Hi Zoo and Paly experts!
Yana from NYC here.
I have a 2 months old 26 Bow, FOWLR.
1 Yellow Watchman Goby, 2 Damsels (Chrysiptera hemicyanea and C. parasema), 1 Ocellaris Clown, 1 Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Hermit Crab, 1 Turbo Snail.
Temperature is a little high now due to the sweltering heat (84F) but I am working on ways to repair that.
Water parameters are close to perfect:
Ammo and Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm
pH 8.3
Salinity 33
SG: 1.023
I was a super beginner in April, but I do my homework, read a lot and feel much better about the hobby now than I did two months ago. I still don't have any coral (Fish-onlly with live rock), so my knowledge is not that vast in that area. That's where your help can come handy.... 2 months into having the tank, I discovered
--a Mysterious Being--
growing in a hole in the rock. (I had bought the rock from a person with an established aquarium (unfortunately, we¡¯ve lost touch so I can¡¯t ask him what it is). It looks like a ¡°yellow polyp¡± and it grows out of a perfectly shaped white tube that can pass for plastic if I didn¡¯t know what it was. When stressed, It quickly pulls back into the tube, only to come out again in a minute. I looked through inverts pictures and it resembles the most Protopalythoa sp. or Acrozoanthus sp.
It is worth noting that it is been with me from the very beginning, through a horrible cycling where ammonia was much beyond what any test can measure (once I did a 50% water change and the ammo test still showed the darkest green, you can imagine). This means It must be hardy. Secondly, the aquarium was fishless and not fed anything in the fist month (I was an absolute beginner and did not quite know what I was doing). This means that it feeds on its own (zooxanthellae?). Thirdly, I rarely switch the lights on (only for feeding/watching, no more than 2 hrs/day). Which means it is also a low-light organism.
With all this in mind, can you share some suggestions as to what It might be, and is it harmful or useful? (I've seen a poly on a pic but I do not know much about its properties in a tank). I do not plan to have a reef yet, but the Goby has chosen the same rock hole for his observation post, right next to It. I wonder if this proximity is OK for Goby. His back has been turning black lately (he's been stressed from me moving the decorations around and from the rise in temperature but is it only that?)
2) This may be related to the Mystery Being from my first question, and if it is, poor me---
In the last few days, I¡¯ve been finding strange formations spread on the glass. They are white, pretty flat and one would think they were grains of sand if they did not have-- the perfect spiral shape of a snail shell! They range from the barely visible to about 1 mm in diameter. I¡¯ve seen them on the bottom and sides of the Live Rock for some time and I thought they were some kind of fossils. But now they¡¯ve ventured to the glass in overwhelming numbers (about 100 today). They don¡¯t look like anything alive (yet!). They look more like calcareous formations, dry and unmoving. I am not sure if they grow. It is hard to scrape them off with one¡¯s nail, but it was easy with the mag-float sponge. I stopped doing this, though, not to worsen my situation. Any guesses?
3) The RED BUD. Another thing also grows on the rock and I wonder if it is related to the first two. It is very tiny, 2-3 mm at the most. It also grows from a tube. The tube is attached to the rock, like a tiny swirl of glue some dwarf sprayed on the rock. Tube is close to the rock¡¯s color, indiscernible yellow-brownish-tan color. Out of it comes an orangy-red bud, like a flower's bud, half a mm. probably. It pulls back into the tube when threatened. What can it be?
Thank you enormously for reading this and trying to answer these questions.
Happy that this community exists, yours, Depth
Yana from NYC here.
I have a 2 months old 26 Bow, FOWLR.
1 Yellow Watchman Goby, 2 Damsels (Chrysiptera hemicyanea and C. parasema), 1 Ocellaris Clown, 1 Cleaner Shrimp, 1 Hermit Crab, 1 Turbo Snail.
Temperature is a little high now due to the sweltering heat (84F) but I am working on ways to repair that.
Water parameters are close to perfect:
Ammo and Nitrite - 0 ppm
Nitrate 20 ppm
pH 8.3
Salinity 33
SG: 1.023
I was a super beginner in April, but I do my homework, read a lot and feel much better about the hobby now than I did two months ago. I still don't have any coral (Fish-onlly with live rock), so my knowledge is not that vast in that area. That's where your help can come handy.... 2 months into having the tank, I discovered
--a Mysterious Being--
growing in a hole in the rock. (I had bought the rock from a person with an established aquarium (unfortunately, we¡¯ve lost touch so I can¡¯t ask him what it is). It looks like a ¡°yellow polyp¡± and it grows out of a perfectly shaped white tube that can pass for plastic if I didn¡¯t know what it was. When stressed, It quickly pulls back into the tube, only to come out again in a minute. I looked through inverts pictures and it resembles the most Protopalythoa sp. or Acrozoanthus sp.
It is worth noting that it is been with me from the very beginning, through a horrible cycling where ammonia was much beyond what any test can measure (once I did a 50% water change and the ammo test still showed the darkest green, you can imagine). This means It must be hardy. Secondly, the aquarium was fishless and not fed anything in the fist month (I was an absolute beginner and did not quite know what I was doing). This means that it feeds on its own (zooxanthellae?). Thirdly, I rarely switch the lights on (only for feeding/watching, no more than 2 hrs/day). Which means it is also a low-light organism.
With all this in mind, can you share some suggestions as to what It might be, and is it harmful or useful? (I've seen a poly on a pic but I do not know much about its properties in a tank). I do not plan to have a reef yet, but the Goby has chosen the same rock hole for his observation post, right next to It. I wonder if this proximity is OK for Goby. His back has been turning black lately (he's been stressed from me moving the decorations around and from the rise in temperature but is it only that?)
2) This may be related to the Mystery Being from my first question, and if it is, poor me---
In the last few days, I¡¯ve been finding strange formations spread on the glass. They are white, pretty flat and one would think they were grains of sand if they did not have-- the perfect spiral shape of a snail shell! They range from the barely visible to about 1 mm in diameter. I¡¯ve seen them on the bottom and sides of the Live Rock for some time and I thought they were some kind of fossils. But now they¡¯ve ventured to the glass in overwhelming numbers (about 100 today). They don¡¯t look like anything alive (yet!). They look more like calcareous formations, dry and unmoving. I am not sure if they grow. It is hard to scrape them off with one¡¯s nail, but it was easy with the mag-float sponge. I stopped doing this, though, not to worsen my situation. Any guesses?
3) The RED BUD. Another thing also grows on the rock and I wonder if it is related to the first two. It is very tiny, 2-3 mm at the most. It also grows from a tube. The tube is attached to the rock, like a tiny swirl of glue some dwarf sprayed on the rock. Tube is close to the rock¡¯s color, indiscernible yellow-brownish-tan color. Out of it comes an orangy-red bud, like a flower's bud, half a mm. probably. It pulls back into the tube when threatened. What can it be?
Thank you enormously for reading this and trying to answer these questions.
Happy that this community exists, yours, Depth
