Busy, busy!

More test shots; back to the aquarium and live critters again.

This first photo is as taken; despeckled, resized, and sharpened only. I left the "dust" in place; it's part of the action.

In the upper levels of the tank, like it would be on the intertidal flats, everything is in constant motion. Here, the red algae sways in the water, and a small family of blue anemones glued to a fragile blade waves its tentacles, hoping to catch some of the swimmers that muddy up the current. Behind, bubbles dance; large ones going down, from the pump; small ones heading back up to the surface, carrying goodies collected en route. Released at the top, the goodies float back down; more specks in the water.

This red algae gathers "dust". I pour clean water over it, or take it out and swish it around in fresh water, and it looks beautifully clean. A few minutes back in the tank, and it's covered in these little specks. Some may be sand, some is detritus, leftovers from critter meals or floating fragments of rotting eelgrass, and the rest is made up of small animals, copepods and amphipods eating detritus, and tiny worms eating copepods and amphipods.

And I hadn't even noticed the hermit until I looked at the photo. There's usually one or two hidden somewhere in this mess.

Everything going at once

On the other end of the tank, and up close to the wall, things are more peaceful.

Leafy hornmouth snail, Ceratostoma foliatum, sleeping.

The water is clearer away from the current; I removed only a handful of swimmers and a scratch on the glass. This snail eats barnacles; in between times, he wanders around the walls, then goes to sleep for a day or so.

His shell started out white and pink, but as he grows it gets craggier and darker. He's beginning to show the "leaves" that give him his name; for now, they're just sharp lengthwise ridges.

Setup for these photos: black poster board behind tank, white reflector above and on both sides, spotlight aimed at top reflector, flash ditto. This seems to work on the upper levels, but not down on the sand. More experimentation needed.

New camera

One day without a pocket camera was one too many. I went out and bought another; a little Sony like the last one. This one is the DSC-WX350.

By the time I got it home and set up, it was too dark to take it for a run outside, so I took a few trial shots into the aquarium.

Red algae, a shred of sea lettuce, and the little blue anemone.

Hairy hermit.

Juvenile leafy hornmouth, bearing three very tiny baby blue anemones. 

One of the miniature orange hermits, on eelgrass.

So far, so good. It's about the same size as the one it replaces, but with better zoom. In this first test, it gives me good colour; difficult through algae-coated glass. It's fast, so it stops even walking hermits in their tracks. Unfortunately, the photos are noisy, and focussing is iffy on tiny things. But I do like its speed.

I won't be using it for my critters, though. The real test will be tomorrow: skies, stuff, buildings, roadsides, people.

Update on the blue anemone

A couple of days ago, Judy asked about the baby blue anemones; "Have any ... survived"?

One had. I wasn't too sure about a couple more.

That one is still hanging in there. It's only a few millimetres across, too young, really, to be out on its own. A persistent little critter, though; it was clinging to a few inches of torn eelgrass when I transferred it to the "hospital" tank, where the current is not as strong and there are no meddling hermits. The eelgrass has rotted away this week, until yesterday there were barely a couple of fraying threads left. Still the anemone hung on.

I fed it shrimp puree, and it stretched out stubby baby tentacles and grabbed some. It's awake and responsive. There's hope!

Tonight, I couldn't find it at first.  The eelgrass had finally disintegrated and sunk to the bottom, in pieces. I searched through the gunk and squirming amphipods until I found a shred of brown eelgrass tissue, with the blue speck of anemone sticking desperately to the end of one thread.

The rescue attempt: I found another length of eelgrass, a good, solid, fresh stem end. With a plastic wire (no metal in the tank) and working underwater, I tied the far end of that thread along the new eelgrass, so that the anemone lay next to it, almost touching.

I spent a few minutes, four or five, shutting down the tanks for the night. Before I turned off the anemone's light, I looked to see if my anchoring job had held. And the little Einstein had taken the opportunity; it was already in the middle of the new eelgrass blade! Brilliant!

Its survival is still iffy, but for now, tag me #happyhappy and #proudfostermamma.

No photos of the blue anemone; have a happy blue ladybug instead.

Smiling 25-spotter, in a Beach Grove garden