The Ocean over at Floris Elementary School

[davelin315]

OK, I had a chance to snap a few pictures today, so here they are. By the way, the tank has dual 9W PCs on it and is (as the name implies) a 6 gallon eclipse. It's got the stock filter on there with the biowheel removed and as you can see, tons of live rock. Some will be transferred out later as other tanks mature and are ready. I even took some shots of the outbreak of tiny crustaceans in there, so if you can identify them, please let me know! The pictures are after I squeezed my hand into the tank to do a bit of cleaning on the glass so some of the organisms are closed up so I'll try and snap another shot tomorrow when they're open.

 

Here's the full tank shot.

 

Capnella on the rock.

 

Encrusting gorgonian. There's some of this in two places on the rock.

 

Devils hand leather that is on the same rock.

 

Orange zoanthids in the tank. They're closed because I brushed up against them.

 

The margarita snail that moved from the 33 to this tank to clean up the glass.

[davelin315]

A corner of the tank where the crustaceans are swimming around. They're the tiny white flecks you can barely make out. They are smaller than a pin head and are free swimming in the water column, although only near the bottom, not at the top.

 

There are some more here along with a shot of some cyanobacteria that is in the front.

 

Here's a couple of shots of one of these guys at 10x magnification. It's very tiny as you can see.

 

Here's a series of shots of it at 60x magnification. It was too hard to find it at 200x magnification and when I did, it quickly zoomed out of the lens field. They appear to be tiny copepods, but I have never seen so many of them before together at one time. It's looks like a massive brine shrimp hatch, but again, they swim very differently than them and are much smoother in their motions.

[davelin315]

As part of our Micro to Macro unit, we used microscopes today to look at some of the things that are present in our reef tank. I pulled out a hunk of chaeto from the sump and shook it out. These are a few of the things we had time to take pictures of today.

 

A bristle worm at 10x.

 

Same at 60x.

 

Again at 60x.

 

Gammarus at 10x.

 

Gammarus at 60x.

 

Again at 60x, the head this time.

 

This is the head at 200x. The eye is multifaceted and is the black circle.

[davelin315]

Here's a little sponge (the tiny yellow/white ones that resemble pineapples) at 60x magnification. It's made up of tiny little strands. Not quite what I expected!

 

Here it is at 200x where the "mouth" is.

[davelin315]

Here's the sarcophyton in the tank. It deteriorated in the middle and now, after recovery, it's hollow. It's actually really cool and I was thinking of fragging it by simply slicing it like an apple with bits of stalk and cap as the frags for different tanks.

 

Here's the condylactus anemone in the tank. It's expanded nicely and is a great central piece to the tank.

 

Here's the sinluaria in the back of the tank. It is also going to be fragged out to other tanks unless it decides to start dropping arms on its own in which case I'll just move the frags.

 

Some of the mushrooms in the tank at the base of the devil's hand leather.

 

Here's the devil's hand leather coral with the mushrooms at the base. Another piece to frag...

[davelin315]

Here's some more shots of the tank.

 

 

 

 

 

[davelin315]

 

 

 

[Caribbean Jake]

nice set up. can't wait for the winter meeting at Floris to see the tanks in person.

[Caribbean Jake]

great pictures.

are you still interested in the 26G tank I have?

[Caribbean Jake]

looks like a healthy tank. but isn't it too cramped with all those rocks?

[davelin315]

I haven't had a chance to clean the tank recently, but I did snap some pictures today. We seem to have lost our snails and hermits, so I'll add some to the tank to get rid of the algae. It's basically a tank with no clean up crew right now, but that will change soon enough.

 

Here's a full tank shot.

 

Here's another with the damsel out.

 

Here's a shot of the m. digitata that was damaged before, it has grown over the damaged area.

 

Here's a shot of the trumpet coral that is splitting. The heads are more pronounced and the third mouth is starting to become more apparent in the middle.

 

Here's a shot of some of the zoanthids that are growing in there. They have spread all over the place!

[davelin315]

Here's a nice shot of the red mushroom. It has grown a lot since I moved it.

 

Here's a shot of one of the speckled mushrooms. It's splitting in half and the mouth is growing for the other half. It's looking really nice.

 

Here's a closeup of the green star polyps. They have not spread beyond growing a bit on the glass (I fragged that part off) as they are isolated on the sandbed.

 

Here's a shot of the fish in the tank. They are doing well together and are pretty peaceful considering one is a damsel.

[davelin315]

looks like a healthy tank.  but isn't it too cramped with all those rocks?

49245[/snapback]

 

Definitely, some of the rock is in there until I have the other tanks cycled and in the clear. I will leave the big chunk in there so that I don't have to worry about creating a slope, but the rest of the rock will come out most likely to clear out some room for frags and maybe a couple of tiny fish or a shrimp.

[davelin315]

I am definitely interested. I'll try and work something out with you (if I can't swing by, can you bring it to the social? seems kind of funny since we live so close to trek it out to Manassas...).

[davelin315]

Well, the 10 gallon donated by Howard has been up and running since I picked it up from him and is ready for berghia nudibranchs! I haven't had a light over it so they've been budding tiny little ones and there's enough food in there for a berghia colony to thrive for a long time. I'm going to put them in, move some of the rock out so they can find what they need, and then rotate the rock in and out until it is clear. I will then rotate smaller pieces of rock into the tank from around the school so that the berghias will always have food. My hope is that the egg strands they lay will go back with the rock and seed the other tanks with berghias so that the overall problem is gone, but that the original colony remains in the tank and we keep a self sustaining population here. I'll take pictures when they come in on Tuesday and post them here.

 

The tank itself is the basic 10 gallon with 1-2" of sand and probably around 20+ lbs of live rock from various places here and there around the school. It's populated by many different aiptasia and pretty much nothing else right now. It evaporated severely over winter break and many of the tube worms are now gone, but the aiptasia are definitely thriving!

 

It's got a tiny heater from one of my students in it and it's got a tiny little power filter on one side with a prizm skimmer on the other that's been tuned all the way down to a trickle. Again, no lights, just the filtration. Since berghias are best sustained by keeping them in tiny little cups, I'm going to maintain this tank as simply as possible to allow them to thrive.

[davelin315]

OK, got the berghias today and they are tiny! I have them floating in a 1/2 gallon container with a piece of infested rock in it right now. They acclimated fine and seem to be busy doing something (I think they were eating an aiptasia when I left). As warned on the acclimation page from berghia.net (INSTAR), they were mating in the bag. I'm hoping that this means a quick egg laying and baby nudibranchs to come! Woo hoo! Wouldn't that be great! Anyway, I'm considering moving them to a smaller system as they are really small. I have a feeling they'd get lost in the berghia tank I am contemplating. I'll post pictures and updates when I get to school tomorrow.

[davelin315]

OK, the berghias arrived on Tuesday and I've already got some eggs quarantined to a separate chamber. We'll see if they hatch, and if I'm successful, I will keep the babies separated. I was able to pull the egg strand as it was on some rubble rock that had aiptasia on it while all of the adults remained in the main holding tank (I'm floating a container in the aiptasia farm since they're so small). These are now floating in my refugium at home so that I can monitor it better.

 

Anyway, as long as this batch makes it and more egg strands are laid in the holding tank, I'll have babies for trade soon (and to pay back people who have donated). I'll try and take some pictures tomorrow. It's been very hectic at school.

[davelin315]

OK, since it's a 3 day weekend I decided to bring the berghias home with me. I simply took the plastic container that I have been floating them in out of the tank, chose a few new pieces of rubble to put in the tub with them, wrapped the whole thing up in saran wrap, and then brought it home and put it in the sump of my 58. I left it in there and acclimated the temperature and then acclimated them waterwise. I got them adjusted to the water in my tank and after about 20 minutes of looking for them I decided it was time to go hunting for them so I removed the tub from the sump, brought it downstairs to the kitchen table, pulled out a very bright LED flashlight, and began searching.

 

As I searched, I found 5 of them, and then I noticed that in the muted light of the kitchen table, they began to come out of their holes. I began to watch them as they began looking for meals. The first observation I made was that besides the cerata they have 4 "antenna" on top of their heads. Two of these extend forward and the other two extend back and they look very much like rabbit ears on a TV (only a different color). As they neared an aiptasia they would retract these (sometimes they retracted them once they touched the aiptasia, other times they did it right before touching the aiptasia). After the antenna were retracted they then opened their mouths. It looked almost like a large translucent bubble had come out of their heads (that's a very relative measure). They then began to eat the aiptasia which at first retracted a bit and then came back out. As they ate their bodies became bloated and distended. The aiptasia slowly disappeared as they ate and all in all I couldn't see any more aiptasia after about 5 minutes.

 

I also noticed at least 6 more egg strands coiled in various places. Some were under the rock, some were in holes in the rock, and others were on the sides of the rock. I also noticed that the berghias that were not out were wedged way in the back of crevices in the rock. They really do hide well. In some of the holes they were accompanied by gammarus amphipods, in others they were completely by themselves. I even had an instance where one was having a meal and another one came from out of a crevice about 2-3 inches away and joined it for a meal. As I did this, I made a photo log, and here are the promised pictures, taken on the macro setting of my camera with the flash turned off and lit by an LED flashlight. Oh, by the way, they really are voracious aiptasia eaters and I think I might run out of aiptasia soon! For the first time ever, I'm about to start encouraging aiptasia growth by feeding the aiptasia tank and helping them to grow. This will allow me to transfer rocks into the tanks around the school with egg strands on them and spread the colony without sacrificing the ones from the order.

[davelin315]

This one is just beginning to feast on an aiptasia. The feather duster above it is one of the tiny feather dusters in the tank attached to the rock. They are the rally miniscule ones that are thinner around than a pencil lead from a standard pencil.

 

Here's another shot of the same berghia eating away.

 

Here's a shot of one of the egg strands I was able to photograph on the side of the rock.

 

Another shot.

 

And another.

[davelin315]

Here's one of the berghias hidden away inside a tiny hole in the rock.

 

Here's another shot of it. I think this is one that comes out later to eat (joins one already eating).

 

This is one that has come out of hiding to eat. The next shots are mostly taken over the course of about a minute as the berghia seeks out an aiptasia to eat.

 

Here it has locked on to the scent of an aiptasia and is closing in for the kill. Watch the antenna as they disappear when the berghia gets closer to the aiptasia.

 

Here it is about to make contact.

[davelin315]

It's just about there, notice that the antenna seem to be a bit shorter now.

 

Here it is making first contact. Notice how the antenna are nowhere to be seen.

 

Here it is beginning to eat. Notice the body, it will change in appearance as it fills up. The aiptasia it's about to eat has no idea what the future holds!

 

Here the aiptasia has begun to withdraw.

 

This shot is from much later when a second berghia has joined in on the meal.

[davelin315]

Here they are eating together. No aggression at all.

 

Notice how bloated the original berghia is compared to not only the earlier pictures of it, but also as compared to the other berghia who was late in joining in.

 

Another shot of the two eating.

 

Another shot, again, the original berghia is much fatter.

 

Again.

[davelin315]

Another.

 

Here's another clear shot. It looks like the cerata are arranged differently between the two.

 

Just to give you an idea of size, I put a metric ruler into the tub. Each of the lines represents one millimeter total. These berghias are about 12 mm long, just like INSTAR said they would be.

 

Another shot with the ruler.

 

Same again.

 

Look how fat the original nudibranch has become as it gorges on the aiptasia.

[Sugar Magnolia]

That is just about the cooles thing Ive ever seen! I'm looking forward to seeing how this unfolds over the next few weeks/months. Congrats on a job well done so far Dave!

[Jarosh]

It would be interesting to see what has a higher reproductive rate the Apstasia or the nudi?

 

Keep us updated on your progress.