Coral

The Bubble Tip Anemone has been in my tank almost 2 years. (22 months currently)

Here are the pictures of the BTA splitting event.

Today I got a PM from a club member asking for a few of my Red Ring Zoas. I told her that I didn't have enough to share at this point, as there are maybe 20 polyps total on the rock. Then it hit me:

WHERE THE HECK ARE THEY?!?!?!

Now the reasonable person would say "oh well, my little reef looks good and if they turn up later that would be nice... I am content with what I have." However, not a zoa-addict like myself, no way!

The first soft coral I ever bought was a "Colt" coral. It is listed on my 29g's webpage. Mushrooms, Xenia, button polyps, etc are all corals, but I don't look at them like that. The Colt coral was like a cactus, with a thick trunk and many stalks reaching upward, covered with thousands of little polyps for filter feeding.

It grew quite large in my 29g to the point that I thought I'd have to remove it. It spread onto another rock nearby, and I was able to take that piece and put it in to the 55g reef.

Yesterday I got a few nice pieces from Dallas Marine, and wanted to post a few pictures.

Here are some beautiful zoanthids that I put in my 29g under PC lighting. They opened right up.

Here is a Distichopora, which is in my 55g under 175w MH and VHO 03's.

A single multicolored frilly mushroom, also in the 55g, put on the substrate.

When RTN (Rapid Tissue Necrosis) hits a coral, there is little time to act. I've been growing a tiny frag of "bird's nest" for about six months or longer, and as of yesterday it looked like it was really taking off. I have a Frogsspawn coral nearby, and it has brushed against this coral on occasion, but never enough to make me worry.

First of all, my Montipora capricornis frag is finally doing something exciting! I got a chip of a frag last year, and it just never did anything. Then I got this nice orange piece last August, but algae grew on it, it fell into my Milleopora several times, each time stinging the crap out of it to where a chunk would bleach and die..... Finally I used a zip-tie strap to hold this piece on a boulder of LR and it has been growing for me.

I took this macro shot today, and look what I see deep down in the ridges: POLYPS! I never get to see them and it was exhilarating to find a few.

By 9pm Friday night, the bird's nest coral was completely white. Man, was that fast. :(

It looks like something took a big bite out of the Hammer Coral. I wonder if it was the Urchin, as it eats coralline algae - calcium-based algae. Hammer corals have a calcium base that the polyps grow upon. I may have to remove the Urchin, as it does tend to knock over corals I care about.

I haven't seen my large bristleworms in the 29g's refugium in about a week. I wonder if I just am looking at the wrong time, or if the mud crab decided to make a meal of them.

Wow, it's been over a week since I added any news....

The Lobophylia lost one of its two polyps. When you have a coral with only two, and one dies, it is quite a loss. It had been receeding and I was target feeding it to help it heal, but for some reason the fish all decided that it was better as a tasty meal than as a recovering coral. :( I watched the Coral Beauty and the Hippo Tang both pick it clean within a 12 hour period. Thankfully they've not touched the other polyp and it still looks healthy and happy.

This is what the Favite and the Fungia look like.

The Favite is difficult to take a picture of currently because of its condition as well as lighting. This shot was taken under actinics. The Fungia is a baby, about the diameter of a penny. They grow to be about 3"- 5" typically.

On Saturday, I picked up some Cheatomorpha from a local reefer and added half to each refugium. I may pulled out all the caulerpa in there and let this be my way of removing nutrients instead. Cheatomorpha looks like green thread, and grows in a tangled bunch that reminds me of loosely of steel wool.

The baby blue Zoanthids opened up and I got a nice picture of them today. They are green in the very center, and very tender & small. Each polyp is probably 3/16" wide in diameter.