February 25, 2013
I’ve kept freshwater aquariums for many years and I’ve always enjoyed setting them up and keeping them going. But it’s been a long time since I’ve set up a saltwater (marine) aquarium. Nearly forty years ago I even wrote a book titled TROPICAL SALTWATER AQUARIUMS but technology and our understanding of keeping aquariums have changed. So when I decided to set up a new saltwater aquarium, I pretty much had to start from the beginning.
I had just finished writing my new book about CORAL REEFS and I wanted to see if I could keep some kinds of coral in an aquarium, so I decided that I would set up a reef aquarium. A reef aquarium contains both fishes and some kinds of coral and other invertebrates as well. My aquarium has been going for about two months now and everything seems to be going fine. I have two saltwater fish (a clown fish and a yellow tailed blue damsel), an anemone (called a bubble-tipped anemone), hermit crabs and several kinds of coral.
Imagine my surprise the other day when I saw a new kind of living thing in the tank; something I had never put into the tank. I pulled out my LED flashlight to take a better look and saw that the mysterious visitor had a central trunk and then a top with many waving tentacles. I imagine that it come in as a hitchhiker on some rocks or plants that I had put into the tank. So I decided to try to find out what it was and whether it was a welcome or unwelcome intruder. I used the SeeMore Explorers Observation Log and wrote down what I saw.
Well, the mysterious visitor turned out to be a kind of anemone and a very unwelcome one at that. You can read how I found out on the observation log (below). As to what I did then, you’ll have to read that on my next installment on the blog!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
