Reefs.org Forums

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pics.

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pics.

[Floris Reef Tank]

April 26, 2005
8:45AM by Mr. Lin
Today we embarked on our crab hunt. Since we think there's a predator in the tank, probably a crab, we set a trap today for it. I brought in a baby food jar and we baited the trap with some Wardley's shrimp pellets. I had Zach and Adam put the trap in place and then I had them move the zooanthid polyps I brought in from my daughter's tank. I also had them rotate the rock that the lower M. digitata frag is on so that it doesn't get damaged by the glass scraper. It'll be interesting to see what kind of growth patter it exhibits as it is having the third change in orientation in the last few weeks.

As far as the trap goes, we watched as a hermit crab fell in and a nassarius snail crawled in and then out. To simulate the night environment that the predator is probably hunting during, we turned off the lights and then covered the entire tank with a blanket. We then labeled the tank "gone crabbing" and posted some other friendly reminders not to disturb the tank.

After this, we discussed for a few minutes why it made sense that it was a crab using logic and reasoning. We discounted the golden banded coral shrimp because of the fact that the fish were fine with it before. We then discussed that it was probably a crab and not a mantis shrimp because we had not heard any clicking or seen any other sign of a mantis shrimp. We also discussed the timeline of additions to the tank and how we began to lose fish after we added some new rock (NOT pointing blame anywhere by the way, I explained to the kids that this is something that happens all of the time and is something that reef keepers need to be on the look out for all the time) so it was probably a hitch hiker of some sort.

Next we discussed the order of the losses and how the fish that lived on the bottom the most (the firefish, which slept under the rocks near the bottom) were the first to go. We then discussed how we might have been premature in accusing the royal gramma of killing the firefish. The next two to go were the yellow clown goby and the royal gramma, which both disappeared at the same time. We discussed how the clown goby hung out on different things, but always on something, so it was probably vulnerable at night. We then discussed how the gramma hid at night in the rocks, so could also be taken down.

We'll see if we're successful in this hunt!

3:00PM by Mr. Lin
We uncovered the tank and discovered that we only caught a few hermit crabs. We'll try and hunt again tonight.

3:30PM by Stephen
pH - 8.0
Nitrates - 0 ppm
Nitrites - 0 ppm

4:35PM by Mr. Lin
I rebaited the trap and took the hermits out. I'll leave it overnight and we'll check again in the morning.

[Floris Reef Tank]

7:30AM by Mr. Lin
No crab this AM, only a few hermits again. I'll let the kids rebait the trap and we'll leave it open today and see what happens.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Found an interesting crustacean (?) in the tank. Was wondering if anyone knew what it was. I have a number of pictures and a short video clip I can send if it would help. The pictures are all at 60x magnification for reference. To me, it looks like a tiny slipper lobster. Definitely some type of crustacean in my opinion based on the tail and the fact that as it sat on the slide I could see it moving water from its tail area (from what I'm guessing are swimmerettes I couldn't see (is that the right term?)).

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pictures. Same magnification 60x.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Well, Dr. Ron Shimek identified the above photos as a sphaeromatid isopod, a harmless grazer of algae. I will allow it to join the rest the tank as an inhabitant based on his identification.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Didn't have a lot of time to do anything with the tank today, but we did check the jar and came up with 7 hermit crabs... nothing else yet. We rebaited the trap and will see what happens overnight. I had bought some shrimp to put in there, but of course, I forgot it at home.

[Floris Reef Tank]

This has been a busy week so far, but here are pictures from Monday.

[Floris Reef Tank]

More pictures from the same date.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Here's a shot of what I think is a hermit crab molt being eaten by a nassarius. I'm not positive because it looked like it was twitching, but that might have just been the nassarius moving the molt around.

[Floris Reef Tank]

4:15PM by Mr. Lin
We didn't have time to run any tests today so I decided to test it myself after school.
SG - 1.023
Temperature - 80.2 degrees
Calcium - 450 ppm
dKH - 8 degrees or ~143 ppm

In general, the tank is looking good. We still have no fish and very few corals as I'm awaiting a shipment from Reef Savers, but if that doesn't come, I've got some people donating some things locally to the tank. Sugar Magnolia has also said that she's going to donate some green star polyps (GSP) that she pulled from her tank when they became a nuisance.

Also, still haven't caught a crab yet, so I had Katie rebait the trap (baby food jar) with a piece of shrimp today. Right now there are a couple of hermits and some nassarius snails crawling around the rim of the jar. We'll see what if anything is in there in the morning.

Also, Stephen added B-Ionic today again after the test was done on calcium. With the small load of corals it's easy to see why the coralline is growing so quickly on the surge return with calcium being so good.

[Floris Reef Tank]

3:30PM by Stephen
Temperature - 81.6 degrees
SG - 1.023
Calcium - 450 ppm
KH - 8 degrees
pH - 8.2
Nitrate - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm

Added B-Ionic Part 1 (2.5 ml) to try and boost the alkalinity a bit.

by Mr. Lin
We received another donation today (thanks, Sugar Magnolia!) of some Green Star Polyps (GSP). After acclimating all afternoon, it was added this afternoon to the sand bed in the front left corner of the tank. We will get some pictures when it opens up. The students saw it today and didn't know that it changes dramatically when the polyps are extended, so it'll be interesting to see them ask what is in the tank in the AM. I'll let them snap the pictures and learn about the care of the GSP.

Other than that, might get some other donations today from area reefers, so we'll see what other kinds of goodies await!

As far as the crab trap, it came up empty again today, only 4 hermit crabs. I moved it up onto the rockwork today and rebaited, we'll see what happens. There's always the possibility that the jar I'm using is too shallow and whatever is going in is able to crawl out again afterwards. We'll see if it's empty in the morning without even hermits in it.

[Floris Reef Tank]

3:11PM by Stephen
Temperature - 80.7 degrees
SG - 1.023
Calcium - 5 [I think he added 5 drops, bringing the total to 9, making it 450 ppm]
KH - 8 degrees
pH - 8.2
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 0 ppm
Added 4.0 ml of B-Ionic Part 1, 2.5 ml of B-Ionic Part 2.

4:15PM by Sid
Here are some pictures taken by Sid.

[Floris Reef Tank]

As part of our studies on weathering, we have looked into the effects of acid rain on landforms, especially those that are made of a derivative of calcium. In doing that, we used our pH test kit to test several types of water (unfortunately since it's only a high range test kit it can't show the actual results, but it did show that certain liquids were off the charts in one way or the other).

In any case, we tested tap water, vinegar, salt water, and a kalk solution. Our results were:
Tap Water - 7.4
Vinegar - below 7.4 (orange result with Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Test Kit)
Salt Water (AM) - 8.0
Kalk Solution - Above 8.8 (very deep and bright purple using same test kit)

We then dropped a piece of chalk into 30 ml of tap water and 30 ml of vinegar and watched for the weathering effects (physical and chemical). After finishing up the test, we tested the pH of the vinegar and chalk solution:
pH - 7.4

This was a nice example of how things worked in the reef tank and led into me telling the kids the harmfulness of acid rain and how it could affect not only landforms, but marine environments as well. Also, it led into a brief discussion on how pH in a tank changes at night and during the day based on the presence and needs for carbon dioxide and oxygen and photosynthesis.

At the end of the day, Stephen (a student) then tested the water with all of the tests we have and the tank is still remaining very stable.

4:37PM
Temperature - 82.4 degrees
SG - 1.024
KH - 9 degrees
Calcium - 450 ppm
Ammonia - 0 ppm
Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate - 0 ppm
pH - 8.2

B-Ionic part 1 (4.0 ml) and part 2 (2.5 ml).


Here's a shot of the single turbo snail in the tank. It's been doing a tiny bit of bulldozing, but hopefully this trend will stop.


Here's the GSP from Sugar Magnolia.


Here's some of the zooanthids from my 2 year old's tank.


Here's a blue leg on the sand bed. You can see all the worm burrows in the sand.


Here's the tuft of caulerpa growing out of an algae mat.


Here's a great shot of some zoos that are on a piece in the back. They look like they've got pink centers. I'll have to move them out of the back (never really knew they were there).


Dreaded aiptasia... need to get a needle and kill that one off.


A nassarius lurking under the sand. You can see it's snorkel rising out of the sand.

[Floris Reef Tank]

1:00 PM by Lily and Elise

We see: worms, part of starfish, small snails that live in the sand. They are fighting for food.

The crab is attacking the small snails. The big snail is still not getting any food.

The small snails are going up to the top of the tank and back down again.

Little (REALLY) small creature thing on the tank wall.

Shrimp is beginning to come out then goes back in.

The small snails have black and white antenna things (we think) coming off their head.

Temperature: 81.2-82.6

2:42PM by Lily, Elise, and Stephen
Calcium - 300 ppm
KH - 9 degrees
pH - 8.2
nitrate - 0 ppm
nitrite - 0 ppm
ammonia - 0 ppm

4:26PM by Stephen
[I had Stephen retest the calcium as it didn't make sense for the calcium to drop from 450 yesterday to 300 today.]
Calcium - 400 ppm on the retest

Added B-Ionic 2 part 2.5 ml part 1, 2.5 ml part 2

4:35PM by Mr. Lin
Started a kalk drip for top off.

[Floris Reef Tank]

Stephen, Katie and I took some pictures after school today using the camera and the microscope. Here they are.

PICTURES BY STEPHEN


Stephen took this blue leg by the glass.


These Green Star Polyps are closed up after we messed around in the tank pulling things out to view under the microscope.


Here's the overflow return where some algaes have begun to grow. We pulled some of this and viewed it under the microscope (see below).


A full tank shot.


A shot of our two M. digitata frags after being bumped while pulling things out.


Here's the pink sponge that has been growing on the rock.


Here's a hermit crab up at the top of the tank after doing some mountain climbing.

PICTURES BY KATIE


Some of the algae from the overflow return.


Another shot of it. Not sure what all the small flecks of green are, maybe other algae, spores, or maybe something was squeezed out of the algae when it was pulled?


Another shot of it.


Here's the arm of an Aiptasia anemone magnified 200x. It was wriggling around the whole time we took pictures.


Another shot of the Aiptasia arm. These two were of the base where it was pulled off. There were a lot of things flowing out of the bottom of the arm.


Here's another shot magnified only at 60x.

SHOTS BY ME


Here's a shot of some caulerpa taken from the tuft in the tank magnified 60x.


Here's the same caulerpa magnified 200x. The little slivers of some sort of plant material (?) are in this shot as well.


Another shot at 200x.


Here's some halimeda magnified 60x.


This is halimeda magnified 200x.


Here's some valonia magnified 200x. Was able to remove this one whole but the microscope's not strong enough to shine through it.

[Floris Reef Tank]

We have SOL testing all of this week, so pictures might not come out right away, but we did get some nice donations this weekend at the WAMAS Meeting from Lee Stearns, Steven Cottrell, and Dr. Mac. One of the Dr. Mac donations suffered from RTN (Rapid Tissue Necrosis) last night and most likely will not make it through another night, but the other ones look to be doing OK. Not sure how they will do under PC lighting as they are all acropora species, but hopefully they will do OK, otherwise I might have to move them out to someone's tank that has more intense lighting.

The other frags are all doing well and the kids this morning came in and crowded around the tank. When things slow down a bit I'll get some of them to take some pictures and post them on this site.

We also have some donations coming later this week when I get a chance to pick them up, so keep your eye on this thread! There's a lot of good things to come!

[Floris Reef Tank]

We finished our SOL testing today with great relief! Now that we have finished them up, we can go back to our curriculum, which leaves a bit more leeway to teach about the reef. We have pendulums to teach as well, which helps us to teach about Experimental Design, but we spent a lot of time on it at the beginning of the year and the kids have an excellent grasp of what it entails.

There are also some planktonic shrimp still in the system. I still don't know if they're mysids or not.

I do have an update on the donations. All of them are doing well except for the acropora frags from Dr. Mac. Three of the four went through Rapid Tissue Necrosis (RTN) and the fourth seems to be doing OK, although there is a bit of tissue loss at the base. One of them did it Sunday night, one began on Tuesday, and the other went through it last night.

Here are some pictures taken the other day by Stephen.


Here's the Trumpet coral from Steven Cottrell (dchild).


This is a small chunk of Green Star Polyps from Lee Stearns.


This is a capnella frag from Lee as well. It has a couple of branches and is mounted on a nice chunk of rock.


Here's one of the acroporas that went through RTN. This was the first of the three that have died.


Here's some zooanthids that were donated by Lee Stearns again. The RTN acro is on the right side.


This is a picture of some cabbage/leather coral from Lee again.


Here's a red mushroom from Steven Cottrell.


This is the lone acropora frag that has survived thus far after being donated by Dr. Mac.

[Floris Reef Tank]

These next shots are not from our classroom tank and are instead from my newly set up 58. Although the things in it are currently only in the one tank, there has been rock switched back and forth between the different tanks so that every one of them gets some of everything. I was able to catch a shrimp frye, some sort of jellyfish/hydroid, and a piece of cyanobacteria. It's also very educational for my students to see these kinds of things (for instance, we studied monerans and cyanobacteria are one of the two types of monerans). Here are some of the pictures:


Here's the hydroid magnified 200x. It sticks itself to the glass and when it is disturbed it swims away using the pumping action of a jellyfish. Any idea what it is?


Another shot at 200x.


Here's a 60x magnification of the beast.


Here's the hydroid again.


Here it is again.