I have been to
almost all of the MACNAs, and, as I'm sure that I've said
before, going to MACNA is a great experience. For me, although
I'm always interested in new information presented by the
speakers, and I'm always looking for new writers and information
for this publication, the best part of MACNA is meeting and
making friends. In this connection, getting together with
Morgan Lidster of Inland Aquatics -- InlandAquatics@aol.com -- and Bruce
Davidson owner of Sandy's Pet Shop -- sandyspetshop.com
-- was a special treat. After the conference, in Boston this
year, we drove back to my house on Cape Cod, where we had
a home cooked lobster dinner.
Both Morgan and
Bruce run retail aquarium businesses that are shinning examples
of how it should be done. They know what they're doing, give
their customers good advice, and only sell animals that are
healthy. If all aquarium stores followed their example animal
loss would probably be one tenth of what it is. Following
is a wonderful event that took place in Bruce's store.
Serendipity
One of the very
exciting things about our hobby is making an unexpected discovery.
Just such a thing happened to Bruce in his retail establishment.
He reported the following to me,
In late June
of 2004, I received a shipment of Tridicnad clams from one
of my west coast distributors. As my customers were checking
them out someone noticed that a 5-inch Squamosa had
a pair of shrimp inside it. The shrimp were clear with black
spots, about a half-inch long and were hanging around the
gills. I didn't get more than a glance at them before they
moved deeper into the body of the clam and out of view.
I shot out an email to Kevin Gains and Rod Burk to find
out if they see anything like this in the ORA clam farm.
Yes, and they seem harmless, was the answer I quickly got
back from both. The next morning I came in to find that
the clam did not recover from the stress of shipping and
the shrimps were gone! They were in a small 30-gallon tank
and I managed to locate one of the shrimps hanging onto
another clam at the base of the shell. I quickly netted
it and put it in a specimen container to take a few pictures.
Finished there, I carefully sucked the shrimp into pipette
and squirted it into the incurrent siphon of another clam.
This Squamosa is in my 180-gallon display tank and
about the same size and color as the one it came in on.
What happened next was quite a surprise. The shrimp jumped
out of the clam and onto the substrate at the base of the
shell. Over the next 20 to 30 minutes the shrimp took it's
time and slowly moved back to the top of the clam. Things
started with the shrimp sneaking onto the mantel from the
back and making it's way around the incurrent siphon to
settle between the in and out where it just sat for several
minutes taking a rest. At first the clam kept retracting
but soon the clam quit flinching every time the shrimp moved.
The shrimp started getting closer to the incurrent opening.
This shrimp really took it's time and if the clam moved
even a little bit it would back off, wait a few minutes
and try approaching again even slower than before. Over
time the shrimp's persistence paid off. The clam was receptive
to its advances and the shrimp made its move. It was as
if there was an understanding between the two and without
hesitation the shrimp moved in and the clam didn't even
flinch. It has been 3 months since and although I can rarely
get a glimpse of the shrimp the two are doing great.
Bruce Davidson
Sandy's Pet Shop
Louisville, KY
The photographs
were taken by Bruce's friend Will Heaton.
One of the chores
that most reef keepers face is cleaning the front glass, especially
scrapping off the hard coralline alga. If you have 10-foot
reef tank like myself it takes a lot of scraping, and as corals
grow closer and closer to the front glass it is often hard
to adjust the angle of the scrapper so that you don't brake
off pieces of coral. In the past I have made some by using
scrappers made for removing wall paper or paint from windows,
but their blade angle was not adjustable. The company Aqua
Medic showed at MACNA a scrapper that is the answer to my
dreams. The stainless steel blade is 6-inches wide, the head
angle is adjustable, and its handle (female screw type) will
take a broom type handle of any length. Other than the blade
the tool is made of hard plastic, and over the blade there
is a removable rubber blade which can be used to clean the
outside glass. If interested, Marine Depot, one of our sponsors
carries Aqua Medic products. Note, you may have to be patient,
as this is a new product.
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