Have you ever seen a live salt water coral eat? We have several different types of coral in our coral reef tank. We feed them at night and watch them under the black lighting. Most of them will glow in a bright sea foam color. Here are some photos of some of the different corals right after we fed them, as well as, some of the critters in the tank.
This is our boys faviorite hermit crab. We have an extensivie collection of shells which are now walking around our tank on the backs of several of the crabs who have out grown their homes and needed a larger shell to reside in.
These are Green Button Polyps. As they catch food with their tentacles, they close up into a ball and digests the food.
These are Pulsating Zenia's. These flow with the water and look a lot like feathers when they are open. When they feel the food touch their tentacles, they close up like a hand and digest the food into a small opening in the center of each head.
This is a Scooter Blenny sitting on our Watermelon Mushrooms. We call him Scooter. He is to cute the way he scoots around the tank.
The corals on the left are Emerald of God and the one on the right is a type of Brain coral. If you look in the center of each of the circular corals, you will see a mouth. The left have a florescent green line as a mouth and the right have a small hole in the center of them for a mouth.
When they eat, the Emerald of God will close up into a ball as the ones shown above do. The Brain coral will extend a see through type of fishing line. They draw them back up into the small mouth in the center of each circle to eat their food.
Tonight is our feeding night and I usually try to capture new images of the different corals and critters as they eat. It is a fun and relaxing hobby that my husband, 2 boys and I all enjoy together. Propagation is going well and the new corals in our other salt tanks here at home are growing in quite well. We are teaching our boys both how to care for the tanks and how to propagate corals. They both want to have salt tanks in their homes when they move out on their own. They really are relaxing, especially when the white light turns off at night and the black light stays on. The colors they display are amazing!
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