Cool little burrow digger

If you look carefully at the top of the live rock in the photo below you can see a tunnel that has built by a little bug. Grain by grain he dragged the sand and formed a long tunnel. It was fascinating to watch. Hard working little bliter.

New addition and corals looking nice

I've added some Xenia to the tank - it was a frag from a friend (Thanks Dave)

As you can see some bits look a bit happier then others.

My mushrooms are looking happy and I like these pictures

Tank Update

Here's the latest tank update.

The odd mushroom was identified as a manjano anenome, which has now been removed as I was warned that it would sting all the mushrooms.

Here's how the tank is currently looking

Both Mushroom coral rocks are looking good.The mushroom frags are developing quickly

Tank Update

Here's the latest update of my tank -I've added a new beautiful green coral which I bought 2nd hand from a friend.


One of the mushrooms is slightly different so I'm going to find out what it is. - It's very pretty though

One of the mushrooms is huge

This is the head of the first mushroom I fragged - It's doing very well

Crab Fishing

Over the weekend we had a little break in Scarborough and took the opportunity to do a little crab fishing. It's great to see the little blighters in their natural environment and watching them catch food (or bait).
When you crab fish you don't use hooks but a bag on a line filled with bait. You but the bags in the water and the crabs scurry from quite a distance on the scent of the food.
Crabs must have a very good scent of smell.
They then hang onto the bag whilst you pull them out of the water on the line.

All the crabs were returned unharmed into the sea.
It's interesting peaceful and good fun.

Little and large bristle worms

Here's a great little picture - a very big and a very small bristle worm.

The big one stretches almost the total height of the tank

New lighting in tank.

I've added a reflector into the hood of the tank. It reflects twice as much light back into the tank. .I've also added moonlight LED's to the tank - the effect is beautiful

More coral fragging

The first cutting I made has grown nicely and attached it's self to some of the substrate.
So I've moved it back into the main display section . The picture below shows it in its new home.I've taken 2 new fraggs, one of which I've cut into 2 fraggs with a sharp blade, and I've put them into the resting area in the sump.
This next picture shows the original stems left on the rock

A couple of interesting pictures of mushrooms

The first picture shows a mushroom closed over it's self, I believe it's caught it's self a meal.
The second picture shows how well the cut mushroom is developing following the frag

Response about previous picture

I've had a response on reef central.
It turns out that my mushroom was stressed and the white mass was it's guts.

Its a normal response and it will be ok.

Strange mushroom coral activity

What sure what's going on here.

One of the corals had a white mucus comiong out of it's mouth with long strand like feelers waveing over the tank.
I've asked on Reef Central for advice on whats going on.

Little Snail ID'ed

In this post and this post.

I showed pictures of a hitch hiker snail - it has been identified on reef central as a Turbinid snail.

First mushroom frag ;-)

I've made My first mushroom frag, I got a shape blade and cut underneath the head of the mushroom, because it's my first frag I haven't cut the head any further - I'm nervous with out splitting the head into quarters.
So far things are looking ok. The first picture below is a shot of what was left on the rock - already it is starting to resemble the beginning of a new mushroom head.

The second picture below shows the frag sitting happily on a piece of live rock inside a

protective caseing made from a cut plastic bottle.

Hitch Hiker identified

the Hitch Hiker mentioned in the previous post has been identified on Reef Central it's a Stomatella snail.
Completly harmless :-)

Slug Hitch Hiker

This slug came in on the live rock. I'm trying to identify it.

Motion capture video of live Rock

Last night I set up my Web cam and focused it on the biggest piece of live rock.
I set up the camera to record movement - the video below is the results.
watch out for snail and worm action

Missing feather duster

One of my feather dusters has gone missing, the first picture taken yesterday shows 5 dusters

The second picture taken today only shows 4....1 has vanished without trace

More pictures of the hitch hiker snail.

Here are 2 new pictures of the hitch hiker snail.

Picture 1: taken in a dishPicture 2: taken in the tank

Video of Coral

Here's a quick video of the first coral in the tank

New Rock and first Coral.

Over the weekend I've added another larger piece of live rock into the tank. Its looking pretty good at the moment although perhaps a little more aquascaping is in order. ;-)

The Big news is that I've added my first Mushroom coral into the tank.

It's quite a well populated piece of rock with several mushrooms on it. There are also several feather dusters.

2 of the feather dusters fell off the rock on the journey back home - so I picked them out of the bag and housed them on a piece of rock in the sump.

So far the mushrooms look happy and are fully opended whilst the tank light is on.