I’m 1/4 with inverts with them—every loss from my tank has been something from that shop. I declare myself absolved of responsibility, haha. Of course my favorite LFS is out of emerald crabs at the moment so my bubble algae is staring me in the face in a very threatening way… I’m gonna have to go in manually, and I’m certain I’ll make it worse somehow.
The first emerald crab is dead! Long live the second emerald crab!
Please welcome Stevie to the tank. After a half hour of acclimation I plopped her onto the rock and she immediately—I mean immediately—began helping herself to the algae buffet. Does anyone speak crab? I need to let her know the bubble algae station is open!
I think you should wait until you have way more algae than you currently do—mine is pretty well encrusted, and I finally got bubble algae- that’s what I was waiting for before pulling the trigger. They don’t go after other stuff when they have enough algae to eat. Also, the consensus on here seems to be female emeralds aren’t as aggressive.
Oh ok that makes sense!
I've been looking at getting a spinstream, how's it faring for you?Full tank shot from today! Made a few minor changes, like relocating the red hex algae (and taking a snip of it for a second location) to clear up room for whatever coral I decide to put where it used to be. I also added a spinstream return to create a more random flow pattern.
Had to pluck off some hair algae from the rock my pipe organs were on, and I rotated it and wedged it in a bit better- it was still a bit loose. It had three polyps when I got it, but 5 more little ones have popped out and I see even more budding. Feels like success!
A branch of my halimeda was fading for the last few days, and finally tumbled to the ground, leaving behind a little skeletal rubble. I figured I'd leave it there, I'd rather the calcium stay in the tank then be exported, and it'll eventually just turn over into the substrate. Adds character, anyway.
Not sharing a pic of it, but I caught my rhodactis pooping. Even though I know they're animals, it still surprises me when corals poop.
I realized that since nothing is stacked on top of it, there's no reason the rock I'm keeping my GSP on needs to be sunk deep into the substrate. I gained quite a bit of real estate this way. The string of pearls was blocking the snail path to the back corner of the tank. Within a couple minutes of me mucking about in the substrate and moving things around to open up space, the conch dug itself up from where it's been under the surface for two days, did a couple laps around the back of the tank, and returned to the front. So clearly that was a good idea! I gave some of the cuttings I took to my neighbor. It's cool to grow enough of something that you can share it around! It has also developed holdfasts onto the pebble it's tied to! Only took a few weeks.
Still not the world's biggest cleaner shrimp fan-- I don't like that he hogs the mysis shrimp as soon as I drop it in. But I realized that if I distract him with a piece of algae wafer before feeding, he's full by the time the mysis comes around. I'm still on the fence about keeping him, but he's truly doing a good job of keeping any meat laying around in the tank.
I haven't seen all three sexy shrimp at once in a few days. If they molt every 2-3 weeks, and they hide for a few days after molting, I'm probably always going to be having one in seclusion. I should get an understudy so there are 3 hanging out at all times, haha. I love these things!
I was having some trouble with one of the heads on the duncan--it was way shrunken and dark compared to the others, but it seemed to shake off whatever it was dealing with. The rest of the duncan looks super happy.
The angular sea whip has shed twice now. Not sure if this is a good sign or a bad sign? Otherwise the polyps are usually out.
Not a ton happening with the zoas. The pink zipper has produced two new polyps and one more is budding out right now. The bambams are maybe looking better since making flow changes, but I'm not sure. No new growth, just the same 8 heads I bought it with. The big colony frag with the tiny heads has recovered from the nudibranch attack/me accidentally gluing down half of them/it falling from the rock a dozen times. They are almost all open all the time. They might be placed too low-they are stretching out slightly-but not extremely. The AOIs have better color but they aren't anything like as good looking as I've seen in other people's pictures.
The blasto hasn't done a dang thing, but it hasn't died so that's a win? Same with the toadstool leather.
Oh! Almost forgot: had a big copepod boom, one day the water was super cloudy and I saw a jillion pods crawling all over the glass. I'm super happy that I've managed to keep them reproducing.
Till next time!
[note to self from later in the day today:
Salinity 35%, SP 1.026, nitrates 9]
It completely solved my dead spot problem, and I love how I’m able to get surface agitation and random tank flow from the same return. I’ve read that it reduces the pump flow rate because of how the mechanism works, but my pump was powerful enough to still provide sufficient flow after taking that into account. You’ll want to do some math probably—but I don’t remember what or where I read how to estimate the reduction.
Okay, thanks!
It's like a carwash
She has picked at it on a couple occasions, but it clearly isn’t tasty because she always stops after a couple bites. I doubt crab brains are big enough to remember that they don’t like it, haha. Still, it’s very minimal and I don’t worry about it- if I hadn’t seen it happen I may not have even noticed it.
Perfect, it can get a lil trim every now and then haha.
I couldn’t get a photo because it was under blue light, but the crab finally crawled into my string of pearls the last two nights! She was fumbling all over it for purchase, but made a snack out the GHA. Plenty left to do but dang it’s she earning her keep!
