Anemone thriving

07/04/2004
The anemone has amazed me this week. I’ve had to move corals out of its reach, as its extension is fully 10 inches. The “foot” tube has moved forward a bit so it is not so far tucked into the cave, and the top of the disk seems like it is climbing the rock behind it, reaching for all those things I have yanked out of harms way. Portions of the Caulastrea coral that were touched by the anemone’s tentacles looked withered all week, but now seem to be recovering. Only the anthelia has remained adjacent to it, because I’m not detecting any signs of harm so far. One evening this week, after mealtime, the anemone tucked into a ball. I hadn’t fed it that night, yet I imagined it was digesting a meal from the look of it. I started counting heads, and couldn’t find the basslet. The basslet is only 2”, I figured he had become a meal for sure. But the next morning, he showed up, so I guess he’d just disappeared into the rock for awhile.

Got a great picture of the emerald crab, which is cute to watch. These crabs sit next to a patch of algae and pick up little bits with their claws, which are blunt on the tip to make this easier. They just shovel in one bite after another, while I cheer them on, since they are getting the bits the snails can’t reach. I have a total of 3, but you can never find them all at once.

The deep sand bed is showing signs of life. The lower 4” is very fine, compacted sand. The idea here is to have an anaerobic environment to reduce nitrates into their component parts. I have started to see tiny tunnels in this deep portion. If you look carefully, you can see red, 1 mm specs traveling along these tunnels, and one spec can even pass another going in the opposite direction.

My courage about the murex (from last week’s edition) quickly dissolved into worry until I finally removed it from the tank. It is living in the refugium. Not all murex, I learned, are carnivores, but there is no way for me to be sure about mine. It occurred to me that by the time I found out his true nature, I could easily be missing my favorite tube worm, and I’d be mighty upset if that happened!

Every morning I put a “sandwich” of dried nori seaweed and either lettuce or spinach (from the garden) onto a rock and secure it with a rubber band. I lower this into the water and watch the feeding frenzy. The tang and dwarf angel are the primary eaters, but the cardinal fish and lawnmower blenny also frequently show up, as well as the clownfish. The food is gone in under 15 minutes. Mind you, there is always algae visible on the rocks, it is not like there is nothing to eat in there! But apparently THAT kind of algae is not as tasty as the stuff I buy, go figure.