Seagrass aquarium close-up

Seagrass aquarium close-up, showing a jeweled rockhopper blenny (Salarius fasciatus) resting on a live thorny oyster. This blenny is a herbivorous fish that grazes algae off the rocks, turtle grass, and aquarium glass.

Also visible are a variety of invertebrates and macroalgae, including:

• On and beneath oyster -- black and orange colonial tunicates
• Beneath oyster -- a small brown Aiptasia anemone.
• Top left -- the tentacles of a purple Macrodactyla doreensis anemone
• In front of the purple anemone -- branching pink coraline algae .
• Left foreground -- the greenish-grey object is a live, rapidly growing chicken liver sponge.
• In the foreground -- yellow filter-feeding sea cucumbers
• Below the blenny is a very small growth of the green algae Caulerpa racemosa, which grows to much larger sizes (several feet in length) and looks like clusters of grapes.
• The calcareous green algae Halimeda is in the shadows in the background near the purple anemone.

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