Saw the bristleworm again!

Today, it appeared for a brief moment, while I was showing the tank to my friend Walter.  Grabbed a camera, got some handheld shots, all terrible, of which the less worse was this one:

The worm is the orange thing in the middle of the picture.  Shortly after, it disappeared into the rock crevices again....

You can see the colors the live rock has acquired in this picture, two dark red spots appear in the right hand side of the picture.  Coraline algae, I presume....

Here are pictures of the aiptasia that reappeared...

It is now about 5mm long, no sweeping tentacles yet:

Another view:

Copepods! And aiptasia update.

Today I spotted copepods in the substrate, very tiny ones.  Or let me rephrase that, I discovered tiny creatures in the crushed coral substrate that I guessed must be copepods, guessed because they were mobile and tiny, so I couldn't see what they were.  But then late at night (1 hour ago), after a party we held today at home, using a flashlight I saw larger ones swimming in the open water.  I could see these larger ones have a body just like this picture from Melev's reef.   These are night creatures it seems, as I hadn't seen them in the daylight.

This is a good sign, it seems like the base ecosystem is establishing itself in the tank.  Copepods will be a source of food to other animals, and will eat the detritus others produce too.  It seems like the crushed coral substrate is a place where they are reproducing well.

Other good signs were that:
1. I saw bubbles in the substrate, probably a sign that the bacteria that transform Nitrate to other stuff plus Nitrogen are well at work in the oxygen depleted area of the substrate.
2. The rocks are getting many greenish, purple and red spots/areas.  Red (dark red) are few, and I'm not sure what they are, probably coraline algaue.  Purple and green are here and there in larger quantities. I understand purple is coraline algal, and greed is normal algae.... let's see.

Regarding the strange thing that appeared in my tank Sept 16th, looked like aiptasia or a zoanthid.... well, the ReefCentral folk believe it is aiptasia.  During the last week it gradually receded then disappeared yesterday.... therefore I was concluding it wasn't aiptasia, as those pest are super resistant to everything.  But.... today I saw it again, extending its body.  Couldn't get a good picture, as it is quite small, but it really seems like I'll need the shrimp that eat aiptasia....

As soon as I get better pictures I'll post them over here.

What is this?

We just discovered this anemone-looking thing in the tank... yesterday... what is it?

First a large picture, it is the small tentacled thing in the middle left of the frame:

A closeup in that picture:

It is maybe 2 or 3 mm across, very small.

I hope it is not aiptasia.... we didn't add anything to the tank yet, so this must have come in the rock when the tank was assembled.

The only 'change' was the water change more than a week ago. So it is somewhat of a surprise to find this creature in there. Could it be a zoanthid?  I hope so....

Bristleworm! (but no pics... :-( )

Found a bristleworm in the tank today! What a surprise... it must have come with the live rock, since the tank was setup, but I had never seen it. Might have more, who knows.

Unfortunately, by the time I got my camera to shoot it, it was gone.... :-( . Looked for it several times afterwards, even with a flashlight at night, but couldn't see anything.

Here is a link to a similar looking one from Melev's site: http://www.melevsreef.com/id/bristleworm.html

First signs of green algae

Yesterday my wife noticed the first greenish spots in our aquarium. It seems like the green algae cycle/bloom is starting. No pictures to show yet, they are too small and probably wouldn't be visible in the pictures.

Tested water yesterday, all normal, looks like a brand new cycled aquarium. pH 8.0, Amonia 0, Nitrire 0.05 ppm and Nitrate 20 ppm.