I received a PM today asking for a blog topic on these sea stars.  The following pics are from garf.org.

Basically if you find these little guys in your tank (often with legs of differing lengths) then you may want to remove them...

The tend to feed on corals, especially sps corals.  The often replicate by splitting which is why you see some half stars in the pics and also the different lenght of legs that are regenerating.

Remove them by plucking them out.  That really is the best way and you'll be amazed at how easy it is to keep up on them when you take 15 mins to remove a dozen or so.

Adam

Why are some tunicates so hard to keep?

Adam

Here  is a perfect Sohal tang specimen, I think we can all recognice the sohal as the RC mascot.  A beautiful fish, but remember, it is quite aggresive; so if you decide you want one, make sure you really want one!!

-Jc

-Reefenvy-

Here are some great lookin tangs, I especially love the orange shoulder tang.  That Naso is pretty awesome also!

-Jc

-Reefenvy-

Here is a great looking Paly rock, these are huge... just compare them with the powder blue!  The picture is taken with actinics and is from a friend's tank:

-Jc

-Reefenvy-

Here is great looking deep water A. suharsonoi

-Jc

-Reefenvy-

Hey everyone,

We will be talking and showing the actual MACNA convention Very soon!!  SO keep your pants on, it's coming up!! ;)

-Jc

-Reefenvy- 

Here a couple other cool critter we saw while behind the scenes in the Houston Zoo!

You all recognize this fish, well of cource, its a Lion fish, only thing is, this lion fish was pretty big!!  And he looked super mean!  I told my buddy to pet him but he woulden't ;)  Good thing he didn't they pack a powerful sting that would get you pretty ill O_O

Now this piture you really have to look closely, If you look on the top right you will see what apears to be a shell.  It is actually the very neat Chambered Nautalis!  It was just bobbing up and down very slowly in his little corner... very contently I might add!

Keep checking our blog for more MACNA 2006 Pics and stories, we are getting close to the convention!!

-Jc

-Reefenvy- 

MACNA 2006 - Houston Day one - Thursday

After we walked away from those sweet softies tanks, this was the monster of a skimmer that was on the side!!  Now this thing was HUGE!!!!  probably 10- 12 feet tall:

It is an RK2 Skimmer:

This was another cool little tid bit of equipment, It is actually a temperature controler!

It controlled and monitored the temperatures for a couple of their display systems:

Yep, there is LOTS more!! ;)  Isn't MACNA great so far??

-Jc 

 -Reefenvy-

Remember that big green Monti Cap look alike coral in the previous Blog post??

This piece was 3 feet across and the aquarium keeper from the Houston zoo told me they have had it for 14 years!

It is actually a plating Hydnophora!!

Here are some closer shots:

Pretty cool huh?

Oh yeah, This Kick Butt Acro was right next to it!!  They actually had a couple colonies just like this one in another tank!

Yep you guessed it, More to come!!

-Jc

-Reefenvy-