Interesting things you found in your Reef Tank

[FruiTee]

So I’ve been reefing now for a bit and i find myself scanning through my tank in the nooks and cracks seeing all the good the bad and the ugly and i always find a new sponge or a feather duster, a ugly aiptasia or a prawn looking copepod before my hawk fish or wrasse snatches it right up. I’m always amazed at this piece of living reef I have in my living room

I find myself many nights sitting at a low angle to the tank viewing from the sand bed up and seeing every line in my corals flesh watching the corals wave around in the flow

When I started this hobby I would stare at my cycling tank watching the hordes of pods crawl all over my glass between my sump baffles and be excited about what's to come


a few months ago i spotted this bivalve it's been in the same spot for awhile, I don't know where it came from or how it got there but it did, I can swear it's grown a little since it was first spotted

What have you discovered in your reef tank that amazed you

 

[Sharkbait19]

I’ve found lots of algae (of course), a brittle star, pods, mysis, a bivalve, monti (it died), stomatella, tunicates, sponges, a small snail, aptasia, and dusters as hitchhikers. Outside the bivalve, nothing was super exciting but still amazing to see the diversity!

 

[X-37B]

Coolest was this coral that was no bigger than an pinhead on a live rock. I thought I had orange coralline, lol.

 

[Slayyyter]

Currently the "coolest" find was a bobbit worm he ate all my coral except a small gsp frag

 

[Garia666]

Not something i found, but something I found out, was how long a mouth could be from this snail.


when it was feeding time they came up and I fed them by hand.

was amazing

 

[afrokobe]

I was trying to remove a rock from my tank. I pulled it and realized there was something stuck to it. A huge spaghetti worm had wrapped its entire body around this rock. Tentacles wrapped around every crevice and a huge body on the underside. I tried to shake it off, but it honestly startled me so much i just put the rock back lol.

 

[mdb_talon]

Well I found several barbie dolls in a sump once years ago. Apparently my son thought it was a great place to hide them from my daughter.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Amount some other things , this is the most interesting for me so far , my little murderer - found a dead snail

also can anyone explain the coraline algae growing under sand?! What the lol on the right side

 

[Sharkbait19]

I have some under sand too, just how it grows I guess.

 

[brandon429]

Ill find and post a slide picture nobody was ever able to ID including Dr. Ron S when he was at marinedepot forums.

my best guess so far, a planulae from alveopora. not sure:

has never been id’d

has ~sixteen lobes best I can see, that’s got to matter in someone’s taxa

this was not microscopic. It was undulating around the tank and I sucked it up in a straw lol then dropped it out on a slide for the pic. Was the size of a pepper grain irl

 

[PeterEde]

My wife thinks I'm nuts. I pull up a stool in front of the tank and scan for ages.
My coolest hitch hiker is my long spine urchin. It's doubled in size at least since I started the tank 2 months ago.
I have also seen 2 pistol shrimps

20211207_205651_1 by Peter Ede, on Flickr

 

[brandon429]

thats a helpful rasping algae eater hitchhiker

 

[dvgyfresh]

My wife thinks I'm nuts. I pull up a stool in front of the tank and scan for ages.
My coolest hitch hiker is my long spine urchin. It's doubled in size at least since I started the tank 2 months ago.
I have also seen 2 pistol shrimps

20211207_205651_1 by Peter Ede, on Flickr

Soon it will be the size of a basketball lol cool hitch hiker

 

[PeterEde]

thats a helpful rasping algae eater hitchhiker

Made a hole in my coraline for sure

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I recently found a tiny sea cucumber. No idea where it came from.

 

[MrTPlush]

My wife thinks I'm nuts. I pull up a stool in front of the tank and scan for ages.
My coolest hitch hiker is my long spine urchin. It's doubled in size at least since I started the tank 2 months ago.
I have also seen 2 pistol shrimps

20211207_205651_1 by Peter Ede, on Flickr

My favorite is my short spine urchin (rock boring, idk) hitchhiker. I didn’t even see it until about two months after starting my tank. It was just kind of cool to get something like an urchin as a hitchhiker.

 

[Loggerhead]

I found a pearlfish in my old 65 gallon tank once. Only saw it once and it hitchhiked in through a yellow sea cucumber.

 

[HB AL]

I found an old silver coin from an old shipwreck I guess in the bag of live sand around 15 years ago. Will look for a pic.

 

[Nano sapiens]

Parasites (anchor worms) on a Pederson's Cleaner Shrimp (who knew cleaners have their own parasites)?:

'Bob' the resident Eunicid worm:

Strange motile 'planulae?' on the sand bed (could never get them to develop, though):

Limpet shell permanently attached to Halloween Hermit's Cone Shell (thought this was a stuck-on shell until one day a very long black tongue and black/white antennae emerged):

Couple small unknown polyps that popped up recently from beneath encrusting coralline algae on 25 year old LR:

 

[ProxyAquarist]

Well I found several barbie dolls in a sump once years ago....

The new "SUMPtuous Barbie !"

You'll love Barbie and her new Skim-Mate, Chaeto !

Yours in the thrills of parenting,
Jim