Reef Tank: Copepods

I got a call from Cassie while on my way home that "some of the corals didn't look very good" and that there were "crawly things in the tank". My immediate thought was that some sort of pest, possibly the 'red bugs' associated with Acropora corals had been introduced with the recent coral frags. This turned out to be a case of "new parent" needless worry on both our parts. After getting a few of the new critters under my microscope, and verifying the identification, it turned out to be harmless copepods, a coveted food in the captive reef aquarium for both corals and fish. In other words, a good thing.

Here is a good article on Copepods, and also a few photos from the microscope.





At this point there are hundreds, if not thousands, of these guys in various stages of growth around the tank. I've been reading that a new trend in reef keeping is to avoid adding fish until the tank has been established for a few months, allowing populations of these smaller animals to take hold and establish themselves before larger predators are introduced. So far this seems to be a good approach.

Reef Tank: First Corals

Here are the first corals to hit my tank. All are aquacultured fragments of larger colonies that have been thriving in captive conditions. This makes them more likely to survive in a new aquarium system compared to wild caught specimens, or so I'm told. In the future I will hopefully be able to write up in more detail the particulars of each species, and hopefully figure out how to take some better photos. I'm afraid that last part might involve some expensive camera equipment.

Seriatopora stellata:



Porites cylindrica:



Pocillopora damicornis:



Stylophora pistillata:



Pavona maldivensis:

Reef Tank: Coral En Route

This morning I placed an order at Live Aquaria for a stony coral frag pack. While stony corals can be more difficult to keep because of their increased need for light, calcium, and water current, I find them some of the more interesting species and was what I always envisioned keeping in my tank. The package I ordered is for five frags (small fragments from a larger colony) of aquacultured coral colonies. Aquacultured specimens, as opposed to wild card, are purportedly more tolerant of aquarium conditions and less likely to be severely traumatized by the introduction to a new tank.

My new metal halide fixture arrives tonight as well, so I hope to be able to get that setup and post pictures of the tank. This should represent the last piece of equipment that was part of my original tank plan, although I've already thought of several things I'd like to change and upgrade in light of the decision to keep stony corals primarily.

Parameters from Last Night:
Temp: 80F
SG: 1.025
pH: 8.3
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 20ppm
dKH: 9
Calcium: 400ppm
Phosphate: 0

Reef Tank: Evicted Crab

I found this guy dead on the rock this afternoon. Since everyone else appears healthy, I'm assuming he was the victim of a shell-jacking, and not something more worrisome like water quality. Earlier I had also found a snail turned over on the back of its shell. Nerite snails are unable to right themselves when this occurs. I would have liked to put this guy under the microscope, but he was already starting to stink and I was on my way out the door when I noticed his corpse.



Marine tanks are certainly more violent than planted aquariums. I'm going to keep an eye out for any other activity, and fingers crossed that this isn't related to me screwing something up with the water change. I should probably get a bunch of empty shells to prevent any future outbreaks of violence, should that turn out to be what happened.

Field Trip: The New England Aquarium

After the nine thousandth call from the New England Aquarium informing me that my membership was about to / had expired, I figured I might as well march over there and renew it. They have a good sized coral tank, and I was looking for some photos I could use for raw material while working on the design of this blog.

It was interesting to observe the tank now, after five months of research into setting up my own tank. Previously it had been fairly inspirational, but now I was able to identify some short comings, or at least what would be viewed as such by the reef tank elite. Bubble and hair algae was rampant throughtout the tank, and the fish and invertebrate diversity was relatively low for what would be possible in a tank of that size. That said, it is still a beautiful aquarium and only one of the many tanks worth spending some time with at that facility.

Click any of these photos to head over to Flickr where you can get a larger view of them.

Reef Tank: Snails and Hermits

On Saturday morning I did another round of tests and found ammonia to have dropped to zero. Nitrites were still low and nitrates were elevated to 40ppm. I decided to try and add some of the first inhabitants to my aquarium, a group of snails and hermit crabs who could feast on the new growth of diatoms and the stuff that came in on the live rock.

I went to Skipton's Pet Center in Boston, which is the best fish store in metro Boston, as far as I know. They helped me settle on a dozen Nerite snails and ten hermit crabs, a few different varieties of Clibanarius, including red and blue colorations. Both snails and hermits originate in the Caribbean and are quite common, which makes them affordable to purchase compared to other species. The snails are intertidal and therefore spend a lot of time crawling above the waterline to breathe. Everyone appears to have survived their first night, and I've been watching both snails and crabs tear into the diatoms on the rock and glass.

Still trying to figure out the white balance while shooting under actinic light, so please excuse the yellow tone of these photos. The picture of the blue hermit crab is closer to the correct coloration. Also, if you go to a larger view of the snail photo, you can see the barnacles on its shell extending their feeders. Pretty cool!







Saturday Parameters:
Temperature: 81F
Specific Gravity: 1.026
pH: 7.9
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 3ppm
Nitrate: 40ppm