Asterina stars, spaghetti worms, pipe organ coral, brittle star (possibly). Where to begin...
Life is bursting forth. I remember when live rock was, well, alive. It wasn't like gulf rock or anything but there were still pods, starfish, the odd tube worm, coralline algae, and yes, sometimes aiptasia and the like as well. The rock from my friend was every bit as good as gulf rock and better.
It may not have sponges or tunicates like gulf rock but this rock has two different corals on it, one of which is a full blown xenia colony. The other I discovered tonight. It looks like a pipe organ coral of some sort. I hope to get a good picture of it tomorrow. I found 2 asterina stars, and one lone asterina arm. None of them were whole stars but one had 4 arms and the other had 3. The single armed star had no center. Somehow though it was still able to move about. I saw what looked like either a brittle or serpent star arm sticking out of the rock. Later on I looked again and no starfish arms were sticking out of the hole in the rock where I saw it previously. As for the spaghetti worms I have at least 4. They seem happy, casting their tentacles about to catch food particles.
The dinos are staying far from the new rock. They tried to come back in one corner of the tank and on a small portion of 1 rock. I blew them off of both sand and rock. The sterilizer will get them.
The chaeto has helped tremendously in the battle against dinoflagellates by housing pods and helping to hold food for them while they started populating the system.
The phyto bloom helped boost pod numbers as well. The UV sterilizer and the rock were a 1-2-punch however. At least for now, the dinos are kissing the canvas. Hopefully it stays that way. Pretty soon, possibly as soon as tomorrow, I'll be getting another rock from my friend. That will be a huge help. That one I'll place right over the old rock so that it populates the rocks below it.
The xenia are doing quite well. They are still trying to pulse even in the flow. The coral I believe to be a pipe organ coral also looks great. It has 4 or 5 polyps.
The pods are starting to populate the old rock now as well as the chaeto balls. I keep seeing more each day. I expect to see many more before long.
Today I added a single Mexican turbo snail to the system. Even though I just cleaned the glass it won't be long before the algae comes back. Between the Mexican turbo snails and the limpets green algae won't get to be problematic for long. The snail I added today has a patch of green coralline on its shell. There is pink and purple coralline algae on the new rock. Hopefully it'll spread before long. I'd love to have all 3 colors of coralline spread. In fact I want some of the harder to find colors but I'd settle for the 3 I currently have.
We found out that we have to move on the 26th of July. Thankfully we are being moved to an apartment that is not super far from where we are now. The apartment we move to will already be renovated and will be our permanent residence. Thankfully I can take the tank down and have it set back up in about 6 hours or less. I am going to leave the sand and about an inch of water in the tank and then I'll store the all the rock and water in 5 gallon buckets. Of course once I get the tank on the stand in the new apartment I'll put the rocks back in the way they came out and fill the tank the rest of the way.
Life is bursting forth. I remember when live rock was, well, alive. It wasn't like gulf rock or anything but there were still pods, starfish, the odd tube worm, coralline algae, and yes, sometimes aiptasia and the like as well. The rock from my friend was every bit as good as gulf rock and better.
It may not have sponges or tunicates like gulf rock but this rock has two different corals on it, one of which is a full blown xenia colony. The other I discovered tonight. It looks like a pipe organ coral of some sort. I hope to get a good picture of it tomorrow. I found 2 asterina stars, and one lone asterina arm. None of them were whole stars but one had 4 arms and the other had 3. The single armed star had no center. Somehow though it was still able to move about. I saw what looked like either a brittle or serpent star arm sticking out of the rock. Later on I looked again and no starfish arms were sticking out of the hole in the rock where I saw it previously. As for the spaghetti worms I have at least 4. They seem happy, casting their tentacles about to catch food particles.
The dinos are staying far from the new rock. They tried to come back in one corner of the tank and on a small portion of 1 rock. I blew them off of both sand and rock. The sterilizer will get them.
The chaeto has helped tremendously in the battle against dinoflagellates by housing pods and helping to hold food for them while they started populating the system.
The phyto bloom helped boost pod numbers as well. The UV sterilizer and the rock were a 1-2-punch however. At least for now, the dinos are kissing the canvas. Hopefully it stays that way. Pretty soon, possibly as soon as tomorrow, I'll be getting another rock from my friend. That will be a huge help. That one I'll place right over the old rock so that it populates the rocks below it.
The xenia are doing quite well. They are still trying to pulse even in the flow. The coral I believe to be a pipe organ coral also looks great. It has 4 or 5 polyps.
The pods are starting to populate the old rock now as well as the chaeto balls. I keep seeing more each day. I expect to see many more before long.
Today I added a single Mexican turbo snail to the system. Even though I just cleaned the glass it won't be long before the algae comes back. Between the Mexican turbo snails and the limpets green algae won't get to be problematic for long. The snail I added today has a patch of green coralline on its shell. There is pink and purple coralline algae on the new rock. Hopefully it'll spread before long. I'd love to have all 3 colors of coralline spread. In fact I want some of the harder to find colors but I'd settle for the 3 I currently have.
We found out that we have to move on the 26th of July. Thankfully we are being moved to an apartment that is not super far from where we are now. The apartment we move to will already be renovated and will be our permanent residence. Thankfully I can take the tank down and have it set back up in about 6 hours or less. I am going to leave the sand and about an inch of water in the tank and then I'll store the all the rock and water in 5 gallon buckets. Of course once I get the tank on the stand in the new apartment I'll put the rocks back in the way they came out and fill the tank the rest of the way.