentration, they mainly serve to "stun" and dislodge any attached animals from the frag or plug. This includes a lot of beneficial creatures, but it is mainly to knock off any possible parasites or pests that are lodged on the coral. Whenever you get a coral from an unfamiliar source, its a good idea to dip with iodine, just as you would quarantine (or in addition to quarantine).
I added another Euphyllia to the collection, right next to my Frogspawn. The Torch coral (Euphyllia glabrescens) comes in various color morphs- I chose one with translucent white polyps tipped in an opaque white. This colony looked extremely healthy at the LFS over the course of a couple of weeks... I had noticed it on previous visits (another benefit of frequent visits to the fish store) and never saw it with a problem. Buying new arrivals in the Euphyllia species can be problematic; these are stony corals and their skeletons are very sharp. During transport the delicate polyp tissue is almost always damaged. A completely unharmed Torch, Hammer, or Frogspawn coral after shipping is nearly unheard of. Placing the coral illustrates an exception to the usual "don't let corals touch each other" rule- Euphyllia species, much like zoanthids, can come into contact with other corals within the same genus and not sting each one another. That's good, because otherwise I would have to give them both a lot more room. I plan on eventually doing something interesting with this frag. It didn't come with a piece of rock, so it is wedged in a crevice for now. I knocked it over once during maintenance and felt pretty bad. Fortunately it wasn't damaged. The torch is a very dynamic coral that adds a lot of movement to the tank. You can see from these pictures how much it changes from one moment to the next.
Another great craigslist find were several species of Zoanthids that I picked up from a hobbyist who was propagating and fragging them for pretty reasonable prices. At present, I have counted the following "named" zoas in my collection: Fire & Ice, Bam Bam Orange, Eye of Ra, Eagle Eyes, and Tub's Blues. I've also been able to identify some of my existing Zoas- Bird of Prey. Below are the new zoas on their plugs. After a few days of getting used to the new tank they were all fully open and I'll soon begin gluing them to my developing zoa colony garden.
Tub's Blue and some Eagle Eyes
Fire & Ice, Tub's Blues, and Eagle Eyes
Eye of Ra, Bam Bam Orange
Four colorful, half-inch crustaceans have been perched on various corals for the past few days- when they meet each other or when they are frightened, they wave their butts around in conspicuous circles and make no apparent effort to disguise themselves. These are Sexy Shrimp (Thor amboinensis).
Chilling on my Ricordea
Hanging out underneath the torch
Relaxing on the lobo open brain
Poised and ready to steal food from the coral at first opportunity
Yes... that is what they are called. They don't grow much larger than their current size at an inch or so. Widely considered reef-safe, they will in fact resort to eating soft corals if they don't get enough food. Sexy shrimp are very peaceful and passive reef inhabitants and do well in groups. Some people swear by "odd numbered groups" but I cant imagine why. In any case, I never see more than two or three of them in any one place. They do definitely benefit from interacting with each other and my feeling is on their own they would not do as well as with others. These are often the first animals in the tank to get Ooohs and (especially) Awwws. Their seductive, gyrating dance is enough to get the attention of even the least observant viewer. Sexy shrimp are also known as Anemone Shrimp because they bond or host with anemones in the wild. In the tank they'll host on anything that resembles an anemone and are highly promiscuous about the various corals on which they will perch. I am going to try keeping them very well fed so that they are never tempted to munch on my zoas or LPS. So far there have been intermittent incidents and the jury is still out on whether I'll let these guys stay for the long term. They're frequently perched on my brain coral and I even saw one audacious individual reaching down into one of the mouths of the coral, hopefully in search of food and not having found a snack of Lobophyllia innards. When the fish are reintroduced there will be more food for them in the tank and this habit may go away.
That's it for livestock, but there is big hardware news coming up.
Here are a few more bonus pics that turned out well:
More Hungry Corals, Easy Water Changes, and the invasion of the Vermitids
Water quality was iffy for a while there. I discovered that the little blue sponge between chambers 2 (refugium) and 3 (main pump) had become dislodged and was floating around chamber 3. Its only real function is to prevent anything floating around in chamber 2 from getting stuck in the pump. Without it, however, the tank had zero mechanical filtration of any kind, and particulate quickly began building in the water column... one of the byproducts of having high flow throughout the tank is that nothing really "settles". Even the sand is slowly carried around the tank in small dunes by the current.
I left off last time with a possible avenue towards better mechanical filtration and put that plan into action this week. I bought a large roll of polyester filter floss (making sure to use the non-treated kind; some have flame retardant chemicals added) and placed a square piece of it it immediately after the overflow from chamber 1 (intake, heater) into chamber 2 (refugium). This floss is resting on the previously unused drip tray. By keeping the water level at or near the top of chambers 2 and 3, the refugium is always full and water doesn't make a loud dripping/trickling sound as water flows into chamber 2. It's also a little easier to see the proper water level which means RO/DI top-off is easier and more accurate- combating evaporation and therefore increased salinity is a daily or every-other-day task. I used some waste water from my last change to scrub clean the blue sponge. It shouldn't be doing any major mechanical filtration from now on; that is the job of the filter floss. Cleaning the sponge turned the waste water in the bucket from an off-light-yellow to a nasty dark yellow. Below is a picture.. check out how much the filter floss collects in just a couple of days:
I also revamped my water changing method. It's one of those things you simply have to do in order to keep more demanding species and maintain a stable environment. I now have an extra 50watt Jager heater and a Maxijet pump which heat and mix water in a dedicated bucket for a couple hours prior to weekly 15% water changes. The bucket allows me to mix my RO water and salt water to the proper salinity; about 1.021 or 1.022 specific gravity at ~80 degrees. Specific gravity is also a function of temperature, so measuring a cold bucket of water will yield inaccurate results.
I attached a long clear rubber tube to the Maxijet output and use it to take water out of the tank into an empty bucket. When I've taken enough out, I switch it around to send water back into the tank from the fresh bucket of water. When refilling, I have the tube send water into chamber 1 of the tank where it flows backward (through the intakes) into the tank without disturbing sand or corals.
If you remember the Q = m · C · ΔT equation from basic chemistry, you can do some napkin math to approximate how much energy and time it takes to heat the bucket and how long a 50 watt heater would work to do so. 5 gallons of water is 18.93 liters, and at 1.022 specific gravity (kg/liter) that's a mass of ~20 kg. The specific heat of fresh water is 4.186 Joules/gram·degree Kelvin = 4186 J/kg·K; sea water is a bit less at about 4000 J/kg·K. Let's say we are raising the temperature from 70° F to 78° F: that's a difference of 4.4° Kelvin. Doing the multiplication, it's 352,000 J of energy to heat up the water. The 50 watt heater, if 100% efficient, puts out 180,000 Joules/hour, so it will take about 2 hours to finish the job. There are many other factors like loss of heat to the container/environment and evaporation, the heat imparted by the Maxijet pump, etc, but it is good to have some idea. In any case you can just put on a movie and wait until the light on the heater switches off which is my preferred method.
So enough boring stuff- where are the new corals?? I've got three interesting additions to the tank: A red and orange Acanthastrea lordhowensis. ("Acans"), a Duncanopsammia axifuga ("Duncan"), and Cyphastrea ocellina aka "Meteor Shower" which my LFS fragged for me gratis. Very nice of them. The Meteor Shower is a quick grower and I've affixed it to the contoured white live rock on the left side of the tank where it will quickly spread. Later I can remove the glued frag and put it elsewhere to propagate. There may be some eventual conflict with the small purple clove coral that is also spreading on that rock... something tells me the Meteor Shower is going to win that battle. The rock in question has gone from bleached white the first week to lightly browned with diatomaceous growth, to a smattering of purple as the coralline algae begins to grow all over it. Maybe my PurpleUp is working.
The Duncan has three large heads on it and that's what I paid for- but when the heads close, there are seven heads easily visible (total)... four of them simply hidden below the large crown of nematocysts on the parent polyps. They'll soon grow out into a waving hemisphere of green tentacles. Great deal! The Acan had been fragged and looked a little bit haggard but within a few days it has puffed up and is regrowing its skeleton where it was cut during the frag process. I've heard that these are very hardy corals; their unusually high price is a product of exportation law, popularity, and hype. Both the Acan and the Duncans are fed Mysis on the same schedule as my Lobophyllia open brain. Fortunately the Duncan is a very quick eater and doesn't needed to be shielded like the Dendros. Both are in the same family: Dendrophyllidae.
I've decided to give back or trade in several of my hermit crabs. They are more trouble then they're worth, I think. A couple of snails in their place will do more good work in the tank and probably inflict less damage on fauna in the sand and on the rocks. I'll leave 2-3 of the smaller ones in the tank for kicks.
Back to water quality- I've now got a tennis ball sized clump of chaetomorpha algae growing in my refugium... another freebie from the LFS (another customer of his brought in a whole bucket full of the stuff). I'm hoping the growth takes off and it begins consuming a lot of the excess nutrients in the tank. Once this small clump grows to take up the whole refugium, I'll clip half of it and trade it in for something. This is called nutrient export and is only one half of combating nuisance algae; the other half is limiting nutrient import. Overfeeding is the number one cause. I'm going to try something that I recently read on WetWebMedia, one of the best sites out there for question and answer format info/research. A guru was answering a question about mistakes which lead to out-of-control algae growth,"like thawing frozen foods but not decanting the thawed pack juice which is "rocket fuel" for growing nuisance algae, sponges or Vermetids in this case". Sounds like a great idea. That liquid is very rich but doesn't really do anything for the organisms that I'm actually trying to feed; in this case fish and corals. It is, however, scarfed down by algae, planktonic creatures, and the subject of my research the past few days: Vermetid Snails. Here are three on the same rock as my Ricordea.
These gastropods that are essentially snails which plant themselves in one spot and grow onto the rock. Their shell is fused to the hard surface and slowly grows up and away from its base. The snail peeks its head out and to feed, releasing a relatively long line of sticky mucus which collects particulate matter, and retracts this mucus to eat whatever it picked up. This mucus can aggravate corals in the vicinity and, let's face it: looks like snot. At first I welcomed these novel hitchhiking creatures assuming that they were an acceptable part of the ecosystem but the more I read about them, the more I want them gone. They can and will grow in tubing and eventually clog it; they can and will bother corals with their mucus and corals will grow around them; the ends of their calcareous tubes are almost always razor sharp and can slice open a hand; and they reproduce like mad under the right conditions... the list goes on. They can be controlled by having good water quality and low nutrients/particulate matter but I think I'll be handling this population primarily with needle-nose pliers... at least the ones in near vicinity of my corals. I already see baby vermetids growing on rock that was formally barren, which means they are flourishing in my tank. Better deal with them before they become a problem.
My fish remain quarantined. They're well; active and eating, but it seems a crime to have them outside of the tank for so long... looking forward to mid January! The goby is still sullen but has learned, like the clowns, to eat mysis directly from the feeding baster. Days until reintroduction: 26. Seems like forever.
The Mexican Turbo Snails have been doing a stellar job. They aren't yet big enough to bulldoze rocks but they have almost knocked over a frag right before my eyes. I need to position the frags that aren't yet glued so that if they are knocked over, they won't land on another coral and sting/get stung. Corals coming into contact is generally a Bad Thing.
Note the amount of pods and assorted microfauna in just a few square inches of glass in the above photo. I finally got a great picture of the copepod population on my glass. I'm sure their booming population will come into check when there are fish in the tank.
Another big update coming soon!
I left off last time with a possible avenue towards better mechanical filtration and put that plan into action this week. I bought a large roll of polyester filter floss (making sure to use the non-treated kind; some have flame retardant chemicals added) and placed a square piece of it it immediately after the overflow from chamber 1 (intake, heater) into chamber 2 (refugium). This floss is resting on the previously unused drip tray. By keeping the water level at or near the top of chambers 2 and 3, the refugium is always full and water doesn't make a loud dripping/trickling sound as water flows into chamber 2. It's also a little easier to see the proper water level which means RO/DI top-off is easier and more accurate- combating evaporation and therefore increased salinity is a daily or every-other-day task. I used some waste water from my last change to scrub clean the blue sponge. It shouldn't be doing any major mechanical filtration from now on; that is the job of the filter floss. Cleaning the sponge turned the waste water in the bucket from an off-light-yellow to a nasty dark yellow. Below is a picture.. check out how much the filter floss collects in just a couple of days:
I also revamped my water changing method. It's one of those things you simply have to do in order to keep more demanding species and maintain a stable environment. I now have an extra 50watt Jager heater and a Maxijet pump which heat and mix water in a dedicated bucket for a couple hours prior to weekly 15% water changes. The bucket allows me to mix my RO water and salt water to the proper salinity; about 1.021 or 1.022 specific gravity at ~80 degrees. Specific gravity is also a function of temperature, so measuring a cold bucket of water will yield inaccurate results.
I attached a long clear rubber tube to the Maxijet output and use it to take water out of the tank into an empty bucket. When I've taken enough out, I switch it around to send water back into the tank from the fresh bucket of water. When refilling, I have the tube send water into chamber 1 of the tank where it flows backward (through the intakes) into the tank without disturbing sand or corals.
It takes some time to heat up ~5 gallons of water from room temperature.
So enough boring stuff- where are the new corals?? I've got three interesting additions to the tank: A red and orange Acanthastrea lordhowensis. ("Acans"), a Duncanopsammia axifuga ("Duncan"), and Cyphastrea ocellina aka "Meteor Shower" which my LFS fragged for me gratis. Very nice of them. The Meteor Shower is a quick grower and I've affixed it to the contoured white live rock on the left side of the tank where it will quickly spread. Later I can remove the glued frag and put it elsewhere to propagate. There may be some eventual conflict with the small purple clove coral that is also spreading on that rock... something tells me the Meteor Shower is going to win that battle. The rock in question has gone from bleached white the first week to lightly browned with diatomaceous growth, to a smattering of purple as the coralline algae begins to grow all over it. Maybe my PurpleUp is working.
Acanthastrea lordhowensis
Duncanopsammia axifuga
Cyphastrea ocellina
When I glued this to the rock, I had to press hard on the end of the coral-
wearing off some of its purple material and damaging a polyp. It will grow back in time.
The Duncan has three large heads on it and that's what I paid for- but when the heads close, there are seven heads easily visible (total)... four of them simply hidden below the large crown of nematocysts on the parent polyps. They'll soon grow out into a waving hemisphere of green tentacles. Great deal! The Acan had been fragged and looked a little bit haggard but within a few days it has puffed up and is regrowing its skeleton where it was cut during the frag process. I've heard that these are very hardy corals; their unusually high price is a product of exportation law, popularity, and hype. Both the Acan and the Duncans are fed Mysis on the same schedule as my Lobophyllia open brain. Fortunately the Duncan is a very quick eater and doesn't needed to be shielded like the Dendros. Both are in the same family: Dendrophyllidae.
Happily stuffed full of mysis.
I've decided to give back or trade in several of my hermit crabs. They are more trouble then they're worth, I think. A couple of snails in their place will do more good work in the tank and probably inflict less damage on fauna in the sand and on the rocks. I'll leave 2-3 of the smaller ones in the tank for kicks.
Nefarious hermit crab with innocent expression.
Back to water quality- I've now got a tennis ball sized clump of chaetomorpha algae growing in my refugium... another freebie from the LFS (another customer of his brought in a whole bucket full of the stuff). I'm hoping the growth takes off and it begins consuming a lot of the excess nutrients in the tank. Once this small clump grows to take up the whole refugium, I'll clip half of it and trade it in for something. This is called nutrient export and is only one half of combating nuisance algae; the other half is limiting nutrient import. Overfeeding is the number one cause. I'm going to try something that I recently read on WetWebMedia, one of the best sites out there for question and answer format info/research. A guru was answering a question about mistakes which lead to out-of-control algae growth,"like thawing frozen foods but not decanting the thawed pack juice which is "rocket fuel" for growing nuisance algae, sponges or Vermetids in this case". Sounds like a great idea. That liquid is very rich but doesn't really do anything for the organisms that I'm actually trying to feed; in this case fish and corals. It is, however, scarfed down by algae, planktonic creatures, and the subject of my research the past few days: Vermetid Snails. Here are three on the same rock as my Ricordea.
These gastropods that are essentially snails which plant themselves in one spot and grow onto the rock. Their shell is fused to the hard surface and slowly grows up and away from its base. The snail peeks its head out and to feed, releasing a relatively long line of sticky mucus which collects particulate matter, and retracts this mucus to eat whatever it picked up. This mucus can aggravate corals in the vicinity and, let's face it: looks like snot. At first I welcomed these novel hitchhiking creatures assuming that they were an acceptable part of the ecosystem but the more I read about them, the more I want them gone. They can and will grow in tubing and eventually clog it; they can and will bother corals with their mucus and corals will grow around them; the ends of their calcareous tubes are almost always razor sharp and can slice open a hand; and they reproduce like mad under the right conditions... the list goes on. They can be controlled by having good water quality and low nutrients/particulate matter but I think I'll be handling this population primarily with needle-nose pliers... at least the ones in near vicinity of my corals. I already see baby vermetids growing on rock that was formally barren, which means they are flourishing in my tank. Better deal with them before they become a problem.
My fish remain quarantined. They're well; active and eating, but it seems a crime to have them outside of the tank for so long... looking forward to mid January! The goby is still sullen but has learned, like the clowns, to eat mysis directly from the feeding baster. Days until reintroduction: 26. Seems like forever.
Bummed out goby.
The Mexican Turbo Snails have been doing a stellar job. They aren't yet big enough to bulldoze rocks but they have almost knocked over a frag right before my eyes. I need to position the frags that aren't yet glued so that if they are knocked over, they won't land on another coral and sting/get stung. Corals coming into contact is generally a Bad Thing.
Note the amount of pods and assorted microfauna in just a few square inches of glass in the above photo. I finally got a great picture of the copepod population on my glass. I'm sure their booming population will come into check when there are fish in the tank.
Another big update coming soon!
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