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!)

Discosoma: Oil on Canvas

Hard fish to photograph since they aren't as placid as they look here. By the time the camera is in focus they're gone, so it takes some patience to get a good photo.

Jack

Twitchy

Firefish Goby

Xenia

Scooter Lips

How could you not love a fish with lips like those.

"I take your stinkin bullets"

Logically I know his brain is not much larger than the letter "O" but I swear he watches me while I'm watching TV, secretly plotting my demise. If he could talk I would imagine he would sound like Al Pacino in Scarface.

Thanks to the folks at Aquarium Advice this guy has been identified as Stomatella Varia and is member of the Mollusca Phylum in the class of Gastropoda. We found him first on the live rock but had a hard time photographing him as he is small (about the size of a raisin), and well camouflaged. We didn't see him for a few days but then discovered him on a group of coral in the tank so I popped him is a small plastic tank to get a better photo. According to one article at Reefkeeping.com, because of Stomatella's lack of shell to hide in, it has developed a unique ability to "drop" it's hind quarter like a lizard while it scampers away.

My wife got the trophy shot with this one. The acrylic glass makes it hard to get good shots sometimes, and Scooter Blennys aren't placid swimmers so this one was part skill and part luck. Click on the photo to enlarge the shot, it's pretty impressive.

Tubastraea Faulkneri, or Sun Coral. We're in the process of trying to fatten these guys up.

From Aquarium of the Pacific

Manny then and now (3 months).

Close up of our feather duster.

Firefish

Our new member of the family. Apparently when growing up, someone accidentally poured a cup of coffee in his tank: he tried becoming carpet jerky while I was acclimating him to the tank, and then once when I was trying to feed a coral and unfortunately the lid was closed on the tank and he whacked his head on the cover to the lights. I'll try mixing some Prozac with his shrimp.

Xenia Elongata which I think roughly translates to "Grows like a weed". Xenia is a part of a large group of fleshy, stalked, soft corals that are usually the first colonizers of a reef area, and they spread by attaching a stalk to a nearby rock and then detaching from that stalk. I started out with two small stalks, and now I have six.