My beautiful Rose BTA has been showing some growth over the past month and a half that I've had it. Isolating it from the Gold Stripe Maroon Clowns, my hope was that it would grow larger (it was quite young and small). However, my Skunk Cleaner shrimp has been stealing its food right out of its mouth/belly when I would walk away!!!
While studying my refugium very closely tonight, I saw a tiny shell move. I watched intently, but it was so small that I had to get a magnification loop to see whether it was a itty bitty hermit crab or a snail. The shell is the shape of a Cerith snail, and I didn't try to touch it to see if it was hard or soft. It turns out it is a tiny snail, and it travels on the sand and the acrylic walls. I checked the other refugium and found more of them. I don't know where they came from, and I'm hoping they aren't something I'm going to regret later.
Recently, I cleaned out my Aqua C Ev-200 protein skimmer thoroughly. Once I hooked it up, I capped the little drain line on the collection cup so that I could remove the long piece of hose that was never being used anyway. For over a week, the collection cup filled with light green fluid, much more than I've ever had before. I blamed it on the great cleaning job :) and waited for it to break in again. The collection cup has 3 holes in the lid, so it could vent easily, right?
Last night at our club meeting, the election to choose the new president for DFWMAS took place. This is the first election in the history of the club, as two people ran for office. The members voted, and I'm the new president. :)
Two new pages have been added:
Suncoral - comments and images, including the daily feeding.
Learn the difference between a whelk and a nassarius snail.
I cannot believe how opportuntinistic my reeflings are. Is it any wonder some things seem to grow so slowly?!
Tonight, I fed the Rose BTA in my son's tank, and watched the Skunk Cleaner shrimp closely. I walked away for about 3 minutes to feed another tank, and when I came back, he'd pulled the chunk of shrimp right out of the anemone and was picking away at it. I had to steal it back to feed the BTA again, and chase away the Cleaner shrimp for at least 10 minutes.
A DFWMAS club member traded me his beautiful sun coral for a piece of my Hammer coral. Some might not think that is an equal trade, but as far as I can tell we are both very very happy with our exchange.
Here is a new bicolor blenny, peeking out from the frilly mushrooms. Interestingly, the lower mushroom didn't like the little guy and deflated pretty quickly. It should be interesting to see where this little guy ends up in the future.
My crazy Cleaner Shrimp is hosting in my Rose BTA now. Literally, it stands in the anemone and just hangs out. Amazing.
One of the benefits of selling RO/DI units, I have plenty of filters on hand at any time. So I swapped out the sediment and carbon block prefilters this week, since it is June. I'll change them again in December, as this seems like an easy way to remember.
I'm trying to increase the pH in the 55g reeftank, so today I hooked up an airpump in the garage that pushes in "fresh" air into the tank. The outlet of the tubing blows into the intake of the protein skimmer, but I'm not sure if that will make much of a difference. If this doesn't work, I'll have to patch a pencil-sized hole in the wall. ;)
