Descriptive Essay About Reefing - 1615 Words

Twenty-five at the time, just married, having had my first son I’m not sure what possessed me to jump head first into the most expensive hobby conceivable, but, that’s exactly what I did. The reefing hobby is both challenging, and extremely rewarding. There are many daily, weekly, monthly, and even annual tasks that must be done to maintain a thriving system. In this essay I hope to give an understanding of what it’s like to keep a piece of God’s majestic ocean in my home. My current system is 300 gallons in total water volume. It towers in the corner of my living room, dwarfing everything in its presence. The wall mounted TV is but a small fraction the size of the tank. A faint hum not unlike that of a refrigerator can be heard from the†¦show more content†¦The arch is riddled with corals, it’s crowned with a particularly large SPS colony at least a foot tall known as a green slimmer. It was given this name because when removed from the water it will excrete a thick, snot like mucus to protect its delicate polyps. Polyps are the individual animals that make up the coral colony. They are essentially a round animal with a mouth in the middle and a ring of tentacles around the mouth. The tentacles possess stinging cells (called nematocysts) and can be used to sting, paralyze, and catch prey. They also share a communal skeleton that is made up of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). The calcium carbonate is collected from the water column, and in a closed system (like a fish tank) this must be dosed daily. Proper levels of calcium and alkalinity are essential for overall health of the reef. The left side of the aquascape is separated from the right by a deep chasm, or crevasse if you prefer, in the rockwork. It’s dominated by SPS corals. Although their branch structure and overall growth patterns vary, they essentially look like trees. They come in a variety of bright colors, ranging from crimson to deep blue. They are often more than one color, for instance some have a green base that turns to a vivid blue towards the tips. If you were to touch one it would have the texture, and feel of sharp jagged rock. Small acropora crabs and various other tiny crustaceans inhabit their branches. This is where many small prey