Re: New Accidental Familial Addition   8/9/08
Hi Bob;
<D>
Thank you so much for your reply. I apologize for the quality of the photograph; it was hard getting the contrast right because h/s is dark and was sitting against a dark backdrop of macro algae. I'll try to describe h/h in a little more detail (for the readers h/s = he/she and h/h = him/her): h/s is a dark molasses colour with largish white spots that run along the length of his body. He speckled with tiny white dots. When we first spotted h/h the spots were flat and he was drawn up to about an inch in length. Once h/s was in the water, turned out the spots were spiny protrusions (the speckles I think were tube feet). He tapers at one end (I'm assuming this is the anal end because it was the end that the ejection was protruding from) and at the other end are his gill/feeding apparatus which he opens and closes as described in much of our reading by extending finger like protrusions and then curling them back in towards him 'mouth'.
Hopefully that will give you a better picture. Again, we searched through hundreds of pictures of cucumbers on the internet and the H. Impatiens is the closest species we could find that looked like him. Hope this helps.
<A good description... and this species is a frequent hitchhiker on algae culture purchases>
Our aquarium is a two year old 45 gallon bow front with about 40 pounds of live rock and about a three inch sand bed. We've got two giant pieces of dead coral that make up little hidey holes for our various residents. We've a Fluval 405 filter
<Do make sure the intake screen is in place... and that rock is piled about this to prevent this, other benthic invertebrates of size being sucked up against>
with two containers of ceramic pre-filter; two containers of activated carbon, one container of contaminate removal resin (bagged), two containers of poly fine filter media, and two containers of porous bacteria filter media. We have an Aqua-C remora protein skimmer
<The intake to this too>
and an in-line heater. Our main power head is a magnetic driven type power head that has the drive apparatus on the outside of the tank with nothing but impeller on the inside attached magnetically.
<Ditto>
The impeller intake is grated and runs the entire length of the of the housing but it is not a fine grating and the output is open, but it moves water all around the entire tank so it's pretty powerful. We test PH and salinity twice daily with the former sitting 8.2-8.3 and the salinity at 1.026. Temp stays at a balmy 78 degrees,
<All good>
although here in San Francisco we do have a few hot days where it gets harder to maintain the consistent temperature and it has at times risen to 80 to 82.
<No worries>
Those days are rare and we try to keep an eye on the weather and if it does feel like it's getting warm we use a fan to evaporatively cool the water. This usually works well and the temp usually only fluctuates a degree or so.
We do ten percent water changes twice per week (we make our own salt and fresh water from deionized tap water using an adjuster to set the PH for the fresh water and aeration balancing for the saltwater).
<Very good>
The Fluval is cleaned and thoroughly washed once per week (the bio media is washed in fresh saltwater). We test all of our parameters once a month and at the last testing about a week ago Ammonia, nitrites and copper were at zero, phosphates were at 5 ppm (we've isolated the cause of this and have taken corrective actions), nitrates were at 20 PPM, calcium was at 340 ppm and the GH is 7 degrees.
Our inhabitants include two maroon clown fish, about eight hermit crabs, three zebra turbo snails, a cowry, a hatpin and pencil urchin, a chocolate chip starfish, a strawberry and mithrax crab, two cleaner shrimp, a blood shrimp and two fighting conchs. All are happy healthy and living it up at Chez Aquarium.
<Heeee!>
So do you think we'll be able to keep him? Many thanks for your help and advice.
D
<I do think... you are! Cheers, BobF>