Salt
Water Aquarium Photos
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Jo
O'Keefe Copyright 2010. Photos may be used for educational purposes only.
Contact me with inquiries.
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Many visitors to the beach and
to my website ask how to keep marine animals alive when they return
to their homes. The first issue is "getting" salt water. I
use a product called Instant Ocean from Pet Smart. It is like
white salt. I dissolve a fourth cup of it in eight cups of water.
Keeping invertebrates such as crabs,
snapping shrimp and whelks in salt water only addresses one issue. They
need filtration to remove waste and to infuse oxygen. They need appropriate
food. In the ocean they eat microscopic plankton found in sea water.
You will not see a large mouth on a crab, anemone or sea star. The food
a whelk eats must pass through its siphon. Even though I bring home
a few cups of ocean water from every beach walk to add to my aquarium,
some animals that I put into it die. I have not learned to keep them
alive. Numerous websites provide instructions for setting up and maintaining
a salt water aquarium.
Fortunately, after photographing
the animals, I return many of them to the ocean the following day.
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Sea Hare, Aplysia
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Atlantic Giant Cockle,
Dinocardium robustrum
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Incongruous Arks,
Anadara brasiliana
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Forbes Sea Star
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Forbes Sea Star,
Asterias forbesi -- our most common sea star, tube feet and suckers
visible
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Sargassum Crab, Portunus
sayi, 07/11/07
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Sargassum Crab,
Portunus sayi, prying open Shark Eye, Neverita duplicata,
07/24/07
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Hairy Sea Cucumber,
Sclerodactyla briareus
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Anemone
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Anemone, 07/20/07
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Anemone, 07/09/07
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Warty Sea Anemone,
Bunodosoma cavernata, 05/02/07
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"Onion"
Anemones, Paranthus rapiformis
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Sea Anemone, Calliactis
tricolor
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Gray Striped Sea Star,
Luidia clathrata
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Stiff Pen Shell,
Atrina rigida
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Cherry-Striped Porcelain
Crab, Petrolisthes galathinus
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Sea Pansies, Renilla
reniformis -- These soft corals are colonies of polyps with a stalk
called a peduncle that it uses to anchor itself in the sand. Those on
Sunset Beach are about 3/4 inch wide and found in sea drift at the ocean's
edge. The ones on Edisto Island, SC, were nearly two inches wide. When
the sea pansy is in water, secondary polyps extend upward to snare passing
plankton. Sea pansies are remarkably bioluminescent.
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Two small Knobbed
Whelks, Busycon carica, climbing, antenna & siphon visible
on L, operculum & siphon visible on right, mucous dripping
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