[shale]

The day after I put that tiger tail cucumber back in the tank, he vanished again. Didn’t see him for the rest of the week. Checked the overflow, checked the sump, nuthin. But I finally spotted him this morning, waving around under one of the rocks.

All the inverts in the tank are such characters. William the Bloody, our blue tuxedo sea urchin, has decided that appropriate camouflage to carry with him is this little suction cup. We use it to hold the small tubing in place to drip acclimate the inverts, and it must have fallen behind the rocks shortly after everyone moved into the bigger tank. So our little guy picked it up and stuck it to his head and he won’t let go. I’ve tried to gently remove the thing, since I’m not sure he should be wearing plastic, but I can never seem to get him to give it up.

Here’s William, rehearsing for his role in Wagner’s Die Walküre. Note that he’s not so much carrying a spear and magic helmet as a suction cup shield, a small colony of zoas and a bunch of chaeto for a wig.