I received this small brittle starfish in my last order a week and a half ago. It crawled onto the sea whip I had barely touching the Rock the starfish was on originally, and since then it’s been crawling up and down the sea whip. I did not think it was causing any harm but now today suddenly most of the flesh fell off the first half of the sea Whip and probably the rest will die. :-(

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I have been behind in blogging about the tank, but here are some more photos.

These duncans were an interesting piece from Aquarium Depot. At first I didn't even realize it was a duncan since it had a bunch of small heads and not a single large head like my first one. But after a few days, they opened up, and now the heads expand almost an inch beyond the base and look quite healthy.

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It’s been a while since I updated about my saltwater aquarium since I have been focusing on wrapping up some personal projects as soon as possible. For now, here are a few photos and videos of strange creatures, including a pretty cool albeit not terribly high quality video of a spaghetti worm (Eupolymnia crasscornis) that climbed the glass and possibly tried to attack or at least irritated a nassarius snail, who then fought back and jumped to the ground onto a starfish.

I found this spaghetti worm climbing the glass one night after dark.

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After initially thinking it was a crab due to some possibly erroneous information on a vendor’s website, I realized I found my first sea spider. He measures about a centimeter. Despite my revisionist inclination to nurture what others consider harmful pests, I quarantined him and will probably keep it that way.

I found a pycnogonid, or sea spider, in a batch of small corals and algae. It apparently survived the wash stage, unless it caught a ride inside a tube worm. I'm not sure what I will do with him, as he might prey on corals.

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I tested the water today using my new test tubes with rubber stoppers and Mohr pipette. It was delightful, as the rubber stoppers work far better than the plastic caps that come with the API test kits. I won’t buy these test kits again, as I again was not …

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My red gorgonian had been opening somewhat consistently when it was in the refugium, but has barely opened since I moved it to the display tank. I’m not sure if that is related, or if it has to do with other changes I made. I received another gorgonian, but yellow, last week, and it had been opening in the display tank till a few days ago. I tried moving them to very high flow and then to low flow to no avail. I think I’ll move them to the refugium now.

A feather duster peaking out of the tube a few days after he popped his crown off, I think due to stress from my experimenting with different powerhead placements.

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I have gone through half a dozen lettuce sea slugs, so I guess I need to call it quits for now. The first one, which was the largest, died in December at Alan’s place. It probably did not have enough algae to graze on in that tank. Then I got a few smaller ones from Aquarium Depot, Live Aquaria and the local store, 6th Avenue Aquarium. I lose two or three due to getting sucked into pumps and getting attacked by the sponge decorator crabs. Then I isolated the last ones in the hang on box full of hair algae and other food, but they still managed to die within a week or two. I knew they would not be easy, but I hoped my abundant supply of algae would make the difference. I’ll reconsider once the tank is mature.

I discovered the lettuce sea slugs either crawled or got sucked into a water pump. I took him out and seemed to be doing fine, but later died, probably because of insufficient food. :-(

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Feb. 20 I noticed between 20 and 30 white spots on the front of the display tank. I had noticed some on the back of the refugium a few weeks ago, but I’m not sure what happened to them. I assumed these were due to the five “tapestry nerite snails” I got from Aquarium Depot.

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Feb. 16 at 9:48 a.m. I received a combined delivery of two orders and replacements for previously DOA items from Aquarium Depot. It was a little nuts dealing with all the pieces, but I’m pleased with the result for the price paid.

I fell prey to Aquarium Depot's half off coral sale, so I got most of these for about $5. I placed them all in a bucket and then drip acclimated to the water in my small quarantine tank.

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Last week while mesmerized by my tank’s visible plankton, I spotted something that looked and moved like a jellyfish. It was probably half a millimeter, and quickly disappeared. Today I found another one, or possibly the same one, but larger. I captured it with a pipette and photographed it under a microscope. It measured about 1.0 mm.

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I isolated the pregnant decorator sponge crab from Aquarium Depot in a 2.5 gallon heated and aerated tank at the point her eggs seemed to be lightening in color. A few days later, she did indeed expel the eggs all over the tank Feb. 13.

I put her back in the refugium and left the eggs to hatch. As of nine days later, the eggs seem not to have hatched. They lightened in color to the point I cannot tell if they are even present any longer, but I have seen no live babies as I saw in the initial shipment.

I put the pregnant split nose decorator sponge crab in a small separate tank so she would lay the eggs in safety. She did indeed lay the eggs, as seen here, but they unfortunately did not seem to hatch. They lightened in color till I could not see them anymore, but I saw no signs of life after two weeks.

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After waiting two months for the tank from Windrider Creations and seeing it still had not shipped, I ordered a similarly sized tank from Marine Depot instead. I received it Thursday at 12:54 p.m. and spent the rest of the day figuring out my plumbing setup.

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I initially used two types of sediment, with the finer stuff on top. I noticed water was not penetrating more than an inch down, and the entire layer of thicker substrate was untouched. Also, the snails were unable to move in the fine stuff. I tried to stir it as gently as possible in an effort to bring some of the coarser sand to the top, but even after just doing a small area, the water clouded pretty badly. That unfortunately led to my amphipods and smaller porcelain crabs being unable to breathe apparently, for they all died.

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I received a crab Aquarium Depot markets as a “lavender sponge crab,” and the bag contained hundreds of what I initially thought were some sort of pods, but later identified as baby crabs in the initial stage, zoea. I’m not sure they survived my tank, but after a few days the crab is apparently again carrying tons of eggs.

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I meant to write more, but again, here are some miscellaneous photos from January.

Another DIY light fixture for my refugium. The strips are bright white LEDs and the black enclosures are blue COB LEDs

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I don’t have time to write at length, but here are some photos and captions.

Black rock sea urchin from Aquarium Depot that arrived poking through the bag

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Along with some chaetomorpha from Aquarium Depot I got a bunch of small bristle worms, tiny hard shells (fan worms?) and a bunch of these creatures I have yet to identify.

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Yesterday I received two separately packaged green lettuce sea slugs, Elysia spp., from LiveAquaria.com. It’s a good thing they were separate. One was dead, and the water was greenish and smelled through the bag. The other one seemed OK.

The surviving lettuce sea slug (Elysia spp.) from LiveAquaria.com

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I received the second Aquatop MR-20 Multimedia Reactor an hour ago and set it up with Alan’s 20 gallon tank temporarily housing my animals. I decided to use a few teaspoons of each of the following:

• Aquarium Masters Laboratory Grade Activated Carbon
• ROWA phos
• Seachem Purigen

I put …

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I designed and built an aquarium stand this past week as my first foray into woodworking, and it turned out well. I used about $60 in wood and other materials. I’m now thinking about what else I should build!

The finished aquarium stand with adjustable shelves. I designed and built it from scratch as my first foray into woodworking. Despite running out of stain, I am quite pleased with it!

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Since I decided to start a saltwater tank a few days ago, I’ve been researching supplies and equipment constantly. There are so many options before even considering the vast species of corals, fish and other animals!

spectrum diagram from unitednuclear.com

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Alan started keeping a saltwater aquarium earlier this year, and since I’ve been living with it for the past two months, I’ve become fascinated with reefkeeping. I am planning to start my own once I move to my next apartment in January. This leaves me plenty of time to obsessively research the many aspects of marine life.

Sea apple at 6th Ave Aquarium and Flowers

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