Tinitanks 5gal pico, The Alcove (thread currently under construction)

[Tired]

I think the concern with clowns hosting isn't whether the clowns will be interested, it's whether the subject can put up with it. Clowns, it seems, depending on individual, will try to host anything that wiggles a bit. Anemones of the wrong species, soft corals, mushroom corals, tentacled (or non-tentacled) LPS, clams, seaweed, powerheads, all kinds of nonsense. I'm not sure if it's partly because a lot of clowns in the hobby are captive bred- maybe we're accidentally breeding ones that will sit on anything. 

Whatever the case, if the sat-on animal doesn't mind, it seems to work out pretty well. 

[Ratvan]

4 hours ago, Tired said:

Clowns, it seems, depending on individual, will try to host anything

Oh yes indeed mine hosts a barnacle

[Tired]

We have a mystery creature! 

 

Something living in a hole under my Rastas stuck out a pair of 1cm, hair-thin, stiff white antennae, wiggled them around in a cockroach-like manner, and ducked back down. I didn't see what the antennae were attached to, but it didn't move at all like a worm, so I'm thinking arthropod. I'm kind of hoping it's a tiny pistol shrimp, but more likely it's a big amphipod or suchlike. It hasn't seemed to bother the Rastas any. 

 

I may set a small bottle trap and see if anything gets caught in there.

[Tired]

Y’all remember the hydroid jellyfish I found earlier?

It budded, apparently. This lil thing got caught in a vermatid slime net. I let it loose, and 10 seconds later it swam into the powerhead intake. There’s another, much smaller one that I haven’t seen since it went behind a rock. Too bad these would be so tricky to raise, they’re interesting and I’d be curious to see what kind of jellyfish they are. Oh well. 

I don’t feel too bad about their inevitable deaths because they don’t have brains. They’re interesting to watch, though. Little flickering thing.

[Ratvan]

On 11/8/2019 at 11:16 PM, Tired said:

We have a mystery creature! 

 

Something living in a hole under my Rastas stuck out a pair of 1cm, hair-thin, stiff white antennae, wiggled them around in a cockroach-like manner, and ducked back down. I didn't see what the antennae were attached to, but it didn't move at all like a worm, so I'm thinking arthropod. I'm kind of hoping it's a tiny pistol shrimp, but more likely it's a big amphipod or suchlike. It hasn't seemed to bother the Rastas any. 

 

I may set a small bottle trap and see if anything gets caught in there.

Did you set the trap and did you manage to catch anything in it?

[Snow_Phoenix]

11 hours ago, Tired said:

...Y’all remember the hydroid jellyfish I found earlier? they’re interesting and I’d be curious to see what kind of jellyfish they are....

I get those in my tank on occasion. Medusa hydroids, right? 🤔

 

They usually go away after a while though.

[billygoat]

2 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I get those in my tank on occasion. Medusa hydroids, right? 🤔

 

They usually go away after a while though.

I had a few of these medusae as well during the first 3-4 months after setting up my tank. They seem to have just disappeared on their own over time. Very beautiful creatures. I wonder if they can bloom like other hydroids if conditions are right? It seems like it should be possible but I have never heard of them blooming.

[Tired]

I set the trap, and nothing went in because I don't have space to put it properly flat on the bottom. I'm going to try to make a smaller trap.

 

Yeah, it's a medusa hydroid. It doesn't bloom like other hydroids because these reproduce differently. The little jellyfish-creatures that bud off are baby hydroids, which are looking for a place to settle and grow, and will pretty much invariably be eaten by something or sucked into the filter. If you caught the babies and raised them elsewhere, you'd get more hydroids. It's probably possible, though it would, I imagine, require a great deal of available small plankton to keep them fed enough.

[Tired]

Mayyyy have ordered some things from SaltCritters again. Pics up once it's all settled in. I need to just post pics in general, don't I? There's been a bunch of algae growth, mostly nice macros. For now, here's this. 

 

 

I like this pic. There's the lovely (but tiny) rock flower nem, and multiple types of algae. Also an aiptasia, little bugger, but I've got berghias coming in the mail tomorrow to get rid of those. I got tired of supergluing them down, and SaltyUnderground is having a sale, so I figured I'd go with what seems to be a guaranteed fix. 

Also, exciting- branching coraline! It wasn't there when I got this rock, at least not that I noticed, so I'm pretty sure it's grown since. I've been hoping to get some sort of branching coraline somewhere, I love the stuff. This is a really good rock- it's got that, a couple of neat orange sponges, some sort of flat red branching macro, and a big hollow area for creatures. Plus a perfectly flat area on the top that's great for resting things on.

[Tired]

My dad rented a macro lens, so here are some fun shots. 

Drosera nitidula, pygmy sundews. Native to Australia, I think. Note the gnat caught in the center. These are about the size of a nickel, if that. 

 

An extremely small 50-million-year-old seashell. Not fossilized, just slightly mineralized. Literally 1mm long. Found it myself! 

 

Some slightly larger ancient shells. 

 

This is one of the little critters I've been seeing. They're definitely amphipods. 

And a better shot of this lovely little creature. Which has caught itself a snail, and won't let go of it. Any tips on getting it to let go so I can have the snail back? 

[Tired]

Here are some more shots of that anemone. These are under, in order; a desktop light, my dad's UV flashlight, the blue light setting on the tank light I'm using (which, again, is a planted tank light), and then a mix of both the UV and blue. I'm intrigued by the difference, and how the stripes on the disc nearly vanish in the UV light. In person, it looks pinkish around the rim, and very slightly blue in the center, when it's just under white light.

[Tired]

This one is an anemone from SaltCritters, the random ultra of their color choice. This one, I thought, was pretty solidly orange. Turns out it's red under UV lights. Which is starting to make me wonder- are there any rock flower nems that are red in white light? I mean RED, not reddish. 

[Ratvan]

Some truly brilliant shots there, love the anemone and light show and tell that was facinating

[Tired]

My LFS had a guy trade in some higher-end zoas. Not sure I like the painted frag plug, but, hey, Fire And Ice zoas! And I'm not sure what the ones lower in the pic (and obscured by the lights) are. They came with my order from SaltyUnderground, and aren't what I ordered. I got the berghias I ordered, and the Tweekers, but this is the wrong zoa type. Haven't heard back from them yet about it. 

 

I also got these nice yellow/gold and blackish fellas, who are a bit more striking under blue lights. These are nameless guys I stuck on a spare plug. Don't mind the extra glue, that was already on there. Hoping the algae encrusts fast. It's kinda just leaned on that rock, taking advantage of its inability to roll and my lack of hermits. 

 

And here are two (one partially hidden by a glass smudge) chitons. These are my smaller two chitons, who live in this rock and come out every night to keep it super clean. There's another one, at least, probably two, on my macroalgae rock. Something has the microalgae on that rock mostly eaten. 

 

I also saw some kind of isopod last night, and maybe a glimpse of it half an hour ago (though that could have been an amphipod), so I guess I'll have to trap, catch, or starve it out before I get fish. Not sure if it's one of the parasitic kinds, but I'm suspicious. I actually caught it in a turkey baster yesterday! Buuuut it swam right back out the open end before I could plug the baster up. I didn't expect it to be so fast, especially when it froze under the flashlight. It clung real tight to the rock, too. Maybe that's what disemboweled my Red People Eater? Worked out fine, though- the polyp sealed up the slit in its side just fine and seems to be okay now. Photosynthesis and dissolved aminos absorption are much in its favor, apparently.

 

I took out my hermits, and thinned out about 2/3 of my dwarf ceriths. Traded 'em all to my LFS for a few bucks store credit. I'm replacing them with a couple of scarlet reef hermits from ReefCleaners, because I'm getting a micro decorator crab (also from him) and don't want little bastard blues that might pester the decorator. 

[Tired]

Forgot to mention, I got some berghia from SaltyUnderground. 4 berghia, their 1/4" listing but closer to 1/3", seemed healthy. Those are in there since the 15th, and I just spotted one tonight, right up next to an aiptasia. 

[billygoat]

Those white chitons look familiar! I have a few in my tank that fit that description. They are completely white, nocturnal, and seem to prefer staying out of sight most of the time even when the lights are off. Sometimes I see them burrowing deep in the sandbed, feeding up against the glass. These chitons were small at first but now each of them is more than an inch long, so don't be surprised if they end up getting quite large. They grow very slowly though. It took mine almost a year to reach this size.

 

 

They're so cool. Aren't hitchhikers amazing? 😊

[Tired]

Oh, hey! Those do look like mine! 

 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do to rehome them when they start getting bigger. Hope I spot them on the glass so I can remove them, I guess. I have 3 or 4 in here, and that's too many chitons for a tank this size, or it will be when they mature. Plus, I've got limpets, which I also might need to thin out once everything grows some. Too many algae-eating cooks in this kitchen. 

[Tired]

Something I noticed during a water change: this frag from SaltCritters is growing on a clam. Same kind of clam I still have on another rock. Hopefully they don't die. 

 

And then, I got a new creature! Meet Sandman the micro decorator crab. 

Here he is in the container I was hoping he'd pick seaweed in. He just kept running in circles wanting to escape, so I put him in the tank, and he vanished. I think he came with a bit of sponge on him in a few spots. He's pretty small, maybe a bit over an inch legspan. His claws are itty-bitty, but he has a remarkable degree of flexibility in reaching for his own back. 

 

A few hours later, I found him again. Parked square on my C. verticilliata. I guess it was easiest for his tiny claws to handle. He picked the ENTIRE little patch to stick all over his back. Out of the (nearly a dozen) macro species in this tank, I'm not sure I would have wanted him to pick one of the two caulerpas to decorate with, but at least it was this one. I also have a bit of C. prolifera. The verticilliata is pretty small and doesn't seem to be spreading at any huge rate due to being tiny, so I think I can just pluck it out now and then with tweezers. I figure a postage-stamp-sized patch can't really cause any major trouble if it somehow goes sexual. 

He stayed on that patch while I was doing a small water change, then ran down to hide in the sand. 

This is the coolest little animal! Right on par with pistol shrimp, IMO, at least while he's doing his little disguise-getting procedure. I hope he doesn't mess anything up too badly. 

I made a frag rack out of some suction cups and eggcrate, and have put my smaller zoanthid colonies up high in an exposed area, so hopefully he won't go bother them. I don't mind at all if he grabs one or two polyps from pretty much any of these colonies, as long as I still have at least one polyp on a rock- especially since they could very well do fine on his back. I found pics of normal-sized decorator crabs online with perfectly happy zoas on them. The only trouble is making sure he doesn't leave them somewhere dark if he molts and decides not to keep his disguise. 

[Tired]

Update: the crab and crab-likes have located each other.

 

Those are my scarlet hermits that I just got in. I'm calling them Mish (blue-green algae) and Mash (coraline). I watched them closely when I saw them aligning with each other, in case there were any issues. Mish crawled on top of Sandman and tried to pick at him like he was a patch of, well, sand, Sandman kinda bounced and poked at Mish with a claw, and Mish looked as startled as a fake crab can look and retreated. I don't think they're going to bother each other much, except maybe by stepping on each other sometimes. 

 

Got some nice polyps here at an unfortunate angle. Mostly took this shot to show my Red People Eater scrunching way down instead of having a long stalk- I put it closer to the light and cleaned up some surface gunk. Also a halimeda against the back wall that grew out of what I thought was a dead sprout. I'm happy about that. My verticilliata used to be right in front of it, but now it's on a walking chunk of sand. 

 

Any ideas what this is? I know it's something in the vicinity of a blasto. It was a mystery coral from SaltCritters. A little LPS polyp, and my first actual coral, if I'm right about zoas and palys not technically being corals. Mostly, how far are this thing's tentacles gonna be? 

[Wonderboy]

Blasto merletti 

[Seadragon]

I just got caught up on your journal.  Wow your pictures are amazing, so much DIVERSITY in your tank and live rock! 🙂

 

I might just buy some live rock from different LFS and throw them in a new tank and see what comes out of it as an experiment. 😄

Maybe even get some free frags that way.

[Tired]

I figured it was something like that, thanks for the ID. Good to know what it is so I know how much it can sting. I think I found a spot it likes, it's gone nice and puffy. 

 

It helped, I think, that I got this rock out of two sources. Wild-collected stuff, and a rock (the one with the zoas) formerly in someone's tank. I think the berghia came off the rock that was in someone else's tank. The rest is what you get out of good stuff. If you really want to see critters, try ordering from one of these online places that collects the rock and ships it to you right out of the ocean. Some will even ship it submerged. You'll get so much stuff out of that! Shrimp, crabs, fish if you're lucky, urchins, starfish, all kinds of fun things. I didn't do that here because they all have a minimum order size that was way more than I could use, but I absolutely will in future. Definitely something to do for a new tank, though, or into a QT, because invariably some of it is gonna be stuff you don't want in your nice established reef. 

 

Oh, and check at night with a flashlight. I keep meaning to get a red flashlight, but even this white one works great. There's so many amphipods in here. And chitons! No one sells chitons. Though I think that's partly because of the difficulty of removing them from the sale tank once they're bought, and the trouble it takes for someone to collect one from the wild in the first place.

[Tired]

Sandman went and changed all that nice caulerpa camouflage to slime while I was on vacation. I guess a bit of cyano popped up somewhere. It's mostly gone now, except on the crab. I assume he's doing that on purpose, since he's equipped to reach his entire back and could reasonably be assumed to be able to clean himself. He didn't molt, he's still wearing his sponges, so I guess he just realized that the caulerpa wasn't his best camo option. 

 

The visible flatworms are basically gone. I can still find a couple at any given time, but only a couple, not a couple dozen. They've been replaced by a dozen or so teeny-tiny white limpets, a couple mm each. 

 

The aiptasia are pretty much gone. I can see one. I assume there are more somewhere, since I haven't seen the berghia out looking for them, but color me very pleased with the berghia results. Hopefully I can catch the berghia after they're finished eating, so I can give them away instead of them starving. I've read that they'll come out to look for food during the day once they run out of aiptasia, so fingers crossed that these do that.

 

The blasto got knocked down behind the rockwork, in a spot where I can't reach it with my tweezers. It's nicely expanded and doesn't seem to mind, though, so I'm leaving it on the floor for now until I do a water change and make it easier to get at.

 

Contemplating some endlers' livebearers for this tank. They're a freshwater guppy relative that can be acclimated to marine conditions, and are tiny- males max out under an inch. They're fairly active, though, so I'm not sure this tank would be suitable. I'm also not sure that they'd be safe with the RFAs. I don't think a RFA could catch one, but I'd worry about the endler tasting the RFA, the RFA curling up and stinging it, and the endler winding up in a world of hurt.

[Wonderboy]

Berghias are awesome. I didn't know that ender's could be acclimated to SW. I even have a some breeding - might have to try it one day. Do you think that they would breed in SW?

[Tired]

From what I've read, yes, and some people report they seem hardier in saltwater. They're one that needs to be acclimated VERY slowly, much slower than mollies or anything else that people swap over, but it works and doesn't seem to have a high mortality rate. They naturally range into brackish water, and sometimes even into full salt, so they can deal with it pretty well from what I'm reading. There's some tanks on Youtube that are saltwater and have guppies, endlers, or hybrids thereof.

 

I'd absolutely give it a try if not for the tank size and RFA concerns. Some of those lovely yellow and black ones might look especially striking.