Busy doings underwater

It has been raining off and on. The snow here in town is mostly washed away, except for the muddy piles alongside the roads. And the sun sets at 4:19 these days. Not that you'd notice; it has been hidden all day behind heavy clouds.

These are good days to stay home and watch the goings-on in my aquarium.

A green isopod, Idotea wosnesenskii, on eelgrass.

These isopods live on rockweed and kelp. Most of them, and certainly this one when I first saw him, are the colour of the kelp they live on, a muted yellow-green. I do try to keep some kelp or rockweed in the aquarium, but it never lasts long. What does thrive in the tank is the Pacific rose seaweed, and this isopod has been hanging out in its deep pink shelter. When he arrived, on a handful of rockweed, he was green, but with all the rose seaweed he's been eating, he's turned this dull wine colour.

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus.

The colours on his shell are patches of various algae; the deep red, as far as I can tell, is the crust stage of a leaf alga, possibly Turkish towel.

Grainy hand hermit, Pagurus granosimanus.

The collection underfoot is made up (as is much of the sand on the shore) of the remains of critters who, in this case, have grown up, lived, and died in the aquarium. Several species of limpets, one alive. At least 4 species of snail, a periwinkle, an Asian mud snail, a small carnivorous snail, and the big one, in import, that the hermit is wearing, plus fragments of many others. A piece of the molted pincer of a biggish crab. There are several anemones, the orange-striped green anemone, of which all that can be seen are the whitish tentacles. The little tube at the far left, I think, is the proboscis of a carinate dovesnail.

The hermits and crabs are scavengers. I feed them a variety of foods; a prepared shrimp/algae pellet, bug larvae pellets, dried seaweeds, dried slices of kelp stipe, dried shrimp, fresh or frozen sea lettuce. They clean out any shells where the owner has died, as they do in the wild. They also tidy up anything else organic that ends up in the water, so today I experimented by giving them a tiny piece of chicken gristle. That was 6 hours ago. Every time I've looked since, (including a minute ago) there were 3 or 4 hermits busy taking it apart, sometimes fighting over it. And the last time I looked, a carnivorous dove snail.

They are so spoiled!

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Ha estado lloviendo, en ratos. Aquí en el pueblo, la lluvia ha derretido toda la nieve, aparte de las acumulaciones de nieve y lodo al borde de cada calle. Y el sol se pone a las 4 con 19 minutos. No es que lo hemos notado; ya todo era oscuro a causa de las nubes densas.

Estos son dias en que apetece quedarme en casa observando las actividades de las criaturas en mi acuario.

Foto: un isópodo de quelpos, Idotea wosnesenkii, trepándose en hierba marina, Zostera sp.

Estos isópodos viven en los quelpos o en Fucus spp., un alga parda. La mayoría, como éste, la primera vez que lo vi, toman el color del alga, un verde amarillento o pardo. Trato de tener siempre algo de esta algas en el tanque, pero no duran mucho. Lo que sí prospera es el alga roja, Rhodymenia pacifica, que tiene un color rosa fuerte, el isópodo ha estado viviendo y comiendo entre esta alga, de allí que ha tomado este color vino oscuro.

Fotos: dos ermitaños, el "peludo" y el de "manos granosas".

El suelo debajo de sus patas se compone, como también las playas donde nacieron los ermitaños, de los restos de criaturas que nacieron, vivieron, y murieron en el acuario. Hay conchas de 4 especies de caracoles marinos: los bígaros, una Batillaria attramentaria - el caracol de lodo asiático, un caracol carnívoro, y la concha grande que lleva el ermitaño, éste uno comprado, originario de quien sabe donde. Además hay muchos pedacitos de otros caracoles. Hay varias especies de lapas, una viva. Varias anémonas, las anémonas verdes de rayas anaranjadas, de lo que lo único que aquí se ven son los tentáculos. Y parte de la muda de un cangrejo. El tubito que se ve a la izquierda es el probóscide de un caracol Alia carinata.

Los cangrejos y los ermitaños son carroñeros. Les doy una variedad de alimentos: gránulos preparados conteniendo algas y camarón, gránulos de larva de insecto, algas secas, quelpo reseco hecho en casa, camarones secos, lechuga marina fresca o congelada. También, de costumbre, vacían y limpian las conchas de cualquier animalito que se haya muerto. En sus aguas natales, también se ocupan de cualquier material orgánico que llega a caer al agua. Así que hoy hice el experimento de regalarles con un pedacitito de cartílago de pollo. Eso hace más de seis horas. Desde entonces, cada que los voy a ver, hay tres o cuatro ermitaños ocupados en deshacerlo y hasta peleándose si uno parece estar comiendo de más. Hace un poco, también hubo un caracol carnívoro, el Alia carinata.

¡Tan consentidos son!

Does this shell make me look fat?

 A buggy day. I've got a treasure trove of camouflaged critters to work on for a couple of days. Meanwhile, here's a hairy hermit, checking out his reflection in my camera lens.

Pagurus hirsutiusculus.

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Un dia lleno de bichitos. Tengo todo un tesoro de animalitos en camuflage para procesar y subir; me va a tomar un par de dias. Mientras, aquí hay un ermitaño peludo, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, que vino a mirar su reflejo en la lente de mi cámara.

Observation post

 Another dull day. Sunrise, 8:03 AM, sunset, 4:19 PM. In between, overcast, grey skies. Rain coming. These are days to spend critter-watching.

Here's a small hermit balancing on sugarwrack kelp.

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus in the aquarium.

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Y otro dia gris. El sol trata de salir a las 8:03 de la mañana, y se da por vencido a las 4:19 de la tarde. Y va a llover otra vez. Por toda la semana va a llover. Estos son dias para pasar el tiempo observando mis criaturas.

Aquí, un cangrejo ermitaño, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, balanceándose en una hoja de kelp "azucar", Saccharina latissima.

Pink shirt, big mouths, and notes on anemone diets

These are the last of the aquarium pics. For now; the next rainy day, I'll be staring at the glass wall again.

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, wearing a pink polka-dot shirt.

One of the limpets, busy eating.

I need to get a new aquarium; all the climbers with shells, the limpets and hermits and snails have scratched the glass from top to bottom over the years, so that I spend too much time deleting scratches from the photos and have given up entirely on the backgrounds. An automatic "remove dust and scratches" helps, but it removes the context.

Another limpet mouth. The spiral tube on the right is his gills.

The plumose anemone, Metridium senile on the far side of the tank.

This anemone was given to me by fellow blogger Tim at Boundary Bay, some 5 years ago. She was doing ok, then not so well, then really not so happy. She spent a lot of her time sulking, and instead of growing, she shrunk. I worried and hand-fed her; it didn't seem to help. Then I read that these anemones need kelp in their diet. I've been bringing home pieces of kelp and allowing them to disintegrate in the tank. And now she stays open most of the time, and she's growing again. I'm happy, she's happy.

And the crabs like the disintegrating kelp, too. Yay!

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Estas son las últimas fotos recientes de los residentes del acuario. Por ahora; en cuanto vuelve a llover, me pasaré horas mirando las paredes de vidrio otra vez.

Primero, un ermitaño peludo, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, llevando una camisa roja con puntitos.

Luego, dos lapas, comiendo. En la segunda, se le ve la branquia, ese tubo en espiral al lado derecho.

(Nota: tendré que comprar un tanque nuevo; los animales con sus conchas duras han hecho tantas rayas en el vidrio que me tengo que pasar mucho tiempo borrándolas de las fotos.)

Y una anémona plumosa, Metridium senile, al otro lado del tanque. Esta anémona me la dió un amigo hace como unos cinco años. Es de Boundary Bay. Al principio andaba bien, crecía y comía, pero con el tiempo no estaba tan bien, y luego se puso muy triste. Se pasaba la mayor parte del tiempo encogida, aplastada. Dejó de crecer, y luego hasta se contrajo. Traté de ayudarla, dándole de comer con la mano, pero no parecía tener efecto. Recientemente, leí que estas anémonas necesitan el alga kelp en su dieta. Empecé a traer pedazos de kelp a casa, y los he dejado desbaratarse en el tanque. Y ahora mi pobre anémona se queda abierta casi todo el tiempo, come y está creciendo otra vez. Está contenta: yo también.

Y a los cangrejos les gusta el kelp viejo, también. ¡Bravo!

Hi, Hermie!

 Hermit crab through an algae-smeared glass wall...

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus.

... and his blue knees.

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Un cangrejo ermitaño visto por medio de una pared de vidrio cubierta de algae. Tiene rodillas azules.

Busy scene

(Text in Spanish at the bottom: el texto en español sigue al pie de la página.)

The little periwinkle snails are hard workers. They scrape away the algae from the walls, from the oyster shells, from the eelgrass, and the filter intake. Here's one cleaning up the shell of a young hermit crab.

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, still very small. They lose their orange colour as they grow. 

Most of my crabs are quite small, but there's one huge one (huge by shore crab standards anyhow). His pincers are wide and powerful. The snail shell above, on the right shows what he can do; he breaks the shell of a live snail to get at the meat. He is otherwise not aggressive; everybody else gets out of his way; nobody challenges him.

But  nothing goes to waste. An orange-striped green anemone has set up shop in the abandoned snail shell.

Plumose anemone, Metridium senile, surrounded by seaweeds (Pacific rose, Turkish towel, eelgrass, a fragment of sea lettuce) and broken shells. 

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Los caracolillos trabajan constantemente. Raspan el algae de la pared, de las conchas en el piso, de las algas marinas, y hasta de la tubería del filtro. Aquí en la primera foto, uno se ocupa limpiando la concha usada por un cangrejito ermitaño.

El beneficiario es un ermitaño peludo, Pagurus hirsutiusculus, todavía muy joven. Al crecer, pierden el color anaranjado.

La mayoría de mis cangrejos son pequeños, pero uno es grande, enorme según el tamaño normal de su especie, Hemigrapsus oregonensis. Sus pinzas son grandes y fuertes. En la foto del cangrejo ermitaño, la conchita rota al lado derecho sirve como muestra de su actividad. Con las pinzas, aprieta la concha de mar hasta romperla, para comerse la carne.

Aparte de eso, no molesta a los demás habitantes del aquario; nadie le hace frente.

En el agua, nada se desperdicia. Una anémona (Diadumene lineata) se ha instalado en la concha rota donde está protegida pero expuesta a la corriente que le trae sus alimentos.

En la segunda foto aparece la anémona emplumada (Metridium senile) rodeada de algas marítimas: rosa pacífica, toalla turka, lechuga marina, y una hoja de Zostera marina.

Micro beasties

I bought myself another microscope. A cheap one, for students, with low magnification, but like the even cheaper one I'd had a few years back (that didn't last long), with the ability to take photos. The one I had been using up to now was for my eyes only.

Tonight, I set it up and collected some stuff from my aquarium; a teaspoonful of sand, a fragment of seaweed, a few empty (or so I thought) shells, and one of the smaller hermit crabs. Arranged them on plastic lids, since they needed to be kept in water, shoved them under the 'scope, and tried to focus. It's a bit difficult when your target keeps running away; even the seaweed was carrying mini-critters on the move.

Pacific rose seaweed, Rhodymenia pacifica. With worm and snails.

This delicate (but oh, so durable in my tank) seaweed is a sheet with one layer of cells. Here, each cell is visible. The fragment was about 3 mm wide. The worm, that looked like a hair, but crawled about slowly, is about as wide as one seaweed cell. Even through the microscope, I didn't recognize the dark patches, but once I blew up the photo, I see that they're all snail shape. No wonder I always have a batch of new tiny snails climbing the walls!

Another snail. Shell only, abandoned in the sand.

This was in the teaspoon of sand. The snail shell is about as large as the larger sand grains. Still tiny. With everything under a film of water, the microscope LED lights produce glitter. I edited out what I could without destroying what is underneath, but the tiniest white specks are moving critters, all constantly in random motion, sort of like a swarm of midges. Some of the brighter patches of light were pulsating, squirming something-or-others. I managed to see a couple of worms and something with legs before they hid under the sand grains again. Some of the sand grains were bouncing; there was something busy underneath.

On an old cluster of empty barnacle shells, a colony of orange-striped green anemones has settled in.

One of my smaller hermit crabs.

I've been wanting to get a good look at these hermits for a while. They look like hairies (Pagurus hirsutiusculus), but never seem to grow up to the expected size. Maybe I'm not giving them enough time. This one certainly looks like a hairy; banded green antennae, blue marks on the legs. But those two rows of lumps on the pincer arm look interesting: I'll have to examine more of these little guys.

A couple of periwinkles.

And a tiny snail, half the size of the smallest periwinkle, on the move. With sand grains for size.

This is fun! Let it rain!

Meanwhile, back in the tank ...

I've been too busy; travelling, running errands, catching up on paperwork (a form of procrastination to put off dealing with more challenging paperwork), gardening; all the things I do during a "lazy" summer. Sometime, weeks ago, I took a break and sat down by the aquarium to visit the hermits. And forgot to post the photos.

So here they are. Hermits and a crab.

Poor crabby. He must have tangled with one of the larger crabs, probably trying to hold onto his supper. He's lost a pincer. Luckily, he's got plenty of legs and mouthparts that can serve as spoons and forks, and the next molt, he'll get his pincer back.

Deep in the tank, colours are muted. It's like seeing through a light fog. Here, a hairy hermit looks back at me from her perch on Pacific rose seaweed growing on a stiff red alga. Pacific rose can grow from fragments left after it has been weeded out. I tear out whole handfuls every time I change the water.

A grainy hand hermit with colourful algae decorating his shell..

One of the tiny orange hermits in a brand-new shell. The seaweed here is broken, half-rotted rockweed. Good eating, the hermits say.

Grainy hand hermit (left) and small hairy hermit (right) on eelgrass.

Here's looking at you

Sometimes, out of the swirling mists, a pair of bright eyes* appears, startling in their intensity.

Hairy hermit, Pagurus hirsutiusculus

*And antennae. Can't forget those antennae!