October 31 Days Photos

[Mark Shelly]

Njtigers24 aquariums requested someone follow up on his request to continue the daily photos by month. I will do this but with 2 pictures a day to try and tell a story. The fist set is a Yuma Ricordea. The first picture is shortly after I placed it in the yank. It has since moved to a crevasse about 3 inches away and left 2 babies where it started.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

@Mark Shelly thanks for taking October and can't wait to see the two photo story.

 

[kschweer]

Awesome @Mark Shelly


Looking forward to following along!

 

[Mark Shelly]

Day 2 is the common Acan, now with a new scientific name. I started my tank to be a fish and then a fish and soft coral reef. That changed when Ultimate Corals gave me a single polyp of this acan. So the pictures on this day show 2 progressions. The first is that the acan first had 2 buds by this photo and later a dozen or so. The second is that as a photographer, it took me a while to learn how to get a good depth of field on corals: raise the ISO, decrease the aperture (increase the number), and use a tripod. Note that I was also going through my first cyanobacteria outbreak during the first photo.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

nice @Mark Shelly

 

[Trio91]

Looking good Mark @Mark Shelly

 

[Mark Shelly]

Day 3 At the first day I became a NJRC member, I won this mushroom in the raffle. I believe it is called a Devil's hand. When I put it in the fish tank, it looked like a triceratops head, ready to charge.

And while I see lots of bumps suggesting it could have many tenticles, only a few come out.

 

[Trio91]

Day 3 At the first day I became a NJRC member, I won this mushroom in the raffle. I believe it is called a Devil's hand. When I put it in the fish tank, it looked like a triceratops head, ready to charge.
View attachment 14140
And while I see lots of bumps suggesting it could have many tenticles, only a few come out.
View attachment 14141

Looks like a mushroom leather....I could be wrong though. Looking good mark @Mark Shelly

 

[Mark Shelly]

Looks like a mushroom leather....I could be wrong though. Looking good mark @Mark Shelly

It was listed as a toadstool mushroom. But most pictures I see of toadstools or leather mushroom corals show undulations of the top plate as they get bigger, not just bumps in the same shape. Australian toadstool pictures shows a similar shape, but there they appear to be more tentacles with bigger tips. ACC has had a few, but they were never opened when I was there. Many Devil's hand pictures often have longer or more pointy tips, but some pictures will show some like this one. I like that it is a nice contrast to my toadstool mushroom.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

Day 3 At the first day I became a NJRC member, I won this mushroom in the raffle. I believe it is called a Devil's hand. When I put it in the fish tank, it looked like a triceratops head, ready to charge.
View attachment 14140
And while I see lots of bumps suggesting it could have many tenticles, only a few come out.
View attachment 14141

Looking good man.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Day 4 is a Florida Ricordea. It is smaller than the Yuma. When I got these, they were a pail yellow. I am not sure if it was from bleaching or shading. It has darkened, but hasn't moved from over the 2 babies nearby.

In this picture, the Ricordea folded which is unusual. I was feeding the tank at the time.

 

[Trio91]

Day 4 is a Florida Ricordea. It is smaller than the Yuma. When I got these, they were a pail yellow. I am not sure if it was from bleaching or shading. It has darkened, but hasn't moved from over the 2 babies nearby.
View attachment 14149
In this picture, the Ricordea folded which is unusual. I was feeding the tank at the time.
View attachment 14150

Maybe it ate some food.

 

[Mark Shelly]

I would think so. But my Yuma never closed on food, so I wasn't sure.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Day 5. I started noticing some of my blue leg crabs walking around with some of my snail shells. Then I noticed one of them holding a smaller hermit in the water all day. I should have left them alone as he couldn't attack or crawl while holding the other hermit. I placed them on the gravel. When I came back, the larger one was eating the smaller one inside the shell. You can see some of the legs at the lower right. I had just added some new shells into the tank so they wouldn't fight over shells.

I found 4 hermits in a pile in the front corner of my tank. It appears that they were attacking the hermit in the dark shell. I tried disbursing them and placed a disc of food ( to the left) in the tank next to them in case they were hungry, but it did not stop. I picked up the aggressor and it let go of the other, which promptly crawled away. Some of my smaller hermits had little caves to spend the day in, but could not fit in them when they exchanged shells. In the photos that follow, look for elongated shells they picked up.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Day 6 is a Rhodactis Mushroom, I think. The first picture is shortly after feeding when it was one mushroom as it closed around the food.
It has since divided as shown in the picture below in mid division. It tends to fluoresce green in UV or actinic only light.

 

[Trio91]

Day 5. I started noticing some of my blue leg crabs walking around with some of my snail shells. Then I noticed one of them holding a smaller hermit in the water all day. I should have left them alone as he couldn't attack or crawl while holding the other hermit. I placed them on the gravel. When I came back, the larger one was eating the smaller one inside the shell. You can see some of the legs at the lower right. I had just added some new shells into the tank so they wouldn't fight over shells.
View attachment 14151
I found 4 hermits in a pile in the front corner of my tank. It appears that they were attacking the hermit in the dark shell. I tried disbursing them and placed a disc of food ( to the left) in the tank next to them in case they were hungry, but it did not stop. I picked up the aggressor and it let go of the other, which promptly crawled away. Some of my smaller hermits had little caves to spend the day in, but could not fit in them when they exchanged shells. In the photos that follow, look for elongated shells they picked up.
View attachment 14152

They r vicious SOB''s those hermits. Very oportunistic

 

[Mark Shelly]

Day 7. This set of pictures was taken with a waterproof camera inside the water looking down showing a variety of corals. In the upper right is a blue mushroom that fell in a hole in the rock. It is doing pretty well there now, but wasn't attached in this picture.

In this second top down, you can see the Yuma mushroom after it moved a few inches to get out of the direct light, exposing 8 other mushrooms. I normally can't see these to well from the front of the tank. It appears that some of the small ones are a more greenish color. Note that when I bought the red rock, I though the color was from coralline algae. But it is more of a painted manufactured rock. The rock looks black when illuminated by red light, but reddish when illuminated by UV.

 

[njtiger24 aquariums]

love the images man. always enjoy looking down in my tank mainly when pumps are off and you can see everything nice and clearly

 

[Mark Shelly]

love the images man. always enjoy looking down in my tank mainly when pumps are off and you can see everything nice and clearly

I do to, especially since I can't see into my tank from the sides or back, and my lights normally block looking down. Taking pictures this way has helped my fine many an aiptasia as well.

 

[Mark Shelly]

Day 8 tank pests. Every time you see something new in the tank, you become afraid that it may become a problem. I was going to post on some nuisance corals, but that changed this morning. This morning I saw this white spot on my Orchid Dottyback. I have seen a few white spots before on it and my Royal Gramma. I just can't get a great picture as it is never still long enough to get a good up-close focus. I am hoping my fire shrimp will get these if they are isopods.

And this morning was the first time I saw this nudibranch or flatworm. Like me, the Tang wants to know what it is and photobombed my picture. By the way, this is the best picture I have been able to get of the yellow tang's mouth.