OUsnakebyte

Submitter: Mike Henley, OUsnakebyte Location: Amberjack Reef - Exumas, The Bahamas Camera Used: Fujifilm F200 Subject: Shark Feed

Yes, the corals spawned, and it was lovely. Amazing. More than 300,000 threatened A. cervicornis larvae, and about 100,000 threatened A. palmata larvae. I even did dome crosses with palmata sperm and cervicornis eggs to make A. prolifera. Yesterday, we were evacuated from Carrie Bow island to mainland Belize, in Dangriga. I left all the larvae on the island with a few remaining people, expecting to be back early Sunday morning. Now, Tropical Storm Harvey is expected to become a Category 1 hurricane, and the eye is projected to pass over Dangriga - so they are now moving us 2 hrs inland. I... simply... cannot.... believe... this... I'm just... I don't know what to say. By the time I get back to Carrie Bow, all 400,000 larvae are likely to be mush. That is... if they don't get washed off the island. Will report back when I have something to report. P!ssed off beyond belief, Mike

Submitters: Mike Henley, OUsnakebyte Location: Exumas, The Bahamas Camera Used: Fujifilm F200 Subject: Meandrina meandrites at night Cheers Mike

I second the Blue hippo - I've had two start randomly eating zoas after years of being fine with them...

Only two, but they are promised to Dave Lin. If you can talk him out of one, it's yours... Cheers Mike

Definitely a Dendro, and as others have alluded, best left in the ocean unless you are going to run a dedicated non-photosynthetic tank. And, really even then they are extremely difficult to keep long term. Cheers Mike

Really? They're all red under the lights I have them under in three different tanks with mixed lighting in each. I'll look closer. Hmmmm... racking my feeble memory.... I traded for those from someone here in the club years ago, but dang... I can't remember. So the lineage is definitely from wamas.

I just did this exact thing back in June on my Dart. I called Reeflo and they sent me the parts with instructions. The instructions are not that great, but on them is an actual website address to Melev's Reef where he photo-documented the whole process. I followed these and found them extremely useful: Melev's Reef Dart Repair I had a backup pump running my system while my main was offline. Cheers Mike

Agreed. I prefer "disposition" even more than "personality" when describing behaviors - seems to help decrease anthropomorphism. Mike

It's "black" but seems to be more of a charcoal. I debated doing that a few months back, and really... the jury is still out on if I like it or not. I'm okay with it for now I suppose. The elegance coral I have looks nice against the black/dark backdrop when it is expanded. Cheers Mike

I swear this is the only reef photo I have on my phone. The camera on my 3G stopped working over a year ago. Submitter - Mike Henley Location - 120 Gallon Camera Used - iPhone 3G Subject - My blue S. haddoni carpet anemone Cheers Mike

Just messing around with the camera and flash from different angles today: Magnifica: And a few of the haddoni: Cheers Mike

Sweet orb weaver! Now, it's time to finally invest in the underwater housing(s) and strobes for that rig and get to snapping at depth! I don't want to hear any whining about how much it costs - sell some photos... Cheers Mike

I call him... Puffy Cheeks...

Any updates? How are they doing? If you get a good crop, I'll take 5-6 of them. Cheers Mike

Those pesky, brainless invertebrates never seem to pay attention to our schedules, do they...?

I've had Mag pumps fail on me more than any other brand. I only use them for water mixing/changes now b/c of that. In addition to getting a bigger pump for a return, consider plumbing it with a manifold so you can run all your peripherals - skimmer, one/two/three media reactors, calcium reactor, UV, etc., etc. - you never know how fancy you might want to get in the future... Even throw in a bypass to bleed off extra pressure if you need to. Even if you don't use the output of one tee from a manifold, just valve it off for future use. Good luck - sounds like a fun project! Cheers Mike

I forgot about this - great idea if you have the room. And, many will already have a 1.25" or 1.5" threaded outlet. Cheers Mike

I would consider an external pump (drill near the bottom of one of your sides on the sump) and go for a Reeflo pump - one of the models rated for head pressure. I would keep the return line wide - like 1.25" or 1.5" for as long as you can, until you reduce to 1" or so as you return back to your display. But, keep in mind that those wide return lines will hold a lot of water. So, when the power goes out, make sure you have enough room in your sump to accommodate the back-flow of water in the lines. Also nice that you can keep your skimmer, heater, and any other peripherals in the basement with probably easier access for maintenance than cramming under your display. Cheers Mike

175 gallons will be great. I would wait to add any anemones for at least 6 months, maybe more if this is your first-ever tank. Assuming you have appropriate lighting, water flow, water quality, etc., an anemone - or more than one anemone - can easily happen in that tank. But again, do not add one right away. When it comes time to add your first anemone, I - as would most on this board - recommend a captive-propagated bubble tip anemone - rose or green. They are very hardy and will forgive many mistakes. Personally, I don't think clown or anemone first matters, though as posted above it is nice to allow the anemone to establish itself before adding an over-zealous clown. Re porcelain crabs - depending on the size of the anemone, often the clowns will pester the crab away. There are exceptions, however. I did have a pair of maroon clowns hosting in my blue carpet anemone along with one crab. There was an initial territorial dispute, however, they seemed to work it out eventually, but this carpet anemone is about 14" in diameter. Sometimes it doesn't work though. For these crabs, I would recommend the anemone first, then the crab(s). After you are having success with the BTA, you could try a Long Tentacle Anemone (LTA, Macrodactyla doreensis), which seem to be relatively hardy anemones. There are often very striking purple varieties out there. BTAs will like to attach their foot in the rock-work, LTAs will dig in the sand. If you do not have a deep enough sand bed, then you can construct a 3" diameter PVC tube (about 6-8 inches long) and glue a cap on one end. Fill the tube with sand, place the LTA on the tube, and let it dig its foot down. Then, it should stay put, and you can move the anemone anywhere easily w/out having to tear its foot off and risk injury. Other anemones: Sebae Anemone - Heteractis crispa - similar in care and hardiness to LTAs. Stays in sand. Carpet anemone - Stichodactyla gigantea - likes to climb in the rockwork like BTAs. Very delicate and bad shipper. I would not try until you have MANY years in the hobby. Carpet anemone - Stichodactyla haddoni - will dig in the sand like LTAs, and you can use the same PVC trick. These are very aggressive anemones and will catch and eat fish. I have a blue one in my 120, and I have lost several things to it - corals, snails, fish, brittle stars, you name it... Ritteri Anemone - Heteractis magnifica. VERY delicate and VERY bad shipper. Finding a healthy specimen is usually the hardest part. Don't try until you have MANY years keeping other anemones. There are others, but these are your main Indo-Pacific hosting anemones. Condy and rock anemones are Caribbean in origin and may very well host your crabs (or other shrimp), but the clowns are unlikely. On a personal note, I have a green LTA and a blue S. haddoni (carpet) anemone, along with an orange Caribbean rock anemone in my 120. You will hear reports of chemical warfare between species, and it may be true. But I continually run activated carbon in my tank to (hopefully) combat that. Cheers Mike

That's awesome Dave - very cool!

Love those Periclimines shrimps - awesome!

Invert living on an invert...

I've seen BTAs in the wild that are not bubbled, for what it's worth...

Are the males easily removable? As in, are they attached to rubble that can be taken out and placed into a small bowl so you can concentrate the sperm? In corals, with a few exceptions, proper sperm concentration in water will look about like "lemonade." (Think about that next time you have some Country Time... ). If you can remove the males, as soon as you see them start to spawn, try to remove him/them to the bowls. I would assume that you want a little to go into the tank for chemical communication, but you don't want to lose/dilute the sperm too much. If you can easily remove females, then remove them to their respective bowls once they start releasing eggs. This will just make it easier to collect the eggs. Then, you can start skimming/pipetting eggs and placing them in with the sperm. Try to get as little excess water as possible - remember, it's easier to dilute sperm concentration than it is to increase it. Leave them in the sperm for about 1-2 hours. That should be plenty of time for fertilization. It's nice to have new salt water on hand, b/c you will need to rinse the excess sperm from the embryos. Do this about 4-5 times in a separate vial/bowl. Then, transfer your larvae to a holding tank/kreisel. Pipettes are worth their weight in gold here. If you cannot remove the adults, then you'll just have to hope fertilization can happen in the tank volume. I would turn off all pumps and powerheads to keep the eggs from getting torn up. Hopefully they are positively buoyant??? That will make them easier to skim off the surface and transfer to holding. Now, assuming you get metamorphosis and settlement... zoox uptake... I've never worked with these guys, so I don't know if the females donate zoox to the eggs or not - I'm guessing the literature won't tell us much either. But, it's worth a shot if you want to 'google scholar' the subject. Again, having a dissecting scope here will not only help you determine fertilizations rates/watch developing larvae, but it will allow you to see if settlers have zoox. Oh, I would probably add some small rock rubble to see if they will settle on that vs the glass. But again, they are anemones, so you can move them if needed. What you can do if they don't have zoox is two things - use water for water changes from your display in hopes that there is zoox in that, AND I would also snip off a few tentacles from several adults, grind them up, and distribute the contents to the settlement tank of the larvae. Hopefully they will get some from that too. Feeding - anythig small enough to fit in their mouths. I used newly-hatched, enriched brine shrimp that I have decapsulated first. I highly recommend decapsulated brine, since anemones and corals will still readily take eggs in which the cyst has been removed. The photos above - especially the two-headed anemone(s) have baby brine in their gastrovascular cavities. Also, live or frozen rotifers are good too. Once they get big enough, I started feeding them frozen mysis. Good luck - this is an exciting project! Cheers Mike