Green Spheres

alan1

alan1

Member
Ok, I have made my first purchase other than crabs/snails. hooray! Now the questions begin.
I purchased a mushroom from my local lfs (10 gal tank, NO lighting). Attached is a pic. My questions is this: What are the green spherical "bonus items" I inadvertently introduced into my tank?
In addition to this, I noticed a few transparent extremely fast creatures moving along the rock the mushroom was attached to; I haven't been able to get a good look at them since they are so fast and don't stay in view long enough. I can't tell if they are shaped like shrimp/fleas etc. Something tells me I got more than I bargained for today.
I should have QT'd this purchase, but since I only have a couple of crabs and snails, I took a gamble, with predictable results, possibly.

Alan
 
spanko

spanko

Active Member
Valonia, green bubble algae. Pretty invasive stuff. If you are going to manually try to remove it do not break the spheres, it will spread spores throughout the tank. I have heard it said that emerald crabs it it.
 
jaymz

jaymz

Member
The transparent 'flea' like creatures are most likely copepods, a good thing to have to help keep the rock and sand in healthy order.
The bubble algea is a fairly easy to remove. those spheres are firm not soft. just pinch and twist, but be very careful not to burst one or like it was said you will release spores and you will then have a problem.
 
alan1

alan1

Member
As a side note, It appears that I was sold a plate coral. These are also known as mushroom corals? Now this coral came attached to a rock. After doing a bit of research, I see that plate corals should be placed on bare sand. Since this coral is already on the rock, should I leave it alone?
Question #2. I feed my 2 hermits an occasional algae wafer. When they eat the wafer, bits and pieces flow through the water. Will this coral eat this type of food, or should I spot feed it?
 
morval

morval

Member
plate coral and mushrooms are diferent. plates have a skeleton and mush do not. what is in ur pic at the top looks like a ricordia florida mushroon and not a plate if thats what ur talking about or do u have somthing not pictured
 
alan1

alan1

Member
Awesome. Thank you for the ID, Morval. I was getting a bit confused between plates/mushrooms. The mushroom pics I looked up online didn't look anything at all like this thing, while the plate corals DID. This bugged me a bit since I specifically told the LFS that I wanted their "hardiest" mushroom species for my 10 gal NO light tank. Heh...it's nice to find out that they may have given me exactly what I had requested.
 
A

alexmir

Guest
Glad you got the proper ID on the coral.....But that ricordea mushroom is going to need light in order to survive. Are you planning on buying lights for the tank, or is it going into another tank.
They are very hardy though, and very pretty when under lights.
 
alan1

alan1

Member
Well, fooey. I specifically told the LFS that I was only looking for something which would be OK under my NO lighting. Man, I'm naive at times. Ok...well....since I DO need to upgrade the lighting then.... (Thank you for letting me know alexmir
)
Which type of lighting would be best for this guy? It's just a 10 gal tank. If possible, I'd like to purchase a light which I could still rest on the glass top of my hood...PM's with suggestions would be very much appreciated.
 
A

alexmir

Guest
For mushroom corals like the one you have, minimum lighting is needed. You do not need strong lights for that coral. There are some coral that do not need any lights at all (sun coral, some gorgonians) but those corals need to be fed a few times a week in order to survive.
I would say mabye small power compact lighting or t-5 lighting. With t-5 lighting that is around 20 watts, you could keep a decent amount of coral.

Others chime in about ideas.
 
alan1

alan1

Member
Purchased a 40 Watt PC light/moonlight today. Hopefully that will make the Ricordia happy. On a side note, my turbo snails and/or hermits absolutely demolished the bubble algae. Someone in that tank must be absolutely stuffed.

Alan
 
A

alexmir

Guest
Those lights will definitely make the ricordea happy!!! You could also keep some other medium light corals (assuming that all of your parameters are where they are supposed to be.)
I would say you could keep some leather corals (colt, toadstool etc.) And definitely zoanthids.

Put up some full tank pictures of the tank with the lights on
 
alan1

alan1

Member
Well Alex, I fell prey to "shopping disease" while getting the new light, and picked up a purple leather, and Xenia.
Attached are pics of each, as well as the shot of the full tank. The placement of the Xenia has me a bit anxious. In order to get the rock to look halfway decent, the Xenia ended up getting placed in an almost horizontal position. Can these guys move around or reorient themselves at all? If not, it looks like the rock will need repositioning. It definitely doesn't look very happy. The wife will hurt me if any more purchases are made in the near future, but down the road, what do you think would make for nice additions? The tank is pretty ugly with the exception of 3 small bursts of color. LOL.
Alan


 
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