melev

I guess it comes down to how observant you are, but when you work around your reef day in and day out and suddenly see something new, it's a tiny momentous occasion. For me anyway.

During the late night hours when my tank is immersed in darkness, from time to time I'll explore the rockwork with a flashlight to see what's going on, where the fish sleep, and what's out on the prowl. I spotted a Stomatella snail in the 400g, a type of slug I've not seen in years. Since the reef has two wrasses, I assumed they were devoured long ago. Not only did I find it, but it was a relatively big one at 1" in size. I looked around for more, expecting to find smaller ones but it was the only one. Yet not alone. He had some cowries nearby.

The bigger looking object behind the blue-shelled Stomatella is a Tiger Cowrie. I got it about six months ago, and it's a big slug in a gorgeous shell. The mantle is fully extended over the spotted shell in these pictures, and the animal is about the size of a lemon or avocado.

Another cowrie was to the left, which you may not have spotted in the above image. This one has a brown speckled shell, and is called a snakehead cowrie displaying a full extended mantle as well.

And for the third time in the past year, I've stumbled upon a small piece of Green Birdnest appearing in a spot in the tank where no Birdnest has ever been. One would assume I'm dropping bits of this coral elsewhere in the tank, but that simply isn't the case. Each time it has appeared on the SIDE of a rock, and grown out into something beautiful. If I dropped pieces anywhere, it would grow where it landed on a flat surface. So this leads me to believe that perhaps this particular species of Birdsnest is a broadcast spawner, sending out polyps into the reef to grow elsewhere like Pocillopora does.

It's a tiny twig, but I was hunting aiptasia and majanos and spotted it. It's dead center in both of these images.

And finally, an update about another coral that I happened to spot months ago growing under the huge Staghorn acropora. A small puddle of tissue grew out on the rock beneath, and began to extend a couple of tiny branches. Here's a picture from October to remind you. And the Snakehead cowrie is in this shot:

Here's that coral today, taken from above at a difficult angle. It seems to be winning against that grape colored Montipora to its right.

Everything seems to be doing quite well, overall.