melev

After many months of planning, Next Wave was another good show. Attendees made it a point to hear each of the four speakers throughout the day on May 3, 2014. I ran my booth all day long, selling products normally offered online. Here's that blog entry, posted on Melev's Reef: http://melevsreef.com/blog/back-back-shows-05042014

When I was able to break away from my booth, I spotted a nice anemone that I thought would be a good addition to the Anemone Cube. I was told it was a bubble tip, but it didn't look like one to me. It was tighter, more like a huge Ricordea yuma or an over-inflated Maxi-Mini carpet anemone. The vendor bagged it up for me in plenty of water since I was spending the night at the hotel and wouldn't return home until today. It was placed in a sealed cooler in my room overnight.

About 18 hours later, I got home and immediately placed it in the tank to acclimate it to temperature. Sharing the pictures with others, several people identified it as a Sebae anemone, Heteractis crispa. The tentacles have purple tips, and the overall look of it is a very pale green hue.

I placed it on a spot in the rockwork where I wanted it to be, with the Vortech shut off so it had time to affix its foot securely.

However, it wasn't long before a friend informed me that this anemone prefers to be placed in the sand and will bury its foot to grab onto the bottom panel of the aquarium. I checked and found articles that confirmed this, and moved it accordingly. In this next image you may notice some tiny dots on the glass to the right of the anemone. I'll be going into that in a moment, further below.

Then I was told to speed along the process, I should dig a hole to help the anemone get its foot situated and then move the sand around it so it will stay in that spot. So I did what I could although it wasn't possible to create a bare spot. The sand kept pouring back into the center but it was a good depression overall. A few hours later, this is how it looked. We'll see what happens later this week.

Some other exciting news: As I'm tinkering in the Anemone Cube adding the new Sebae I got yesterday, the clownfish seemed so interested, surprisingly. They tend to be pretty shy and docile, but they were right there looking closely as I tried to coax the anemone to grab onto the spot I'd picked initially. It was then when I discovered something new... The clowns are laying eggs once more. I've been waiting nearly six months for them to get back at it so I can finally try my hand at breeding my own clownfish. This will be my first try. Thus, I'm super stoked!

With those tiny specks on the glass, I just had to bust out the tripod, stacked extension tubes, and the IR remote, plus an off-shoe flash for the D90 with the 105mm Macro lens to capture a few decent images of the tiny copepods scurrying about on the viewing panes of the 60g. These are Harpactacoids. Perhaps Tisbe, according to one person. And some are carrying eggs, if you look closely.

As usual, there's always something interesting to see if you take the time to look. That's what keeps this hobby engaging and compelling for me.