Reef Invertebrates

Inverts are where a reef stops being a display and starts being a system. Most of what is here does a job, and the ones that do not are here because somebody wants to watch them.

The workers: brittle and serpent stars that live in the rock and clean what falls into it, reef and pin cushion urchins that graze film algae and coralline, turbo snails, red-legged hermits and emerald crabs. Cleaner and Pederson shrimp for the fish, which is a real behavior and not a novelty.

The one to think twice about is the flame scallop. It is beautiful and it is a non-photosynthetic filter feeder, which means it does not eat light and it does not eat pellets. It lives on phytoplankton, dosed regularly, and a tank that is not already dosing phyto will starve one slowly over months. If you want one, plan the feeding first.

Urchins move things. Hermits will take a snail’s shell if you do not leave empty ones out. Neither is a defect, and both are easier to plan for than to fix.