Caught in the Act

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I've been traveling which means I haven't been able to observe, photograph, and blog about surfquarium as much as I'd like. Anyway, if you've been reading and you're still with me, I appreciate it... now on to the happenings.

The tank was getting pretty crappy upon my return, and needed a huge water change over the weekend. Today everybody is perking up and seem happy about the new water.

While watching the tank, I noticed that one of my mushroom corallimorphs looked a bit odd. Much to my delight I found one with two mouths (which means its in the process of reproducing). I didn't notice this yesterday, so it either developed since then, or I just wasn't very observant yesterday (Although the thing is right in the front of the tank, so you think I would have noticed). Anyway you can clearly see the two mouths from the photo above. Like everything else, I'll be watching this closely to see how it plays out. Hopefully I'll be able to answer that age-old question that keeps us all awake at night: "How long does it take for a corallimorph to asexually reproduce?". My guess is pretty quickly, but I'll look again tomorrow (and everyday thereafter if need be), and we'll find out for sure.

The other fun happening that I noticed in surfquarium was the "puffing" of my small Fungia sp. coral. Normally there is little to no extension of the tissue while the lights are one, and it only swells a little at night (associated with the tentacles coming out). Today, I noticed that the little guy was swollen tremendously. Not sure if this is due to the over-shading produced by the mushrooms, or something else... but a cool sight none-the-less. You can see the difference for yourself with the photos below: The one on the top is "normal", the one on the bottom reflects the puffiness which greeted me this evening.


Thats it from surfquarium for now... check back soon. I'm not going anywhere in the near future, so the updates should come a bit more frequently for a while.