Moonlight Views

Got home tonight after the actinics turned off, so it was just the moonlight LEDs lighting the tank.

Even with 1 LED per 12" of linear tank, there are still a lot of details to be seen, especially after a person's eyes adjust to the lack of light and begin to focus on moving shades of grey.

I noticed the new Peppermint Shrimp at the left side of the tank.  As it was inspecting the rock, it came across one of the Brittle Starfish legs.  He began to "box" with the starfish, but the starfish leg went limp and began to curl in the flow.  Almost immediately the shrimp apparently realized the leg was nothing interesting.

A few minutes later the shrimp actually crossed over the starfish and changed rocks.  Good, I'm thinking.  That's the rock with aiptasia.  The rock is about 8 inches in length with the aiptasia on the left edge.  The shrimp was on the right edge.  It crossed along the front of the rock for just a couple of inches, then left the rock and began weaving across the substrate toward the front of the glass...  so the aiptasia lives yet another day.

A while after that the shrimp appeared on the anemone bowl, inspecting the front side.  After a few minutes of this, the shrimp began to get higher and higher on the rock, approaching the edge of the bowl.  Mama Clown just so happened to be on watch just above the shrimps position.  I could see her notice the shrimp's antennae weaving back and forth as appeared over the edge.  A few seconds after noticing, Mama Clown exited the anemone to see what exactly it was.  The clown and shrimp met at the edge at the same time.  A couple head-butts from the clown and the shrimp disappeared behind the Encrusting Anethelia.

So it seems the shrimp is acclimating to it's environment nicely.  We should probably get a few more.  Most of the live rock is not stacked, which leaves a lot of no-mans-land that cannot be reached to be cleaned or vacuumed.  Detrivores will be needed to assist in these areas.  Also, Peppermint Shrimp claim a territory of about 12".  To evenly distribute shrimp across the entire tank, 4 would be needed.

I've also been reading about how the shrimp generally won't dine on larger aiptasia... which is disappointing.  In my opinion, two of the three visible aiptasia are "not small".  So perhaps I'll be entering the tank (or pulling the rock they live on) to at least partly remove the current aiptasia (knowing I will not possibly be able to completely remove it) so that they may grow back smaller & more appealing to the shrimp.  I'd do it right now if the starfish wasn't in the way...

The glimmer of Moonlight LEDs from the photosynthetic cyanobacteria.