Xenia on the move

08/22/04
About one more week to go and I can clean up the living room and get rid of the extra refugium. I’ve got a decent supply of copepods running around in the new refugium. I’ve finished planting Caulerpa algae in there. It is time to sit back and watch to see what happens. I’m gradually removing the old refugium from the flow now, increasing the “out” time by 2 hours a day. I don’t really need the quarantine tank in the basement for awhile either, so I’m going to take that down and move the few shrimp that are in it upstairs. This weekend I moved the remaining worm rock up. There has been no sign of the Aiptasia anemone for a long time, and the worms are dying, so I figured I’d move it before it was too late and hope they recover. Worms seems to be so tricky for me!

I’ve been watching one of the xenia move from the rock it was on when I bought it to a different rock. These things look like trees, so it is so surprising to see a tree up and move itself. A step takes weeks so it is hard to visualize! It begins with the xenia having contact with an adjacent rock. The contact point is about halfway up the stem. Apparently higher is better, and this rock offered a way to get higher. First the midstem gripped the new rock, then the base followed. There is no residue that I can see on the old rock, it seems to have made a clean break. Thus this was not a reproductive act, it was just a relocation. The picture captures this step about half-way through.

Having seen this was possible, I got creative with another stem that was too close to the sinularia. It’s base has been edging away, such that the base is half in mid-air and half on the rock. I placed another rock next to it. As I guessed, it is now edging toward the new rock. Once it is completely on it, I’ll lift it away to a better spot.

Another xenia (the umbrella one), has split itself in half to reproduce. Right now the split is almost complete, there are just a few strands connecting the old and new animals.

I’ve been busy planning the seahorse tank. I decided I really wanted to get a jawfish again. I had one early on that died. These are the guys that dig in the sand to such an extent you really need to make sure the liverock is well anchored. I never got another jawfish for the main tank because I realized my rock was nowhere near stable enough. For this next one, I’ll be better prepared. This will be a small tank with simpler setup. Seahorses don’t like much current, so normally there is not much in the way of corals in with them. Without corals, you don’t need a powerful pump or bright light. What you do need is a well-stocked refugium, because seahorses eat all the time. Their digestive system is very primitive, so they are always hungry. The refugium inhabitants help to supplement the owner-provided food. This time the refugium will be “upstream” in that it will empty directly into the tank, rather than having to go through a pump first. They make small acrylic refugia that hang on the back of the main tank. Water is pumped into it with a small powerhead and it overflows back into the tank from the other side. The unit is about 4” wide, 20” long and 12” high.