Reef Tank Update
16 April 2007There have been several new developments in a week since the last post.
Two more hermit crabs have died. At least I think they died. Initially, I couldn’t find empty shells for either crab. One of them was a larger crab and I can’t imagine that I’d lose track of that shell. The other was one of the very small ones and I did later locate its shell tucked deep inside some branchy rock. I’m guessing the latter got its shell stuck there and died in its escape and subsequent search for a new shell. I suppose the former could just be the shell that a crab moulted. I’m not certain how to tell.
New Livestock:
4 new Blue Legged Hermits @ $2.99 each
4 new Turbo Grazer snails @ $2.99 each
1 Peppermint shrimp @ $11.99
The most interesting new inhabitant is a peppermint shrimp. I picked it up at the local pet shop as the initial strategy to rid the tank of the aiptasia anenome. It seems to have worked. Very quickly, the aiptasia was gone. Mission accomplished.
At first I was a bit reluctant to put this in the tank. In the pet store, the few tanks that are full of shrimp aren’t very attractive. They’re big and scary looking. And their legs and antennae seem to take up a lot of space. But now that it is in my tank, it has quickly become my favorite thing to watch. Everything it does — how it swims, eats, even hides away, is fascinating. Unfortunately, its favorite hiding place is in the back against the wall. Oh well. Maybe I’ll get another as they really seem to do a good job at getting into the deep places to clean out the rocks.
This morning I arrived to see what appeared to be a dead shrimp. It is totally white resting on its back on the rocks and completely intact — every feature down to antennae, swimming legs, eyes, etc. etc. I stared at it long enough to be convinced that it had died and them moved on to inspect the rest of the tank… And a shrimp swam by!
The shrimp had merely moulted. I cannot believe how complete its former exoskeleton is. All is well.
It is hard to keep track of how many animals are in the tank now. There are 9 or 10 snails and 7 or 8 crabs. They don’t seem to be able to keep up with the algae at this point and seem to be able to keep only 30% of the rocks clean. The sand at the bottom of the tank is pretty well covered with algae as well. I did move the snails around to spread out their efforts and that has helped some. I think more are needed.
on April 20th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
I would not get to dispondent at this point. Bear with it your aquarium looks to be going through a diatom algae bloom. This type of algae feeds upon silicates in the water. There will probably have been a lot of silicates in the sand as well as the cables, etc on the equipment. Once the silicates have all been consumed then the diatom algae will die back as quickly as it came.
Keep doing your water changes, let the crabs etc do their jobs and in no time it will look a whole lot different