What's been your best surprise find in your reef? (1 Viewer)

[Cakepro]

By far, my best surprise has been the consistent reproduction of a hitchhiker...a beautiful frilly-skirted jet black limpet called Scutus unguis. Ron Shimek claims they're highly beneficial microalgae grazers that don't "seem to" reproduce in captivity. I just poked my head down in my sump and discovered three teeny little guys so they're reproduced once again. What started out as a pair of hitchhikers three years ago has become more than a dozen, and if there are three that I can see in my sump right now, that means there are probably at least three more that I can't see. Gotta love the surprise reproduction of a beneficial animal that's rarely offered for sale.

What's been your best reef surprise?

~ Sherri

 

[Cakepro]

Oops, I just went back to look at the three babies and I actually see nine. That's the best batch ever!

 

[Guest]

Want me to PM you my address so you can send me some? hehe

I haven't gotten anything super fantastic out of my reef really. A few snails of various types and a cool worm that died off in the great transfer of 2004. I should have collected some specimens; nobody I talked to knew what it was.

 

[cparka23]

i also have some limpets, but they don't sound nearly as terrific as yours, Sherri. they're pretty much plain white or maybe pearl colored. nice to see them, but they haven't really done a lot for my algae. maybe it grows over so fast that i can't tell if any has been eaten.

i've also found a pretty cool looking feather duster in my rock. it's yellow with brownish-red rings going around the 'feathers'.

 

[Guest]

cparka- not all limpets are good, some can be pretty nasty.
The best limpet is a Mr Limpet

My surprise...
I caught some mysis at one of the collecting trips and now my tank is teeming with them.

 

[darrin]

i found a penny in my tank once.... not sure how it got there, but nothing bad happened... i wonder if a customer threw it in for luck..


stupid people!

 

[Guest]

you should have left the penny in to see if it would reproduce...

 

[pernelf]

When I first set up my tank, we found this cute little baby anenome, we were so excited that we had a baby anenome. We feed it flake food twice a day. The big surpise was when I found out it wa aiptasia :banghead2:

 

[PygmyAngel]

Had to be for me when I saw 'my' first batch of eggs. ...But the 1st part of the surprise was that after several months of having the 2 Maroon clowns in the tank, they finally became a couple--on their own. Then, in March '03 it happened. I was so excited I really did scream out loud and jumped up and down...what a dork!!!! The 3rd part of it was when I got to see the hatchlings swimming around. Those were so cool. So tiny. 8O ....It never gets old to see them having a new batch every few weeks...prepping the area, tending to them, etc...awesome.

When they first started spawning, very 2nd batch:

[glow=darkred:a9bd902ec3][/glow:a9bd902ec3][glow=red:a9bd902ec3][/glow:a9bd902ec3][glow=orange:a9bd902ec3][/glow:a9bd902ec3][glow=brown:a9bd902ec3][/glow:a9bd902ec3]

 

[Guest]

i found a penny in my tank once.... not sure how it got there, but nothing bad happened... i wonder if a customer threw it in for luck..


stupid people!

Oh no copper!

 

[Guest]

When I had my Chiclid tank in college I found a cell phone once and another time I found three full beers that were quite tasty after I cooled them down.

 

[KarenB]

Best surprise find? Has to be the jawfish eggs. Before that it was the wonder of the shrimp spawning all the time. Before that it was finding these tiny white tadpole-looking critters that swim around in my fuge, btw which I still don't know exactly what they are.

 

[HolyBanana]

Mine was to see my red Mithrax crabs spawning. I wish I had my camera there, it would have been a great shot.

 

[Guest]

The most popular answer so far is sex in your tank is a surprise.

 

[KarenB]

Oh, yeah.....thanks for reminding me. My emerald crab spawned after I'd had him in the tank for about a week. I think we'd had the tank up about a month, and so I didn't know what happened the first time it happened. I just saw all these little eyes attracted to the glass. Then about two or three days later, another crab spawned, and I actually got to watch. Weird......just opened up the hatch and pumped them out. I have to admit I was pretty awe struck. I think that was before we ever got our peppermint or cleaner shrimps.

 

[pernelf]

Now that I think about it, I had a big surprise when all the bristle worms in my tank decided to spawn and spew this pepto looking stuff all over the tank.

 

[Guest]

I don't know about the best surprise, but the worst has to be BRYOPSIS!!! I'd post a picture, but it's too depressing...

 

[Cakepro]

That is some really nasty stuff. I had an outbreak from a couple of frags I got and ended up having to pull off as much as I could and put superglue gel over the areas from where it was growing. I had to sacrifice some polyps on two blood-red-with-green-centers blastomussa frags in order to get it under control, but it worked and the blasto grew right over the superglue. I found that when my alkalinity was high, nuisance algae was able to be kept under control. Funny thing was that in that reefkeeper's tank, it wasn't a problem, but it grew like wildfire in mine.

 

[incysor]

I bought a fist-sized red mushroom rock from one of the LFS. After it had been in the tank a week, I was cleaning the tank, and looking at it from a different angle, and it turned out that the 'rock' was one big bi-valve. I
re-arranged how it was sitting so that I could see it when it was open. It wasn't colorful, or anything, but it was still a pretty neat surprise.

 

[Guest]

Did you pull the rocks out to superglue the areas? I think part of my problem is that I don't have much Chaeto in my sump, so the Bryopsis doesn't have much competition for nutrients. Maybe I should put the Bryopsis in the sump...