Aquarium sampler

The beasties in my aquarium have been busy these last few days, happy with a new batch of fuzzy eelgrass, cleaning barnacled clamshells, and taking care of their family responsibilities. (Mating, laying, and toting eggs.)  I had a list of photos I needed to take: a shrimp eating bubble shell eggs, the one-sided crab cramming food into his mouth with one pincer, a huge, dark green amphipod, the leafy hornmouth snail growing wings, a three-armed starfish, and Barney, in his brand-new outfit.

Two out of six ain't bad.

Barney wasn't co-operating; he went and hid at the back of the tank, but I only needed his jacket, after all.

"Look, Ma, no barnacles!"

It must be nice to be able to slough off old skin, and get an all-new, younger complexion again. Here's Barney, as he was a month ago:

Barnacles and algae on his back

And just look at him now!

Inside one of the barnacled clamshells that I  brought for the leafy hornmouth, I found a baby starfish with only three arms. I don't know if he's sick, and has detached the damaged arms, or if something tried to eat him. But he has a new, growing stub of a fourth arm, and seems contented in a hospital tank. If he survives, I'll take him back to the beach; we need all the immune starfish we can get.

He's an inch across.

I watched a mid-size shrimp eating bubble shell eggs. She seemed to like the jelly they're encased in; every so often, she'd spit out a whole yellow egg, and it would drift away. The hermits eat the eggs, jelly and all.

Eggs in aspic?

And to make up for the missing amphipods, etcetera, here are a few other critters:

Nassa snail, balanced on the tip of a barnacled clamshell

Hydroids, Obelia sp. The hermits eat these as soon as they finish the diatom masses.

"Cheese!"

And I still have four photos on my list. I'll try again tomorrow.