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The Fool's 1.5g Tidepool Pico


TheRope

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Did a little test. Found this asterina on a frag I got recently amd decided to keep it to see if it will predate on zoas, two days later hes sitting on an armor of god polyp and I remove him and the polyp looks like it was being dissolved the rest are fine now ans have opened up, other than the damaged one of course. 

Also nice pic of th e mushrooms

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Seems like you got an asterina species with an inclination towards corals, another one of the "controversial" topics somehow... Animals which eat other animals, insane right?
Some keyhole limpets eat sps, some bumblebees eat just about any coral, some pods eat just about any coral, some stars eat coral. Thousands of species and an ocean full of animals but it's a "hot-topic" almost purely because "hasn't happened to me personally". We're not the brightest bunch of monkeys...
Glad you caught it early, cool experiment to run! (well except for the melted zoa head)

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6 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Seems like you got an asterina species with an inclination towards corals, another one of the "controversial" topics somehow... Animals which eat other animals, insane right?
Some keyhole limpets eat sps, some bumblebees eat just about any coral, some pods eat just about any coral, some stars eat coral. Thousands of species and an ocean full of animals but it's a "hot-topic" almost purely because "hasn't happened to me personally". We're not the brightest bunch of monkeys...
Glad you caught it early, cool experiment to run! (well except for the melted zoa head)

I 100% agree with this 😂 I was hoping he would be the algae eating type and I would have a bunch of cute stars, but the star had other plans 😅

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On 8/21/2020 at 8:03 PM, TheRope said:

I 100% agree with this 😂 I was hoping he would be the algae eating type and I would have a bunch of cute stars, but the star had other plans 😅

It has been theorized that the less food there is available to them (small tank in this case) the more likely they are to munch on corals...

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17 hours ago, ffoott said:

It has been theorized that the less food there is available to them (small tank in this case) the more likely they are to munch on corals...

Thata possible but he went directly for them in less than 48 hours 😂

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11 hours ago, TheRope said:

Thata possible but he went directly for them in less than 48 hours 😂

You can apply optimal foraging theory to most animals eating behaviors, which can be summarized as: [(calories gained - calories lost) / time] or more simply put as "currency," the most food per unit of time.

 

Given that these stars have a generalist diet, it's not surprising it went for the most readily available food source that required the least amount of effort/time. Plus, some specialists will switch over to a generalist diet approach if food resources become scarce or other factors come into play.

 

Too many reefers assume the organisms in their tanks to be such diet specialists that they will simply starve rather than turn to alternative food sources. While this may be true of some organisms (some nudibranchs come to mind) it is certainly not a blanket rule one should assume. Especially in a captive environment, where diversity of food sources is probably more limited than it would be in their natural habitat where they could either move to a new area to seek more food or have it brought by currents, etc.

 

Like all behavioral ecology models, it obviously requires certain assumptions and has its limitations, which means it will never be super precise (or possibly even truly testable), but that's true of many behavioral science models. I've found the research surrounding this one to be pretty solid, but then again, I'm just a layman and not a qualified researcher.

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On 8/23/2020 at 2:47 PM, Break said:

You can apply optimal foraging theory to most animals eating behaviors, which can be summarized as: [(calories gained - calories lost) / time] or more simply put as "currency," the most food per unit of time.

 

Given that these stars have a generalist diet, it's not surprising it went for the most readily available food source that required the least amount of effort/time. Plus, some specialists will switch over to a generalist diet approach if food resources become scarce or other factors come into play.

 

Too many reefers assume the organisms in their tanks to be such diet specialists that they will simply starve rather than turn to alternative food sources. While this may be true of some organisms (some nudibranchs come to mind) it is certainly not a blanket rule one should assume. Especially in a captive environment, where diversity of food sources is probably more limited than it would be in their natural habitat where they could either move to a new area to seek more food or have it brought by currents, etc.

 

Like all behavioral ecology models, it obviously requires certain assumptions and has its limitations, which means it will never be super precise (or possibly even truly testable), but that's true of many behavioral science models. I've found the research surrounding this one to be pretty solid, but then again, I'm just a layman and not a qualified researcher.

You are probably 100% right 🙂 it makes a lot of sense, although I never clean my glass so he would have had a ton of algae to munch on but maybe the zoas were easier 😂

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4 minutes ago, TheRope said:

You are probably 100% right 🙂 it makes a lot of sense, although I never clean my glass so he would have had a ton of algae to munch on but maybe the zoas were easier 😂

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Tank is looking great. I notice you got rid of the succulents?

 

I'd bet zoas are far more calorie dense than the equivalent volume of algae - less effort/time, more calories.  

 

Either way, good thing you caught it fast! The big amphipods in my tank are munching on my corals and I'm going crazy trying to battle the little bastards. I never truly appreciated wrasses until I started keeping pico tanks where I can't have them.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...
5 minutes ago, TheRope said:

Totally forgot to update here hahaha

It's alive i have not done any w.c in the last 2 months at least 

But here's a video 

 

Boy, that polyp with the blue center and neon orange lashes (skirt) sure is bright.
Is that what afterburner's look like, never seen them in person lol.

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17 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Boy, that polyp with the blue center and neon orange lashes (skirt) sure is bright.
Is that what afterburner's look like, never seen them in person lol.

The guy who sold em to me said they were Fiji fires XD

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3 hours ago, TheRope said:

The guy who sold em to me said they were Fiji fires XD

That pulls up all of two pictures which both look radically different from each other and yours lol... Typical XD

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/18/2020 at 6:44 PM, TheRope said:

Thank youuu, my wall isnt actually ywllow tho, Thats just the lense 😂

Ansel Adams used a filter in virtually every landscape photo he took(every photo with a sky except Moonrise Hernandez)

 

And Photoshopped every one of his best prints

 

How many times did he say, "Oh, it didn't really look like that in real life, I used a filter and 'shopped it"

On 8/18/2020 at 10:08 AM, cheesesteak said:

 

This is an awesome shot! 

It is

 

I love it

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