melev

Earlier today, I noticed all the anemones looked strange, somewhat supersized. This one is my oldest anemone, purchased back in 2003. See how the tentacles look more like candle flames? That's not what I normally see, so I knew something was up.

No pictures of the event yet, but I did want to post about this evening. As the lights over the 60g Anemone Cube began to fade and turn more and more blue, I noticed the tank was looking a little bit cloudy. Upon observation, I discovered that two bubble tips were expelling sperm into the water creating the smokey look. I did get some of this filmed for a video. About an hour and a half later, those big bubble tip anemones were significantly deflated but I saw the clownfish eating something in the water column.

I watched the rose bubble tip to see if it was expelling eggs, but didn't find any. I watched for a few minutes from different vantages around the cube tank, and finally discovered a large clutch of eggs on the substrate. As a few came loose the clowns devoured them. As soon as I had the camera pointed at the right spot with some light, the fish quickly spotted the source and yanked them right out of my frame. Hopefully some of the video will be useful. Anemone eggs aren't nearly as common as anemone sperm, which is why I like sharing these stories when they happen.

While all this was going on, I did quite a bit of water testing tonight. I'd just recently mixed up a new batch of Aquavitro Salinity saltwater, and these were my test results. I bought a new barrel of Salinity a few days ago which will make this year's saltwater supply for the reef.

Salinity: 1.0265sg
Temperature: 76°F
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Alkalinity: 9 dKH
Calcium: 450 ppm
Magnesium: 1150 ppm

I'm going to be doing more water changes this week, as I'm still trying to remove nitrate from the system.

The calcium reactor was cleaned out and refilled today. I've been using this reactor since 2004.

The Nyos 300 is doing quite well.