Coraline Algae

I noticed this morning first of all, that the green algae on the side of the tank is turning a yellowish green color. Looks like it is dying. So finally some of the algae is going away, got to love the nitrogen cycle! Ammonia test this morning was less than .25, almost at zero but still not end, I will add another live rock to the tank probably 5-7 pounds. So that will bring the live rock total to 13-15 pounds. I have two DIY rocks made from oyster shell and cement, they probably weigh another 8 pounds. So that will be 21-23 pounds, which means I will need at least 60 more pounds. I need to get busy making rock!

Now we get to the reason for this post, I noticed more coraline algae this morning. It is growing in quite a few spots on the powerhead. It is also starting to compete with the green algae on the live rock. We have some deep purple, and light purple, and pink colored coraline. Possibly have some lime green coraline also. I noticed it growing in several spots on my overflow as well. I spent some time scraping it off the powerhead and overflow, so maybe this will help to seed my tank.

All of the critters are happy and accounted for. The snail disappears, I see him every couple of days. The asterina starfish, I see maybe once a week or so. The molly is always out eating algae, I tried to feed her some flake food she ignored it. I have tried a couple of times, I also tried to feed her some krill, and some shrimp. She turned her nose up at it all. So I have decided not to feed her. She just keeps getting fatter and fatter off of the algae so I will let her graze. The copepods are still there in great numbers. I keep waiting for the crash, but it has not happened yet. Amphipods are still numerous and getting a lot bigger. I saw a couple of large ones last night, they were much bigger than any I had seen thus far.

Well, I said that all of the critters were happy, but I really am not sure. I have not seen any bristleworms in a while. I counted seven one night, and have seen none since then. They are probably still there and happy. I never did see them very often so probably are hiding.

I have notice these really tiny brown slug looking things. I believe I have ID'd them. I think they are a type of flat worm, pretty much harmless unless they are in huge numbers. Then they can block the light from the coral and pretty much smother them. I am leaving them alone for now, hopefully they will reach a stable population and not plague proportions.

If you are not familiar with coraline, it is the purple and pink stuff you see growing over all of the live rock. It also usually grows all over the back wall of the tank as well. Some people hate it, I think it is beautiful, and it looks a lot more natural than a background.

I am not sure if I have mentioned this before, I have also spotted three really tiny snails. They are about the size of a pin head. They are also almost transparent, you have to look really hard to see them. I saw one on the glass yesterday, the way that his antennae? were shaped it looks a lot like my nerite, so maybe the nerite was pregnant and layed eggs? I am not sure if that is even possible, it is either that or the snail eggs hitchhiked on the live rock. Either way, it is very cool that I may have more snails that hitchhiked. I love hithhikers into the reef tank.

Hair Algae

I mentioned earlier that I had a hair algae problem. I am not sure why people hate this algae so much, it is actually rather pretty. It is growing on my sand, and looks like little tufts of sea grass. It is also growing on my return pipe, and powerhead. I kind of like the looks of it, it gives the aquarium a natural look, which is what I am going after. It will go away as soon as every thing balances out, and the aquarium matures. I will also be getting snails, and other creatures that will eat it. Right now it is helping me to maintain a very large population of copepods, there are thousands of them on the front glass. According to every thing I have read, the population of copepods will eventually crash. But if they do not crash, and I can maintain this level of copepods, I will be getting a couple of mandarin gobies.

I will not get these until I am satisfied that my copepod population is stable, and even then I will try my best to get them to take frozen food as well. Anyway, these are my favourite fish, but I refuse to get one until I am absolutely positive I can sustain them.

I will be doing some updates in the near future about the different animals that have shown up in my aquarium.

I have not shown any pictures as of yet, because my tank is going through the various algae blooms. I have tons of copepods on the front glass, and have not wanted to disturb them. So I have not been cleaning the glass very often, the front glass is very cloudy and has algae growing on it. It is not the best environment for taking pictures. Once everything stabilizes I will clean the glass and snap some pictures.

Update: Nothing really major

My tank is going through a mini cycle, ammonia is somewhere between .25 and .5. Diatoms are gone, it has turned into hair algae. For the time being, I am just letting it grow. I am still trying to get some snails to breed from Reef Stewardship Foundation, so far no luck. I have tons of algae just waiting for a species or two.

I mentioned hair algae, but I also noticed corraline specks. They are growing on my powerhead, there are tiny specks. I have been scraping them off daily hoping to seed the rest of my tank with them, every day it grows back on the powerhead. So I am hoping to see spots of it all over the tank soon and hopefully it will start to compete a little bit with the other algae. At least it is a good sign that conditions will support corraline growth.

Anyway, let's see what is new? hmmm.

I have seen at least two different asterina starfish. One of them hitched a ride on my hermit crab for two days. And here is the odd part, the hermit has two really bright spots on its shell, I am not surfe if the starfish cleaned some of the gunk off of its shell or if it actually consumed some of the shell.

I have noticed several hairlike things coming out of the rocks, they seem to lasso some microscopic particle and then get reeled back in. They are vermetid snails, they are harmless filter feeders. Some people have had problems with them irritating their Zoanthids, but other than that they are harmless. I have noticed several small white feather duster things on the rock. I am not sure what these are yet, they could be colonial hydroids or feather dusters. They could even be Aiptasia for all I know, my philosophy for the time being is observe, and learn. If I observe something that is a nuisance I will find a natural means to deal with it. I also noticed three really tiny snails... at least I think they are snails. Their behavior was kind of odd, they would all connect to each other and roam around the rock. They are too small to really get any details, at this point all I know is they have snail like shells, and they are alive. I can not see enough details to make out any more than that. I hope they turn out to be interesting additions to the tank and are easy to breed and raise :).

I have decided that this tank will be a display, but I will focus on the breeding side. I hope to breed several types of snails, brittle stars, asterina stars, hair worms, spaghetti worms, bristle worms, Bangai Cardinal, False percula clownfish, maybe a type of goby. I also plan to have several species of Euphyllia coral. Frogspawn and torch coral at the very least. I would like most of my coral to be brooding coral. That would give me an ok chance to breed them.

So basically at the moment i am waiting for the cycle to finish, then I will add more live rock, and hopefully get my DIY live rock finished and cured so I can start adding coral. I know I am going a lot slower than most people would, but this is my first saltwater setup, I want to make sure everything is really stable so I do not kill off expensive livestock needlessly.