Stolen spotlight: Do you ever find that you are surprised by something you didn’t notice in your tank?

[Mr Fishface]

I often find things that surprise me in my tank. I ordered rock and sand from, I believe, Tampa Bay Saltwater and that has added a large amount of life into my tank. Sometimes it is a neat sponge or a new invert running around. I even had a few surprise corals. This morning I found a crab under a rock filter feeding. That was new! My tank has been running for 8 or 9 months now and I love finding new surprises still. Here is a terrible photo of my new crab friend! He hid pretty well under a rock once I saw him.

 

[glb]

Feather duster from out of nowhere and a scutus slug that gave me nightmares the first time I saw it. No clue, lol

 

[LadAShark]

I have a hitchhiker tridacnid that surprised me. I first saw it deep in a rock, looking like a mussel, and later found out that tridacnids look like mussels before they begin to look like the classic giant clam. Later I only realized it was the "mussel," because I saw it out in the open, and the "mussel" was no longer wedges deep in the live rock. I got the live rock from another reefer who was taking down their tank by coincidence, and doubt they realized they had it either.

Only reason I know it's a tridacnid is because it has photophores, it closes in response to shade, and has the classic tridacnid mantle. Currently it's not very colorful, but I'm hoping it'll color up with time.

 

[Just John]

I often find things that surprise me in my tank. I ordered rock and sand from, I believe, Tampa Bay Saltwater and that has added a large amount of life into my tank. Sometimes it is a neat sponge or a new invert running around. I even had a few surprise corals. This morning I found a crab under a rock filter feeding. That was new! My tank has been running for 8 or 9 months now and I love finding new surprises still. Here is a terrible photo of my new crab friend! He hid pretty well under a rock once I saw him.

Hard to tell from the photos, but if that is hairy looking, take it out if you can. I got a couple in my rock from there and eventually they discovered zoas tasted better than they algae they had always eaten.

 

[piscesgirl]

Oh yeah, especially the first time I saw a bristle worm lol

 

[DannoOMG]

I have some weird green tentacles growing between a zoanthid patch. It looks like it could be something from my hulk torch but I don't know.

 

[Kathy Floyd]

Oh yeah, especially the first time I saw a bristle worm lol

Like this....

 

[Kasrift]

I just found a tiny hermit crab that lives in the porites Christmas Tree rock I bought about a month ago. I didn't dip the rock of course, but I gave it a good inspection and was sad to not find any of those commensurate crabs that live in the holes the Christmas tree worms make. I found a tiny one this morning on the rock waving it's arms around like my procelain crabs to filter feed.

 

[Rocky Mountain Reef]

Stolen spotlight: Do you ever find that you are surprised by something you didn’t notice in your tank?

Sometimes it seems like my attention with my reef can get surprised, almost like another issue just photobombs my attention. What I mean is that I can get focused on a certain fish or coral that I can overlook other things that are happening in my tank until these issues jump in front of where I am looking. Please let us know if this ever happens to you where another issue in your tank catches your attention when you were working on or watching something else in your tank.

Pro Tip: It is easy to get pulled away from our reef or to get caught up in one aspect of our reef. Whatever is going on in our reef tanks or in our whirlwind lives, it is helpful to step up and “touch” our tanks regularly, and it is also helpful to step back and look at our reef as a whole.

Photo by Jason Marks, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Speaking of photo bombs, the Tunze Photo Bomb Giveaway and your chance to win a Tunze Osmolator with Tunze's new Turbelle High Jet Pump ends today. June 19th is the last day to enter.


This QOTD is sponsored by Nutramar: https://www.qualitymarine.com/nutramar/

“Nutramar’s 100% natural food products are used by public aquaria and breeders around the world. They offer superior nutrition to your most finicky and delicate fish and invertebrates.

what is the species of Bennie in the pic there....?

 

[jacquesPiette]

i have sponges, orange sea slugs and little jellyfishes that i have seen pop up in my tank a few months ago. the sponges are still growing, the slug population dwindled a ll bit and the jellies stay aprox. the same since. i didnt had anything to the tank for months, so i dont know how they got in. maybe the food? lol. maybe they were always there, and their population just boomed. theses critters dont cause any trouble, so they are pretty cool.

 

[jacquesPiette]

ill had pics and videos tomorow

 

[i cant think]

This guy!
He hides round the back so I tend to miss him most of the month but every so often I look round the back and there he is, almost twice the side as he was last time haha. I love gobies and secretive fish in large tanks for this reason, they add hidden secrets to the tank so you don’t see everything instantly.