Seahorses: Spotlight on Vega

Last week’s Tuesday Tank post focused on Kirin, my largest and most dominant female. Today, I’m introducing Vega–Kirin’s sister and broodmate. When the seahorses arrived from the breeder last December, Vega was the only one who stood out instantly; she was black, while the others had snakeskin patterning.   According to the breeder, Vega was the largest and strongest of the more than two hundred baby seahorses in the birth group. She was also one of the few who took on solid coloring early in life, which also distinguished her from her mottled siblings. She was the first of the babies to leave

Read more

Anemone-Eating Nudibranchs: Berghia

Yesterday morning, I received a FedEx shipment from a nudibranch breeder in Florida containing a tiny colony of some very special creatures. Unfortunately, peppermint shrimp will also eat berghia nudibranchs, given the opportunity. As a result, and because the berghia are actually fairly adorable (if you’re into slugs), I’ve set up a separate tank to try and get a colony breeding before I put any nudibranchs into the reef. (We’ll see how this works out in the weeks to come.) Yesterday afternoon, I added the first aiptasia anemones to the little tank with the berghia. I only wish I’d been recording it on

Read more