My reef tank
 
     hits since 5/15/1998.

Snapshot, of how my Reef Tank looked Jan 15, 1998.
 
 

Everything not whited out is either live rock or kelp.  Live rock is rock imported from a reef, packed in oxygenated water, with all the bacteria, worms and small creatures kept alive.  The most central pointed rock came with a small maroon crab living inside the 2 holes directly below the point.  The previous owner of this rock owned it for years and never new the crab was hiding inside.  I happened to see it at night with a flash light.  The rock to the right of the Anemone is a large piece of brain coral given to me by Lance at work, picked up off the beach on his vacation to Mexico.  It is now colonizing bacteria and becoming encrusted with coraline algae, the green and purple algae seen on the live rock.
 

I have 3 star fish.  One that lives under the sand, pictured above.  Note the yellow spot on it's upper left leg.  The yellow ooze is a puncture whole.  The first week of Feb 1998 the sand star crawled up and was touching the tenicals of the Elegance coral.  I quickly moved it, as before another star fish got entangled in the tenticals and died.  The sand star was very imoble for a few days, but seems to have recovered.

Not pictured is the star fish I bought that Mary loved, one day it accidentally crawled onto the elegance coral.  I thought it would crawl away, do I did not move it.  An hour later it was still there and was not moving.  I removed it the next day as it got slimy and started to decompose.
 
 

The Anemone is a African Rose colored variety, to which 2 small clown fish took to quickly.  Barely visible on the left are 2 orange stripped clown fish, playing in an anemone.
 

The Elegance Coral spreads out and has been growing since I bought it with the tank in October of 1997. However has it's tenicals retracted, after feeding the fish.  It's body is swallowen to absorb the small pieces of food of left from feeding the fish.

   Corals, if you did not know, like most all sea creatures are carnivorous.  It has tentacles like an anemone has small harpoon stingers on it's tentacles, smaller than the eye can see.  The harpoons have poison on them, which paralyze the pray, until it can move it into it's mouth.  If you touch an anemone, it will feel sticky.  What you are feeling are the very small harpoons sticking to your skin.  Clown fish have a symbiotic relationship, where they bring food to the Anemone and in turn the Anemone protects the small Clown fish from bigger fish.  This elegance coral has stinging tenticals which I brushed up against one day while aranging rocks in the aquarioum.

The next morming I had what looked like a case of the hives.  Red dots on the underside of my forearm.  It iched very much.  After 3 days of not getting any better I went to the doctror and he perscribed Prednisone, 10MG, one tablet, twice a day for 3 days and then once daily for 3 dsys.  Also Cephalexin 500 MG, one capsule, four times daily until gone.  After 2 days they were getting lighter, and a week later are down to the 5 largiest spots, chaniging from bright red to light pink.
 
 

I bought a clam, that has fluorescent colors along it's mantel, I like it so much and they were on sale that I bought another the next day.

Mushroom coral are also refereed to mushroom anemone, as they have characteristics of both. They have grown almost double their size in 4 moths and reproduced a little.  I am "planing" them in an old piece of dead coral that I had when I used to have a Salt Water tank 16 years ago.


 

The Yellow Tang is very active, some what shy, and eats algae constantly.  It used to be very thin and it's intestines were very visible, now that I feed the fish twice a week and now it is plump.  Also show is a school of 5 Sea Catfish.
 
 

I have 5 small salt water cat fish, black stripped, they school, or swim in swarms.  They have made a home behind the rocks and only come out at night or when feeding.
 

I am not sure what kind of coral this is, but I think it is an open brain coral.  It has 2 half's, with mouth on both, surrounded by tentacles.

The flower pot coral, has a very thick base, could be 20 to 30 years old, small but very healthy.  The clown fish used to swim in it, until I got the Anemone.

I have a 7 stripped Wrasse that had orange and blue stripes and a very bright green tail.  It darts very quickly and sometimes chases the cat fish.
 
 


I also have a Cleaner Shrimp with bright red stripes.  It has twice crawled onto my hand when I was cleaning the tank, and picked at my skin.  The large Clown fish is very territorial, and nips my hand EVER time I put it in the tank.  Often biting me as many as 20 times while I am cleaning the algae off the glass.

Here is a green spiny star fish that comes from under the rocks to eat. The spiny star fish is very nimble, and can smell food in the water.  It resembles an octopus more than a star fish.  It will grab a piece of food, curl it's tentacle around it, pull it to the bottom of it's central body and swallow it.  It once ate a large piece of shrimp about 1/2 the size of it's body, stuffing it into it's mouth, all in one piece.  This stretched it's body into a pyramid shape 3 times it's normal height.

The most recent and exciting addition to the tank, Feb. 1st 1998, is a banded coral shark.  It is very young and still in it's egg sack.  The shell is becoming transparent, more and more.  I can see it's yoke sack, it's umbilical cord, it's eyes, head, gills, mouth and fins.  Feb. 5th it's tail started to show strips. Otherwise it look as if it would be pink in color right now.  I have always wanted a tank with a shark and an octopus, but since they tend to eat every other fish in the tank, I have not got one yet.  Since banded coral sharks are bottom feeders the fish peddler assured me that this shark would only eat fish that stay on the bottom like Gobies.  Watching this shark grow up is a very interesting process.  In a week it has gone from where only the end of it's tail was curved in order to stretch out inside it's shell, to now 1/3 of it's body is doubled back because it no longer fits easily in it's shell.  The strips are getting darker every day.
 
 i

I had my Flaming Hawk fish in my talk with my Red Stripped Cleaner Shrimp for about 4 weeks, when instinct or hunger took over and it apparently swallowed the shrimp whole.  The shrimp was almost the same size.  I kept feeding the Flaming Hawk brine shrimp often to keep it full, but came home to see this.  It took over 6 hours before the shrimp's antenna's were no longer visible.
 

The lighting was somewhat low, so I had to take a slow shutter speed, causing the fast moving fish to blur, and the waves causing the tentacles to blur as well.
 
 
    Wow, I got t is in the mail totaly unexpectedly.

 BTW my hits Doubled within an hour. 


 
 

Ciao Perry
 

Or if that does not work, try this mail form.
All opinions are mine and mine alone, and represent my thinking at this point in time,
(subject to change based on better information).

All original writings of mine are just that, to reproduce, forward or use, parts or whole, you need to get permission from me first.

Spellings constructed for effect and to confound the ridged. ;)

©1996 by Perry L. Porter. All copyrights are maintained by any parties (individual or corporate) which may have originally created any of the information or artwork contained herein.  If you see your work, and I've mistakenly not given you or your company credit, please E-mail me, I'll gladly add the appropriate credit, if you feel it's necessary. 

plporter@pobox.com (E-Mail)
http://pobox.com/~plporter (Homepage)
ftp://ftp.xmission.com/pub/users/p/plporter (download)
http://www.xmission.com/pub/users/p/plporter (download)
     Visitors since I started tracking them on Sept. 1st 1996.

This page hosted by  Get your own Free Homepage
1