Brain Advice

Canon Rebel Xti, Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro

I sent an email today to Wet Web Media to get some tips on what I can do to get my open brain coral to expand again. I thought reducing the nitrates to 0.5 mg/L and increasing illumination would do the trick. So far it still hasn't opened fully.

They replied within about an hour and a half. Sarah suggested increasing my temperature to 80 - 85F and increasing my specific gravity to 1.025 - 1.026. I had just lowered my temperature slowly from 79F down to 75F hoping that would work. I also lowered my SG from 1.025 to 1.024. I thought the lowering the temperature helped a little at first but it is still being stubborn.

I performed a water change today and nudged the heater up a little. I need to do this slowly. I'm also going to top off for evaporation with salt water to raise the SG back up. By filling my auto top-off reservoir with salt water this change should happen slowly.

Sarah also suggested running activated carbon for a while and to try feeding the coral at night with all pumps turned off. I'm going to give the feeding a try right now. I'll have to pick up some carbon tomorrow.

Star Polyps Growing Up

Canon Rebel Xti, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f3.5 - 5.6

I was able to get a picture of my star polyp colony when the polyps are retracted. Hopefully, you can see how the colony is growing upwards.

This picture was taken on a tripod with only the moon LEDs lit. It does take a while for the polyps to come out after the lights turn on so I could have taken a "day" picture. I just felt like taking a night picture.

Frogspawn Expansion at Warp Speed

I decided to give time lapse photography a try. Using the software that came with our camera and our laptop I took a picture every minute for 3 hours this morning. What I found is that my fish love to be in front of the camera. I really don't have as many fish as you might think I do from watching this video. They really all decided to hang out in front of the camera. Kind of weird. As you can see, most of the coral's expansion occured during the first hour when only the actinics were lit.

Be sure to check back later for Toadstool at Warp Speed.

Star Polyps

Canon Rebel Xti, Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro

My Star Polyps reside at the far left side of my tank. There they have expanded their colony onto a new piece of rock. I really don't pay too much attention to this colony. I guess this is because it is doing well on its own and I really don't worry about it.

The top of the colony grows upward building upon their old skeletons. Almost like SPS coral. These branches are obscured by the tentacles of the polyps and are only visible when the tank is dark. I haven't been able to take a decent picture that depicts this in any detail.

Over time the polyps near the bottom of the colony shrink away. Perhaps their siblings are blocking their light. The picture below shows the bottom of the colony. This section was once thriving but is now fading away.

Canon Rebel Xti, Canon EF 100mm f2.8 USM Macro

How Low Can They Go?

Nitrate level this Thanksgiving morning was 0.5 ppm, possibly a little lower. I thought they had stabilized at 1 ppm but they have dropped again. This may be due to the increased output of my skimmer.

Collonista Snails

From Paul's Reef

Lots of these little guys crawling around on my live rock. I thought they were baby Astraea snails but it looks like they are just really small snails called Collonista snails. Supposed to be great grazers though.

Bubble-Tip Update

From Paul's Reef

My anemone is looking really good lately. I'm feeding it a piece of frozen Formula One every other day. It's a pain because I need to keep my shrimps (more on this later) distracted while it is ingesting its food. During the day the tentacles are long and slender. At night, after the lights start to dim, the tentacles contract and the bubble tips develop. Right now my four 6500K spiral bulbs turn off at 9:00, the 12000K tubes turn off at 10:00 and the actinics go out at 11:00.

Still no luck with any of my clown fish hosting it. The tomato clown looks at it every once in a while, however, it hangs out closer to the frogspawn more frequently. Occasionally, I see the Tomato nipping at the Frogspawn's tentacles. I've yet to see it swim within its tentacles.

I just noticed that in this picture you can see an extremely small snail in the lower left corner of the picture near the anemone. I have lots of these baby snails in my tank. Don't know for sure if they are baby Astraea snails or some other type but I do see the mature Astraea snails laying eggs from time to time.

So, is it shrimp or shrimps? I always thought that the word shrimp was used for the singular and also for the plural as in Fried Shrimp. They don't give you just one shrimp. But what if I want to describe multiple varieties of shrimp(s)? Is it correct to say shrimps in that case? I had a college professor that always instructed the class to turn in our homeworks. I remember explaining to somebody that that was incorrect. I used the fried shrimp example to make my point that their should be no 's' at the end. I guess it doesn't matter. I'm using shrimps from now on. Later, I need to go brush my tooths.