Clown Goby

Oz2 hanging out by the glass.

Jellyfish Vs. Copepod

This will give you a size comparison

What does a Sea Urchin look like when he's eating?

Another shot of the Jellyfish, this time in the gravel. You can see polyps underneath (or on top depending on how you view what is right-side-up on this jelly), ready to pick food out of the water that happens to float by.

Here's the best shot of a Bristle Worm to date, peeking out a hole at dinner time, hoping to find a scrap of food leftover. Despite a bad reputation and the fact that my wife hates them, they do a good job of cleaning the tank.

This is about the only shot you will ever see of the Clown Goby, he rarely strays from this spot amongst the Gorgonian.

This is our new Yellow Clown Goby Oz2 amongst our new Blueberry Gorgonian in the Pico-tank. We had an Oz1 but he took the leap of death from the tank and I think, became a snack for someone, because we haven't run into any carpet jerky.

Anyway, Oz2 seems happy hiding in plain sight in the Gorgonian, which supposedly they are wont to do.

Scooter on Discosoma

Longfin Danio

Glowlight

This is one of the Scyphozoan Jellyfish in our pico-tank that we found clinging to the glass. They seem to like to attach to the glass on their backs and only move like jelly's when they move from one location to another. The pico-tank has become more of a science experiment than an aquarium, since we are trying to keep these guys alive out of shear curiosity of how big they will get.

One time my wife asked me "wouldn't it be cool if you could shrink yourself and swim in the aquarium?" Here's my answer: Absolutely not!!!

This critter came from our pico-tank, I haven't the slightest clue what it is. It was large enough that I couldn't see it all at once, hence the photo-merge.

New Digs. Manny, Moe and Jack were getting a little big for the 10 Gal. tank, so they've move up to a 20 Gal.

Manny (front) and Jack (rear)

An Aquarium Darkly

Our tank was getting a little too much algae, and the snails were exhausted, not to mention full, so we got this little guy, and I have to tell you, he not only eats the algae, but the rock is cleaner than when we purchased it! He's wiping out the coralline algae which is a shame, but he moves so slow it will probably grow back by the time he gets back to where he started.

Unfortunately when we bought him, we didn't see that he had a ouchy. This is actually the bare skeleton (called the "test") showing where the epidermis is gone. This would be the equivalent of have some skin missing from your head and your skull showing through. Hopefully it will heal and not become infected (if it's not already).

Open Wide

Close up of mouth with teeth retracted show what could be considered a tongue

Ostracod video

Ostracods

These were the critters that first prompted me to start this blog since we had no idea what they were. It's difficult to research something when you only have a photo unless you can post them on message boards, but at the time we didn't know of any so it took a lot of guess work to finally hit on the fact that these were freshwater Ostracods.

Fluke

Flatworm Video

This guy was pretty lively so I had a little trouble keeping up with him with the camera.

Sideview of copepod

I'm never stepping in the ocean again

I'm pretty sure this is a baby bristle worm, he's about the size of a small eyelash, but under the microscope he looks every bit like the adult version. When you watch the video you can see blood circulating though it's body

Hitchhikers galore

Here's a video of another tiny creature that makes up the fauna of saltwater tanks. He doesn't look like a good swimmer but he was a little hard to catch with an eyedropper. I assumed he was either a shrimp or a copepod, but after seeing him under the microscope he is a different sort of pod. Click thumbnail to activate video.

A truly weird thing!

[More videos from Sparky477]

I shot this Scyphozoan Jellyfish through the microscope after sucking him up with an eye dropper. He actually is swimming around in a drop of salt water if that is any indication of how big he is. Unfortunately I only have one objective lens in the scope and I could have done with a little wider shot, but you can get the idea of how this guy swims by watching the video.

Ricordea

Scyphozoan Jellyfish

This is a photo of a Scyphozoan Jellyfish that is another hitchhiker in our tank. He's visible to the naked eye and swims with a pulsing motion just like an adult jelly. I've read several different sites on Scyphozoan Jellyfish and they say this one could grow to adult size if fed properly, but I've never seen one in my tank grow any larger than the size of the letter O. The fish seem to ignore them and I suppose they are to small to be a pest, so at this stage I'm going to leave them alone (not that I can get rid of them since I don't know where they are breeding in my tank.

Sun Coral / Orange Cup Coral

Tubastraea Faulkneri

Tubastraea Faulkneri

Tubastraea Faulkneri

Tubastraea Faulkneri

Ricordea

It's hard to get a really good photograph of the Recordea in our tank. It's just at the wrong angle to the acrylic making it slightly out of focus, but this is a pretty good photograph. For some reason Recordea looks like photographs taken with an electron microscope, but there was no special filter or lighting used, just electronic flash.

Ricordea

Rusty

Tubastraea Faulkneri, or more commonly known as "Orange Cup or Sun Coral". These corals have no zooxanthellae so they rely totally on captured food for survival and are generally regarded as ahermatypic or non-reef building. These corals usually open at night in response to time when planktonic food sources are at their highest and are usually found upside-down at the entrance of caves or overhangs in nutrient rich water where food will be abundant.

Humuhumu nuku nuku apua'a (Say that ten times fast!)